Binding and loosing

[Kansasdad]

Here is one scripture that claims scripture itself is all that we need:

and that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:15-17

I am a little surprised you tried to use this verse to justify your position. Your reasoning has two major flaws.

First to take this as your argument you would have to reject the entire New testament.

A good part of the New Testament was not written in Timothy's boyhood: Some of the epistles were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none of the books of the New Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to the scriptures of the Old Testament, and, if the argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, rendering the scriptures of the New Testament not necessary for a rule of faith." Are you really contending that all we need is the Old testament. If that is so then please do not refer to the new testament for any further points.

Second, Context, context, context. You must always keep it in context.

When read in the context of the surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul

[Floatingaxe]

Acts 19:18 (And many of them that believed, came confessing and declaring their deeds.) many came to orally confess sins and divulge their sinful practices. Oral confession was the practice of the early Church just as it is today.

Now lets look at what some of the disciples of the Apostles had to say about the subject. I would be much more interested in what they had to say then some contemporary writer. I think knowing what the Apostles taught hold much more weight.

"Father who knowest the hearts of all grant upon this Thy servant whom Thou hast chosen for the episcopate to feed Thy holy flock and serve as Thine high priest, that he may minister blamelessly by night and day, that he may unceasingly behold and appropriate Thy countenance and offer to Thee the gifts of Thy holy Church. And that by the high priestly Spirit he may have authority to forgive sins..." Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 3 (A.D. 215).

"In addition to these there is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance...when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord." Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, 2:4 (A.D. 248).

"It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God's mysteries is entrusted." Basil, Rule Briefly Treated, 288 (A.D. 374).

Notice the dates, these are the Church leaders who followed the Apostles, well before Constantine came along in A.D. 500 or so. So don't try to make this just a Catholic Church thing. It was taught since the very beginning of Church history.

Aha! I found it! Just as expected. Talk about remission of sins through penance and entrusted mysteries of God, declaring sin to a priest of the Lord. These things are the early beginnings of heretical thought and practice...away from Paul!

And you base your opinion from what. We have scripture that says this (Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.) One way to interpret these verses is to take them exactly as they say. We then can also see that the very first church also understood them to mean exactly what they say. So who then is taking the verse away from what Paul taught. Scripture itself? Not likely. The disciples who were taught by Paul and the other Apostles, also not likely. Or someones personal interpretation that explains these verses to mean something else and disagrees with the teachings passed on by the Apostles. Here we have both the Written and the Oral agreeing with each other. How can you possibly reject this teaching. It has all of the elements scripture says is required to authenticate the truth.

K.D.

I am convinced that you believe that only priests can do these things. I am convinced that as we are priests, as disciples of Jesus Christ, that we also have the same authority. Jesus says we have all His authority after all. The New Testament was written for us to know that, and to take on all that God has given to us His glorious Church!

[EricH]

I am a little surprised you tried to use this verse to justify your position. Your reasoning has two major flaws.

First to take this as your argument you would have to reject the entire New testament.

A good part of the New Testament was not written in Timothy's boyhood: Some of the epistles were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none of the books of the New Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to the scriptures of the Old Testament, and, if the argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, rendering the scriptures of the New Testament not necessary for a rule of faith." Are you really contending that all we need is the Old testament. If that is so then please do not refer to the new testament for any further points.

The fact that the NT was not written at the time Timothy was a child is really not an issue. In the OT period people were able to come into a saving relationship with God. If that were not the case, then all of those who lived in the OT period would be doomed. The covenant the OT saints were under looked forward to the saving work of Jesus. Those who came into a saving relationship with God did so by faith ( we know this because it is told to us that Abraham was justified by His faith.) The OT scriptures wer sufficient in the in the economy that God had established at that time. God gives people what they need for the times they are living. The OT saints had sufficiency in the OT scriptures. We are now under the new covenant. We have sufficiency in teh scriptures of both the OT and NT. There is no issue here. It is a doctine called the progressiv enature of revelation.

Second, Context, context, context. You must always keep it in context.

When read in the context of the surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul

[Karen C.]

What was the topic???

[EricH]

Ok, let me answer in two different post because there are two completely different issues here. First to respond to the content of the traditions. Eric it seems to me you are trying to direct this conversation into a defence of the traditions of the Catholic Church. You have made it very clear you will not allow this, yet you have tried to make this personal to the traditions in which I believe in. I am not going to go there and give you a reason to close this thread. HOWEVER,

I am not trying to direct it any way, since I am not the one claiming there are a separate set of traditions that have authority in our lives

I will answer the question in a very specific way. The OP asked about a very specific verse of scripture. I am contending that oral traditions of the very early church, Well before the supposed start of the Catholic Church in 325AD teach us about this verse and what its meaning is. So there is the context given to us in scripture. Paul tells us that we must hold on to his teaching both in writing and by word of mouth. We have before us the written, but we have confusion as to its meaning. Therefore it becomes imperative that we search for his oral teachings. I provided documentation of early teachings about this subject. Those teachings do not contradict the written. In fact they show that the teachings passed on by the Apostles take a very literal interpretation of these verses. Thus we have Both the written and the oral from people we know studied under the Apostles agreeing with each other. Yet we have people who still will not except a literal interpretation of scripture supported by oral traditions of the Apostles.

God Bless

K.D.

second part on the next post.

