The Bible as the Authority?
382?
1517?
1611?
If your Church can’t credibly claim Apostolic Lineage to 33 A.D. you don’t have a Church.
You have a 501(c)(3).
As for Sola Scriptura . . .
(1) The Bible itself skewers this interpretation:
⁃1 Corinthians 11:2 “maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.”
⁃2 Thessalonians 2:15 “hold to the traditions you were taught . . . by word of mouth or by letter.”
⁃2 Thessalonians 3:6 (Shun those who do not follow the Tradition you received).
⁃Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”
⁃John 21:25 “other things . . . Jesus did . . . the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
⁃John 20:30 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book.”
⁃Acts 20:35 (A saying of IHS not found in the Gospels).
⁃2 Peter 1:20 “no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”
⁃2 Peter 3:16 “some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
(2) The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ:
⁃Acts 9:4-5 (Paul persecuted Christ by persecuting the Church).
⁃Romans 12:4-5 “we have many members . . . are one Body in Christ.”
⁃1 Corinthians 12:12 (One body, many parts).
⁃1 Corinthians 12:27 “Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it.”
⁃Ephesians 1:22-23 “for the Church, which is His Body.”
⁃Ephesians 4:1-16 (Unity in the Body)
Also see:
⁃Ephesians 2:11-22,
⁃Ephesians 3:4-6
⁃Ephesians 5:23-32
⁃Colossians 1:18-24
(3) And the Authority over all of Christendom:
⁃1 Timothy 3:15 “Church of the Living God, the pillar and bulwark of the Truth.”
⁃Matt 10:40 “who receives you received me, and receives Him who sent me.”
⁃Matt 16:18-19 (Jesus gives Peter keys to the Kingdom)
⁃Matt 18:17 “if he refuses to listen to them let him be as a . . . tax collector”
⁃Matt 18:18-20 (binding and loosing; authority given to Apostles).
⁃Luke 10:16 “who hears you hears Me. . . who rejects you rejects Me (and) . . . Him who sent me”
⁃John 20:23 (Jesus gives Apostles the authority to forgive sins)
⁃2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 “if anyone refuses to obey what we say . . . warn him as a brother”
⁃John 16:13 “the Spirit of truth . . . will guide you into all the truth.”
⁃Isaiah 59:21 “Covenant with them . . . my words shall not depart out of your mouth.”
⁃Matthew 16:18 “my Church . . . the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
⁃Matthew 18:17 “if he refuses to listen tell it to the Church.”
⁃Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
⁃Luke 10:16 “hears you hears me (and) rejects you rejects me”
⁃Luke 22:32 “I have prayed . . . that your Faith may not fail . . . strengthen your brethren”
⁃John 14:16 “He will give you another counselor to be with you forever.”
⁃John 14:26 “the Holy Spirit . . . will reach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all I have said to you.”
⁃Acts 15:28 (Identifies Apostles’ decision as identical to Holy Spirit’s decision)
⁃Ephesians 3:10 “that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be known.”
⁃1 Timothy 3:14-15 (Church is the pillar and foundation of truth)
⁃1 John 2:27 God’s anointing “abides in you . . . teaches you about everything.”
See also
⁃Isaiah 54:9
⁃John 17:11
⁃John 17:20