Sola Scriptura

My opponent says that "The Bible is written for us to understand what Christianity is all about," but the Bible never actually makes this claim. Genesis never claims that it was written to explain what Christianity is about, nor can we find such a statement in Ruth, Esther, or Job, or any statement comparable to this. How could Old Testament books be written to explain what Christianity is about when there was no Christianity yet? Surely Pro doesn"t believe that Christianity is about animal sacrifices (Lev 16), slavery (Exo 21:2-11), animal sacrifices (Lev 1-3) and temple rituals. But these things are found all over the Old Testament. How could these things explain what it means to be Christian when Christians don"t do these things? A Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as laid out for us during his human life. If those Old Testament saints were Christians, it strikes me as bizarre that no one was called Christian until around 44 CE in Antioch. (Acts 11:26) Most Bible books don"t even tell us the reason why they were each written. Pro quotes John 20:30-31 to prove the Bible was written to explain the meaning of Christianity; but this hypothesis fails for the following reasons: First, John 20:30-31 was not discussing the book of John in totality, but only the miracles (or signs) Jesus performed. It say that Jesus performed many signs not written in this scroll, but these particular miracles were written to prove a certain point. So Pro cannot use this Scripture to show the reason for the Bible being written, he can only use it to explain why the miracles were written. Second, the purpose of writing these miracles, according to John, was to show only that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and we can gain everlasting life by believing in him. Now this is an entirely separate issue from what Christianity is about, because Christianity is an entire way of life, complete with laws and rituals. We can have salvation by accepting Jesus in our hearts as our personal Savior (which is what John 20:30-31 encourages), but this still doesn"t tell us what are the many requirements of the Christian life such as baptism, evangelism, and avoiding fornication, homosexuality, drunkenness, stealing and so on. So John 20 never claims to be writing to explain Christianity as Pro suggests. The precepts and decrees the Psalmists says he will keep at Psalm 119:15-16 were those of the law of Moses, which commanded observance of many holydays (Lev 23) and animal sacrifices. Christians do not live by these laws, teaching that such commandments were abolished. (Eph 2:15; Col 2:14-17; Heb 8:13) So far from explaining Christianity, Psalm 119 advocates a pre-Christian theology and way of life which Christianity came to replace. So clearly this teaching, that the Bible was written to explain what Christianity is about, is not a Bible teaching, and is evidence against Sola Scriptura. In response to my claim that Christians hold doctrines not found in the Bible, he says: "God guided the Hebrews in making the Bible, they have the 66 books. " This teaching of his isn"t Biblical because the Bible never tells us that the Bible was inspired by God. We know this because nowhere does any Scripture refer to a collection of books called the Bible and say that God guided Hebrews to make them. Neither Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy ever claim to be the word of God; the writers never claim that God guided them in the writing, and none of them claim to be written by a Hebrew. How does Pro know that it was a Hebrew who wrote Luke"s Gospel? How does he know he wasn"t a Gentile proselyte? So already Pro is making doctrinal claims not found in the Bible, hence negating his Bible-only doctrine. Luke doesn"t claim to be inspired by God, but says he interviewed the eyewitnesses. (Luke 1:1-4) So even Pro"s claim that all Bible books were made under divine guidance isn"t found in the Bible. He quotes Isaiah 14:12-15 to explain Satan"s position in heaven before the fall, but this passage doesn"t mention Satan. It mentions Lucifer who is identified as a man in verse "a man" in verse 16 and as king of Babylon in verse 4. He is therefore a human who lived and died in history. Verse 11 describes the decomposition of his human body, which could not apply to a spirit being like Satan. This tells us that the Lucifer surrounded with such symbolic language in this passage is not Satan the Devil. Pro has shown no evidence from the Bible that Satan"s name is Lucifer, or that Lucifer"s name is Satan. He has given us no reason to think they are one and the same, not even a proper exegesis of the text he cites. So again, Pro has doctrines not found in Scripture, namely, that Satan"s name is Lucifer and that he made the claims Pro attributes to him by misapplying Isaiah 14:12-15 to him; therefore, he isn"t following Sola Scriptura here. Now, I never said to rely "only" on the church, so Pro"s faith is misplaced; he"s thinking of Catholicism here, but I"m not Catholic, so his fears are misplaced. I"m saying the Bible isn"t the only authority, neither is the church, for we also have divine revelation outside the Bible; and unless he can show such revelation has ceased he cannot prove Sola Scriptura. Pro admits that Jesus and his disciples didn"t practice Sola Scriptura, and gives the excuse that this "is because they [didn"t] have the [complete] Bible yet. " But if none of the Scriptures in the Bible were teaching Sola Scriptura while it was being written down, how could those same Scriptures teach Sola Scriptura after it is completed? Proverbs 30:5-6 didn"t teach Sola Scriptura during the time of Jesus, but all of a sudden, it begins to teach Sola Scriptura now? This is ridiculous. The Bible teaches the same doctrine today as it did when Jesus was walking about in Galilee, no more, no less. Pro is giving to the Bible passages a meaning that was completely foreign to the original writers. Obviously, his interpretation is therefore not Biblical, and is by definition an anti-Sola Scriptura interpretation " an interpretation not supported by the Bible itself. To this I"d like to add that Paul gave his opinions as guidance for the church in addition to what the word of God had said in 1 Corinthians 7:10-12. So we see the church has authority to teach things not found in the Bible as long as they do not contradict God"s word, and such is another rule of faith. No doubt, the faithful were obedient to Paul"s opinion, and still are today. In summary: 1) Pro is guilty of holding non-Biblical doctrines just as non-Sola Scriptura churches are. He was unable to find Biblical support for his doctrines regarding the number of books needed for the Bible canon, Satan"s pre-fall name and position, the inspiration of all Bible books, the Christian attitude towards slavery, and the posts of Minister and Priest in the church. 2) He admitted that Jesus and the earliest Christians did not practice Sola Scriptura. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that Sola Scriptura isn"t Biblical, for Jesus and his disciples would have believed Sola Scriptura is it were taught in the Bible. 3) Pro holds the ridiculous position that the Bible teaches now, what it didn"t teach back then when it was first written. It should be clear to even the most hardheaded fundamentalist that this cannot be true. 4) He hasn"t refuted or even attempted to rebut the authority of prophets to prophesy things not recorded in the Scriptures as worth of belief. (Acts 11:27-28) 5) He hasn"t refuted or attempted to rebut the role of divine revelation as being just a worthy rule of faith as the Bible. (Matt 16:13-17) 6) Nor has he replied to the traditions of the church as being a worthy rule of faith along with the Bible, traditions such as the method of ministry and socialist practices.