So, your take is that scripture is not perfect and needs the help of traditions

[apothanein kerdos]

We do need oral traditions - these traditions help in our theological growth. No one will ever contradict this, or at least should not contradict this. Even the believe in sola scriptura does not negate oral traditions.

The problem, however, is when an oral tradition, or the importance and significance of one, is placed in contradiction to scripture (which happens). Which one do we rely upon? The idea of a Papal system runs contrary to scripture. The idea of a perpetual virginity runs contrary to scripture. The idea of sacraments runs contrary to scripture. The list goes on...when we come to these issues, we then debate on which one we should follow - tradition or scripture.

[Smalcald]

Well I bet many would agree, but would also say those things you mentioned do not run counter to scripture, they just run different from your tradition of interpreting scripture.

Isn't Worthy example enough of the simple fact that believers cannot agree on scripture?

[apothanein kerdos]

Well I bet many would agree, but would also say those things you mentioned do not run counter to scripture, they just run different from your tradition of interpreting scripture.

Isn't Worthy example enough of the simple fact that believers cannot agree on scripture?

This is taking a post-modern view of it and putting one's own culture onto the situation. For example, I follow no tradition of interpretation, per se, but instead use exegesis to discover the truth of a passage. Likewise, we can look at the tradition of how a passage is interpreted and find that many of the Church fathers played fast and loose with interpretation (i.e. allegorical reigned supreme) which led to bad traditions. They can say they believe their traditions match up with scripture all they want - all the exegetical evidence is against them.

[Kansasdad]

I am a little surprised you tried to use this verse to justify your position. Your reasoning has two major flaws.

First to take this as your argument you would have to reject the entire New testament.

A good part of the New Testament was not written in Timothy's boyhood: Some of the epistles were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none of the books of the New Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to the scriptures of the Old Testament, and, if the argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, rendering the scriptures of the New Testament not necessary for a rule of faith." Are you really contending that all we need is the Old testament. If that is so then please do not refer to the new testament for any further points.

The fact that the NT was not written at the time Timothy was a child is really not an issue. In the OT period people were able to come into a saving relationship with God. If that were not the case, then all of those who lived in the OT period would be doomed. The covenant the OT saints were under looked forward to the saving work of Jesus. Those who came into a saving relationship with God did so by faith ( we know this because it is told to us that Abraham was justified by His faith.) The OT scriptures wer sufficient in the in the economy that God had established at that time. God gives people what they need for the times they are living. The OT saints had sufficiency in the OT scriptures. We are now under the new covenant. We have sufficiency in teh scriptures of both the OT and NT. There is no issue here. It is a doctine called the progressiv enature of revelation.

Second, Context, context, context. You must always keep it in context.

When read in the context of the surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul

[Kansasdad]

Acts 19:18 (And many of them that believed, came confessing and declaring their deeds.) many came to orally confess sins and divulge their sinful practices. Oral confession was the practice of the early Church just as it is today.

Now lets look at what some of the disciples of the Apostles had to say about the subject. I would be much more interested in what they had to say then some contemporary writer. I think knowing what the Apostles taught hold much more weight.

"Father who knowest the hearts of all grant upon this Thy servant whom Thou hast chosen for the episcopate to feed Thy holy flock and serve as Thine high priest, that he may minister blamelessly by night and day, that he may unceasingly behold and appropriate Thy countenance and offer to Thee the gifts of Thy holy Church. And that by the high priestly Spirit he may have authority to forgive sins..." Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 3 (A.D. 215).

"In addition to these there is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance...when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord." Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, 2:4 (A.D. 248).

"It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God's mysteries is entrusted." Basil, Rule Briefly Treated, 288 (A.D. 374).

Notice the dates, these are the Church leaders who followed the Apostles, well before Constantine came along in A.D. 500 or so. So don't try to make this just a Catholic Church thing. It was taught since the very beginning of Church history.

Aha! I found it! Just as expected. Talk about remission of sins through penance and entrusted mysteries of God, declaring sin to a priest of the Lord. These things are the early beginnings of heretical thought and practice...away from Paul!

And you base your opinion from what. We have scripture that says this (Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.) One way to interpret these verses is to take them exactly as they say. We then can also see that the very first church also understood them to mean exactly what they say. So who then is taking the verse away from what Paul taught. Scripture itself? Not likely. The disciples who were taught by Paul and the other Apostles, also not likely. Or someones personal interpretation that explains these verses to mean something else and disagrees with the teachings passed on by the Apostles. Here we have both the Written and the Oral agreeing with each other. How can you possibly reject this teaching. It has all of the elements scripture says is required to authenticate the truth.

K.D.

I am convinced that you believe that only priests can do these things. I am convinced that as we are priests, as disciples of Jesus Christ, that we also have the same authority. Jesus says we have all His authority after all. The New Testament was written for us to know that, and to take on all that God has given to us His glorious Church!

Ok two things. Lets look at the verses you are talking about when you say we are all priest. I know this is in scripture but lets make sure we have it in context to understand it meaning. To take it they way you have presented above would mean that God has given you, personally, the authority to bind some ones sins and by doing so they will be bound in heaven. Likewise then your claim would be that each of us personally has the authority to forgive someones sins and by doing so they will be forgiven in heaven. I have serious doubts that this is an accurate interpretation. But we can explore it.