Sola Scriptura
Logic
and the Foundations of Protestantism
Fr. Brian W. Harrison
From
the Editor
Marcus Grodi
Your
Are That Man
Mark Connell
"What
is Truth?" An Examination of Sola Scriptura
Dwight Longenecker
The
Practical Problems of Sola Scriptura
James Akin
The
Perspicuity ("Clearness") of Scripture
David Armstrong
"Pastor,
Can I Ask You Something?"
Marcus C.
Grodi
Oral
Tradition in the New Testament
David Palm
When
Evangelicals Treat Catholic Tradition Like Revelation
Mark P.
Shea
What
Do Catholics Believe About Scripture?
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
Did
the Church Fathers Believe in Sola Scriptura?
Joseph Gallegos
Before
You Object - Sola Scriptura: A Stony Path
Marcus C.
Grodi
Other Journals
"Pastor, can I ask you something?"
by Marcus C. Grodi
Those of you who were pastors know from experience your need to steel yourself—to baton down the hatches and get the women and children below—whenever certain parishioners begin a question with these seemingly innocent words. The following is such an experience, taken from a novel I recently completed entitled, "Be Thou My Vision."
The scene takes place at the monthly board meeting of First Congregational Church. The recently hired Reverend Stephen LaPointe has just conveyed his plans for the upcoming new members classes, when he is interrupted by a concerned board member.
Stephen began to sit down, but was stopped in mid-position. "Pastor, can I ask you something? I’m a bit hesitant to do it here with this peanut gallery ready to jump down my throat, but there’s something that’s been bothering me ever since we joined in ’87." Larry Barker, a successful insurance salesman in his late forties, and his wife Sue, who was most often seen at the local tennis club, had joined the church after attending an interdenominational charismatic prayer meeting held weekly in the basement of the local Presbyterian Church. This changed their lives, and brought new spiritual vitality to their seemingly dead life-long Catholic faith. They had what they called a powerful born-again experience, and when they couldn’t get their priest to understand or offer a sympathetic ear, they started looking for somewhere else to worship. They tried almost every church in town before they ended up here at First Congregational at the Wednesday night Bible study. They immediately knew they had found their new spiritual home, and have been two of the most active members ever since. Their enthusiasm has never waned, and they have also remained two of the most well liked members of the church. Sue continues to spend most of her free time at the tennis center, but now talks to everyone about her new found faith.
Fighting through guffaws all around, Larry quipped, "Alright, alright, back off." The peanut gallery quieted down to hear what sticky question Larry would pose to the pastor this time.
"As you know we used to be Catholics, and thank God we’re here now." Larry gave an exaggerated sigh of relief, which he was sure everyone would fully understand. "Ever since our conversion, Sue and I have both become rabid Bible readers. We’re not Bible scholars by any means, so don’t get me wrong, but let’s just say I’ve read the Bible more times in the last ten years than in the entire first forty years of my life. And I know that one of the main tenants that separates us as Reformation Protestants from Roman Catholics is that we believe in the Bible alone as the sole foundation for what we believe. Isn’t that true?"
"Yes," Stephen responded hoping this wouldn’t take too long, "that’s what Protestants generally believe. As you all know, different Protestant groups hold to this truth in different ways and interpret the Bible differently. You also realize that not all Congregationalists today hold this truth as strongly as we once did. But yes, that is at least what we believe here at First Congregational. It has traditionally been called the doctrine of Sola Scriptura—Scripture alone."
"Fine, so if I get this straight, this book," holding up the leather covered Bible Larry almost always carried whenever he came to church, "inspired by God, is to be the sole foundation for all that we must believe and practice, especially for our salvation?"
"Yes, basically." Stephen wasn’t sure where this was going, but also didn’t anticipate a question he couldn’t answer.
"Then two things, which as I said have bothered me for quite a while. First, if the Bible is the sole source of what we must believe, then where does it specifically say this? I mean, for something so important and foundational you’d think it would be stated very clearly?"
"Well," Stephen knew immediately where to turn, for invariably he had to explain this foundational Protestant belief to every New Member’s class. "It says this most clearly in Second Timothy 3.16 and 17. Here pass me your Bible, I forgot mine tonight." This brought some snickers from the group because they knew Stephen was making a joke on himself—he who was such an avid advocate of the Bible yet now was found bare without one.
