Thank you Cynical Bear and Bellflower for your comments which corroborate Renee Joy's statements.
I started studying not to become Catholic, but to disprove it, to find that fatal flaw that allowed me to cross them off my list as a viable option. But the more I dug, the more I learned and the more it made sense. I had to learn to separate what I had drilled in my head for years, decades really, by the teachers/preachers in my life, the code phrases that were programmed in -- the "compare everything to Scripture" (but not necessarily Scripture in context, but Scripture as interpreted and presented by the leadership of that denomination, hence the major debate over sprinkling vs dunking, predestination vs foreknowledge, etc). It all really does come down to the apostolic tradition, and the verses in the New Testament that refer to that being relevant. How we interpret anything is dependent on who is doing the interpreting and what criteria they use, what bias they have.
IOW, non-Catholic christians, through personal interpretation of scripture, each act as their own pope. Can there be more than one interpretation of the Bible? No. The word "truth" is used several times in the New Testament. However, the plural version of the word "truth" never appears in Scripture. Therefore, there can only be one Truth.
To have the Bible as the only and sole authority of Christianity is to invite chaos into His Church. There are at least 5 Protestant denominations created every year based on a different interpretation of the Bible. Theoretically, anyone who owns a Bible can create their own denomination based on their own interpretation of Scripture. Taken to its logical conclusion, chaos is what happens when the doctrine of "Sola Scriptura" is applied. And Christ stated "A tree is recognized by its fruit" (Matthew 12:33) and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura produces "bad fruit" (disunity, confusion and separation).
So to rely solely on God's word rather than the traditions and teaching of man is to invite chaos. Got it.
That is very flawed logic...You are giving power and legitimacy to the Mormon religion which teaches as the Catholic religion does...They have the same (but different) 'one truth' as your religion does...
And if we can't trust the scriptures to define which one is true, it's their word against yours...
To have the Bible as the only and sole authority of Christianity is to invite chaos into His Church.
But as any bible believer knows, the obvious motive for your religion to make such an outrageous statement against the inspired, preserved word of God is to take away the scripture's authority which condemns your religion at every turn of a page...You're not fooling anyone...
Way back in the OT Abraham wasn't under the law as we aren't. He paid his tithe to Melchizedek who was most obviously the preincarnate Christ. There wasn't a Temple nor a Church. There was God, Abraham and Melchizedek. It is after the order of Melchizedek that Christ is our High Priest. Not after the order of the Aaronic Priesthood.
Jesus let the woman at the well know that worship would not be centered at a given place or really in anything earthly, but rather would be in Spirit and Truth, which has no locality nor denomination but is purely in the Spirit and the truth. He didn't say wait and the center for worship will be in Rome and will be in an organization called the Catholic Church with a Pope as it's head.
Think about the message to the seven Churches in the book of Revelation. Each Church was treated as a separate Church and government. Each Church would be accountable to God as a Church. There isn't any reference at all to a central Church organization that all or any of the seven were accountable to. Each Church was accountable to Christ it's head. Each Church had it's own independence. There wasn't mention of any central Church nor any mention of Mary as being paramount to their worship. There wasn't a Catholic Church. This is very obvious to those with eyes to see.