User:Dataclarifier/Development page

Note: this contributor has permanently withdrawn from Conservapedia. See eyesight

From the Bible itself we see that the Bible must be "rightly divided" and interpreted by the "leaders" and "guardians of the flock" so that we are not "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles". In my youth 8-14 I sometimes asked my Baptist pastor to confirm what I thought I understood from my Bible reading because what I found in reading it surprised me and I wanted to check my conclusions from me reading of the Bible alone, and he corrected my errors of understanding, because there were other parts of the Bible I either hadn't read or had forgotten and had failed to take into account. More than the Bible alone was needed. That's why we have Sunday school teachers to guide and interpret the Bible for the children. From age 15-17 Pastor Archie Veltman, Southtown Baptist, Des Moines. Even sola scriptura Christians need more than the Bible alone. That's why pastoral guardians of the congregation are needed and appointed to preach doctrine to their flocks, ostensibly so they won't go astray as a result of their personal reading of the Bible. Paul's listings in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians do not mention the Bible as necessary for the upbuilding of the body of Christ. That's why we have need of "Bible lesson" materials, and seminaries of pastoral Bible training for future pastors and Christian educators. The overwhelming multitude of online Bible commentary sites and Christian apologetics sites by sola scriptura Bible Christians is proof that even they acknowledge that the Bible itself, by itself, is not solely authoritative. Still, the scriptures can be twisted (KJV "wrested") by unprincipled men to their destruction and the destruction of those who follow them 1 Pt 3:15-18.

Your analysis, above, concluded that the argument is "The Bible, or Word of God, is not authoritative". Essentially a correct analysis of the argument. It is authoritative, even according to Catholic doctrine, but not by itself alone (The Cathechism of the Catholic Church CCC numbers 74-141). Whether Independent, Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic, the Bible is always interpreted by the differing Christian groups according to particular doctrinal principles not written in the Bible. For example, no text of the Bible says, "The Bible (Scripture) is the sole rule of faith for the man of God." It says rather that "the scriptures are useful / profitable". 2 Timothy 3:13-17

"while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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."

It does not say "the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith alone".
It does not say "All scripture is inspired by God as the sole rule of faith".
It does not say that faith alone is enough, but it says that the scriptures make us "equipped for every good work". "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ep 2:10

James says "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." James 2:24.
Martin Luther contradicted this doctrine. He said James is a "strawy epistle" and that he found nothing of the Gospel in it, and removed it to an appendix of uninspired writings in his German Bible.
The Bible is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, but works are necessary, since a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. The Bible is authoritative, but not by itself alone.

Fundamental Salvation

For the benefit of other readers here, it is evident that you did not read the two links I provided for direct access to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which affirms your last statement above "Baptism is of the spirit, not of the flesh" (1213-1284 and 1987-2029).
It's pretty simple. Baptism saves the soul. A child can understand that.

You asked me to answer the question, "What is salvation?" I gave you my answer from the Bible. The Bible answer to the question "What is salvation?" is set forth fully in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a reiteration of all that the Bible says. The Catechism defines salvation from scripture alone, using abundant citations and quotations from scripture, with literal conclusions from scripture, drawn from the common understanding of the Church Fathers east and west, who based all they said on the literal sense of scripture, the sensus fidelium, sensus plenior and sensus Christianorum of Christianity, faithfully expressing "the mind of Christ", so that what you rejected as "traditions of men" is in fact the teaching of scripture, "and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35; Mark 12:24; 1 Corinthians 15:34).

I can say this because I am primarily and fundamentally a Bible apologist, who just happens to be Catholic. I was raised a Baptist. I know the Bible. I am 72 years old and I have read it cover to cover 82 times since before the age of 12 when I finally "went forward and accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior" and was baptized by full immersion at Grace Baptist Church (Conservative Baptist) in Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1959. Shortly afterward I was appointed by the pastor as one of the "youth conversion counsellors" of newly baptized young teen converts and made one of the leaders of our Youth Group, and actively joined "Youth for Christ". Years later, as an adult, by fervent prayer, and by my knowledge of scripture and history and finding out by careful investigation what Catholicism and Orthodoxy actually teaches (which is not what I had been told they teach), at age 33 the Lord Jesus led me to embrace the Catholic Church as the most biblically faithful Church on the face of the earth. I held to three fundamental scripture passages:

Galatians 1:6-9; 1 John 2:18-19; and John 14:16-17 with John 16:12-14.

I looked for a church that did not come out of another church and teach a doctrine different from the church it came out of. Only one church qualified historically and scripturally. People asked me, "How can you do that?" I said, "Because I believe the Bible. Let me show you." I stand on the firm foundation of the doctrine of the Bible which includes all "authority established by God" (Romans 13:1-10; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13-17). The established Church has "the mind of Christ".

Rejection of scripture written by men who were sent by the Lord, is rejection of the word of the Lord who was sent by the Father, and rejection of the word of the Lord who was sent by God is rejection of the Lord who sent Him (Luke 10:16; Matthew 10:40; Luke 9:48; John 13:20; 12:48). The full context of the teaching of the Bible itself according to the whole of the first sixteen centuries of consistent Christian understanding of salvation through the blood of Christ alone, poured out by the Holy Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9-11) in baptism with water (1 John 5:6; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Revelation 1:5), was the reason the whole Christian Church, Catholic, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant together, guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:16 and 26; 16:13-14; Matthew 28:19-20), condemned the credobaptism doctrine of the Anabaptists and Baptists as a doctrine of Satan himself. What they say I say with them.