"Second Timothy reads, ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’ Another translation for the Greek word which is translated here as profitable is the word sufficient. All Scripture is therefore inspired and sufficient for teaching, et cetera. There are other verses, especially where Jesus quotes Old Testament Scriptures and where New Testament authors discourage believers from relying on the traditions of men, that solidify our belief in the Bible’s sufficiency. In Hebrews 4:12, for example, we read," and as he read he gesticulated with the Bible to emphasize that it was this book to which the author was referring, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.’ From this and other passages we hold that the Bible is God’s gift to His people, able under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth.
"Often in the Bible we are encouraged to look to the Bible as the source for our faith. In John 5:39 we are called to ‘search the Scriptures,’ and in the end of John, chapter 20 verse 31, we are told," Stephen said paraphrasing in his own words, "that the Scriptures were written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life in his name."
"Then you would, therefore, say that the Bible is the pillar and bulwark of the truth."
"Yes, that is a good way to put it," Stephen quickly responded, pleased with the creativity of this avid believing church member.
"Then, secondly, why does the Bible itself claim something different? Please turn to almost the same verse in the First letter of Paul to Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15, and please read it if you would."
Stephen turned back wondering what specifically Larry was referring to. He of course had read the New Testament through many times, both during and after seminary, and therefore wasn’t anticipating anything strange. When he found the page in Larry’s Bible he thumbed down until he found this verse, which had been heavily underlined. A question mark followed by an exclamation mark had been written in the margin. He quickly read the verse to himself, and then began reading it out loud, when it finally struck him what Larry was getting at.
As he finished reading, he realized that his reading had slowed down, with each word being pronounced with a more quiet and cautious emphasis. He paused for another moment, as he realized that for some reason he had never noticed that passage before. He hadn’t underlined it in his own Bible. He had underlined several passages above it about the duties of bishops and deacons, and he had underlined the next passage in which Paul recites one of the oldest Christian creeds: ‘Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.’ But it was as if he had always skimmed past what was written in verse fifteen, and right at this moment, he didn’t know what to say to Larry and the rest of the board.
And the board, especially Larry and Bill, noticed Stephen’s hesitation.
Stephen gathered his wits and presented his answer. "The problem with interpreting texts like this, especially when we compare a text from one New Testament book with a text from another New Testament book, is that it’s hard to always understand what these first century writers meant by their terms, especially now nearly two thousand years later. When Paul wrote to Timothy that ‘the church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth,’ he had no inkling what the word ‘church’ would come to mean over the succeeding centuries. How certain leaders in the churches of major cities would eventually fight with each other for control until during the time of Constantine the Church of Rome was declared by his authority as Caesar the official religion of the Roman people, and the bishop of Rome the head of the Church. He also didn’t anticipate that this term would because equated with the growing and powerful hierarchy of Pope and bishops, and he of course also didn’t anticipate the eventual Reformation and the now hundreds of groups that call themselves ‘churches.’ What he surely meant at that time and what we believe today," he said, as a voice inside asked him who he meant by we, "is that the ‘church’ is not made up of physical structures and hierarchies of bishops and leaders, nor even a specific list of member’s names on a myriad of church membership roles. No, the church is the invisible body of believers all around the world, both now, in the past and in the future, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells and therefore where God’s Word and God’s truth are rightly interpreted, taught and believed.
"Larry, I hope this quick response answers your questions. If you want we can talk more about this another time." With Larry’s nod, Stephen handed back his Bible, and for a very brief moment they played a little tug of war with it as Stephen had an uncanny desire to look at that verse again.
Stephen then turned his attention back to Bill, the board president, "That’s really all I’ve got to say about the New Member’s class. Please let me know if you have questions about any of the resources on the table."
Stephen sat down feeling fairly satisfied with his answer to Larry’s query, which was essentially his pat answer about what the New Testament authors meant when they used the term ‘church.’ Yet he was still troubled by that verse. It jumped out at him too much, it even startled him. He really felt like he had never seen that verse before, and couldn’t wait to have time to study it more carefully, especially in the original Greek.
Bill stood for a moment looking at their new pastor, feeling a tinge of that unidentifiable uncomfortablness he had sensed with Reverend LaPointe during the interview process. And besides, both Larry’s question and Reverend LaPointe’s answer troubled him, but he would need to wait until later to figure this out. Regaining his composure, Bill addressed the board: "Let’s get on now to the sticky wicket of our agenda: are we as a church going to take part in this years’ ecumenical Good Friday service which is scheduled to take place at Holy Name Catholic Parish."
