Dr. White did an excellent 5 part series on Sola Scriptura recently. I have been meaning to write more on this, but I have not found the time.
John Samson has gathered them all together in one blog post.
There are a few points that I would have added into the already excellent material.
Dr. White made an excellent point about 2 Thessalonians 2:15, that the verb, “you were taught” is past tense, so it cannot include things like the Bodily Assumption of Mary (1950) or the Immaculate Conception of Mary ( 1854) or the infallibility of the Pope ( 1870) nor certain dogmatic decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) – the ones against Protestantism and justification by faith alone. I would add also Purgatory, which all the elements of it only came together after Gregory the first, bishop of Rome from 590-604 AD. He made a good point that John Henry Cardinal Newman knew this, that is why he had to come up with his “development of doctrine” theory of the Roman Catholic Church.
- I would add something about the early date of 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (51-52 AD) and so the oral traditions include things written earlier in Galatians (49-50 AD), and
- also, it seems certain that the oral traditions that Paul is saying are binding there in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, were all later written out in the rest of the NT books – Romans, Ephesians, 1-2 Corinthians, Colossians, Philippians, John, Acts, Luke, (even by other authors in Hebrews, Matthew, John, Mark, Peter, James and Jude – “the faith once for all delivered to the saints”, (Jude 3), etc.
Acts 15:19 – the apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus, says, “I judge” – Dr. White made a great point: “but James, don’t you know “the Vicar of Christ” is seated here right next to you?” The fact that Peter was right there with him, shows there was no such thing as a Pope; and Peter was not the “first Pope.”
3. also, I would point out that 2 Tim. 3:16-17 is expanding “the sacred Scriptures” of v. 15 from OT to all Scripture; even NT books written later.
4. Paul already put Gospels on same level as Torah in 1 Timothy 5:18. “Paul is enlarging on the previous reference . . especially by his use of πασα.” (πασα = pasa = “all”) George Knight, Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, p. 448
5. I would add quotes from these 3 writers on points 3 and 4: Basically, they confirm points 3-4, but I don’t have time to type them all out. Later, when I find the time, I plan to type them out:
William Hendrickson, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles, pages 300-302.
David King, Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, Volume 1, page 76.
George Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, page 447-448.
Dr. White did an excellent job of showing that the Roman Catholic claim of “living voice” that can solve all disunity problems is proven false. http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2016/10/06/sola-scriptura-continued-interaction-karlo-broussard-catholic-answers/ …
Apologetics and Agape 