* * *
Larry Barker sat up fairly late in his living room, in the dark, holding his now cold coffee mug with both hands, staring into the traditional Catholic painting of Jesus hung over the mantel. It had been a gift from his mother who died last winter. She had been devastated by his conversion to Protestantism, and though he and Sue had removed every other sign of their ex-Catholicism from their house, they had left this picture, more in honor of his mother than anything.
As he gazed at this portrayal of Jesus pointing to a representation of his heart on his chest, Larry could not shake how disturbed he was at Reverend LaPointe’s obviously weak and patronizing response to his very important question. Why didn’t Reverend LaPointe see what he saw? There before him was a strange Catholic artifact which he had rejected by asking "OK, where in the Bible does it say we are to give devotion to Jesus’ Sacred Heart?" And since he could find no references to Jesus’ heart let alone devotion to his Sacred heart, Larry concluded this was another Catholic idolatrous invention and therefore to be rejected.
But then he had been drawn to ask a very simple and sincere question, which should have a very simple, sincere answer: where in the Bible does it say I have to find it in the Bible? Where does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura? He searched, and searched, but could find it clearly stated no where. On the contrary he came across that statement in 1 Timothy which claimed the Church was the pillar and bulwark of truth. The Church? Which church?
He also came across a verse in Second Thessalonians where Paul commanded the Christians to ‘stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, EITHER BY WORD OF MOUTH OR BY LETTER..’ Traditions? By word of mouth as well as letter? How does this translate into what we now call the Bible? And for these first century Christians—in fact for the first three centuries of Christians who lived their faith before the canon of Scriptures was finally decided—how did "Sola Scriptura" define and guide their beliefs?
Larry sat there alone, not really doubting his escape from the Catholic Church, yet wondering whether the grounds for doing so were as solid as he once thought.
* * *
[Later the next evening…] Bill Walker turned on the brass desk light in his private attic study. The dinner dishes had been washed, dried and stowed, and Maddie had retreated to their bedroom to escape back into the thirteenth century world of one of her favorite mystery novels, built around the detective prowess of a Carthusian monk named Caedfel. Ever since the board meeting last night, Bill had wanted to get back into the Scriptures to reexamine the question Larry had posed to Reverend LaPointe—which he felt had not been answered well. It seemed that Pastor Stephen hesitated too much at first, and then his answer didn’t really make clear sense out of the text.
For a self-trained layman, Bill had become quite an astute biblical scholar. This had certainly not come from his Catholic upbringing. It instead had begun under the tutelage of their former pastor, Reverend Tom Dunam. After his dramatic conversion, Bill’s faith had been rejuvenated through Reverend Tom’s preaching and teaching. He learned how to study the Bible for the first time in his life, and in answer to his enthusiasm, Reverend Tom taught Bill the basic Bible study techniques he had learned in seminary. Though he couldn’t actually read the original biblical languages, Bill had taught himself how to parse, breakdown and interpret the text of the Greek New Testament through the use of numerous guides, dictionaries, concordances and grammars.
Placed before him were several English translations of the Bible, the Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament, a Greek-English dictionary, and a concordance. He was determined to spend as much time as was necessary, even if all night, to get to the bottom of that verse in First Timothy. Somehow he sensed that there was something very significant in Larry’s question, that challenged the fact that he was now a Congregationalist, and no longer a Roman Catholic.
First he paused to pray silently, to ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as he tackled this Scriptural conundrum. He turned to chapter three, verses 14 and 15 in his favorite black leather bound Revised Standard Version, and then compared it to the other versions before him—an old King James version, a modern paperbound New International Version, an extremely literal version called the New American Standard Bible which Reverend Tom had given him, and a more loose paraphrase called the Living Bible. He also checked the reading in the old St. Joseph’s New American Bible, which he had received when he was confirmed as a Catholic—just to see how the Catholic translators might have slanted their rendition. But there was little difference in the translations. They all basically said what his supposedly most literal New American Standard Bible stated:
I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.
As he sat staring at the various translations, the first thing that struck him was that the apostle Paul had decided to write this letter to Timothy as a precautionary measure—not as his primary or preferred means of teaching Timothy. Paul was hoping and planning to visit Timothy in person, to teach him face to face. But just in case he couldn’t make it, he penned this letter to pass along some guidance on how people ought to behave as Christians.
Bill stopped a moment to silently thank the Holy Spirit for the delay nearly two thousand years ago that led Paul to write this letter, otherwise the world would not have known a word of these instructions. As he meditated on this, he pictured Paul sitting hunched over a wooden table in a prison cell beside a dim oil lamp, writing these words with a sharpened feather quill on a rough roll of parchment held down by small stones at each corner. Then this picture faded into a picture of Paul sitting more casually beside this same table but now across from his young friend Timothy, the two of them laughing and sharing chalices of wine—for wasn’t this Paul’s advice near the end of this very letter? As Bill envisioned this encounter it came to him that Paul would probably have said a whole lot more to Timothy then he could have written on that small parchment. Did Paul summarize everything that was necessary in this very short letter? Possibly. Or was this just a quick introduction to the more detailed list of things he hoped to deliver once he arrived?
Bill turned to the Second Letter that Paul wrote Timothy, and read the verse most commonly used to defend Sola Scriptura, chapter 3 verse 16.
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
All Scripture, Bill thought, all Scripture? When Timothy received this letter from Paul what would he have understood the apostle Paul to mean by this? Would he have considered this letter from his father-in-the-faith Scripture, or just a casual, yet highly important letter? What would they have considered Scripture? Why, of course, it would have been the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which the New Testament called the Law and the prophets. They had no "New Testament" per se; this wasn’t collected until years later. So what they had couldn’t have been called the "Old Testament." Rather they called it the Scriptures. So what Paul is referring to here is the Old Testament.
Bill continued to meditate on this, and then noticed written in his margin, along with his hand written notes from previous studies, another Bible reference, to Paul’s second letter to the Church in Thessalonica. It looked like his own handwriting, but the reference had been done with a red pen, not the color he normally used. He couldn’t remember what this verse was, so he casually flipped the pages back to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 15. He leaned back to stretch as he began reading, his mind primarily focused on his other thoughts, until what he read shot him forward in his chair.
So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.
As he read this verse again, the two mental pictures of Paul writing and of Paul teaching Timothy melded together to form a composite that represented in his mind how the truth of the Christian faith was passed on from Apostle to teacher to preacher to congregations—both by word of mouth and by writing. Bill continued to mull these thoughts over, thinking about all three verses at once, and he envisioned their interrelationship: the faith of these early Christians was built on the sure foundation of the Old Testament Scriptures—the Law and the Prophets. But what was written in them needed to be applied to their new situation in Christ—their Prophetic references to the coming Messiah needed to be explained so that they could be understood to refer to Jesus. This was part of what was passed on through the apostle’s teachings, both orally and in writing. But since more was obviously communicated in sermons and public teachings then is recorded in the few short New Testament letters, is it accurate to conclude that only what is in Scripture is essential? Paul said hold to the traditions taught orally and written.
Traditions? This word jumped out at Bill. When he had left Roman Catholicism, he thought that he had left the traditions of man behind. But here Paul was telling these early Christians to hold to traditions taught not just in his written letters—what would be called the New Testament—but also given orally. What were these? How could they be known? Were they lost?
Bill mulled these questions over in his mind as he turned back to the text in Second Timothy and began reading the verses that immediately preceded it:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it…
For Timothy this meant not what he read in some New Testament letters or gospels, Bill thought, but what he had heard from Paul or his parents or others.
…and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings…
That would be the Old Testament Scriptures, but had he actually read these? Again he wondered. Probably not. He was acquainted with these primarily through public readings, probably in the local synagogue and church gatherings. In every way he was dependent upon oral teaching.
…which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
But the Old Testament is NOT that clear about how one is saved through faith in Jesus Christ. One needs the New Testament to fully understand this! So if Timothy and the other early Christians didn’t have a written New Testament yet, how could they know how to interpret the Old Testament correctly and adequately to lead them to Jesus?"
As Bill asked himself these questions, he turned back to the original text in First Timothy and began reading:
…the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
The church…the pillar…the bulwark…the truth. Bill ran these words over and over in his mind, envisioning Timothy trying to convince his early Jewish and Greek pagan neighbors to believe in Jesus. And when they answered back, "Why should we believe this crazy stuff?!", Bill wondered what Timothy would have said. If he said "Because the Bible says so," he could only have meant the Old Testament, and we know from the experience of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the Book of Acts that just reading the Old Testament wasn’t enough. Timothy would have needed to point them to the testimony of those who had personally seen Jesus alive after his death on the cross, the apostolic witness. But where was this to be found? The church…the pillar…the bulwark…the truth.
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