Was it a teaching or a Bible-reading Church that Christ founded?

Question

The Protestant Bible expressly states that Christ founded a teaching Church, which existed before any of the New Testament books were written.

Thus falls the entire basis of the "Bible-only" theory

Answer 1

Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Coptic, Syrian, Armenia etc Churches would all affirm that Christ found a teaching Church prior to any one of the apostles puttng stylus to papyrus. No one denies this point. In fact, it took about 700 years for the NT canon to be recognized by all of Christendom -- many books of the NT such as Hebrews, Revelation and the 3rd letter of John took awhile to obtain acceptance into the NT canon.

Answer 2

Of course it was a Church. Your question glosses over some important things though. First of all, Christ taught from the scripture. Second, the scripture calls itself God-breathed revelation. It does not give that kind of distinction to any thing else. Third, it is pretty clear from the bible that the NT writers knew they were penning scripture, and that it was to be the authoritative rule of faith for the newly founded church. And last of all, there are many Catholic teachings that are quite simply late arrivals in history with zero connection to any apostle. Teachings like the assumption of Mary, papal infallibility (actually, even papal supremacy was a long time coming), the use of indulgences and the like. This fact alone should cause you to sit down and really re-think this whole catholic tradition thing.

Answer 3

True, and in teaching the Gospel of Christ wrote what we now call the New Testament, however they taught out of what we now call the Old Testament as Philip did with the Ethiopian eunuch. The Bible is the Inspired Word of God, if we claim to be Christians our spiritual teaching should never contradict the Word.

Answer 4

Jesus founded one church while on earth and he gave the leading of that church to Peter the Rock. Peter is Acknowledged as the first Bishop of Rome. The Bible as we know it today was compiled By Roman Catholic St. Jerome a few hundred years after the Resurrection on the Lord

Answer 5

Preaching
Go and make disciples of All Nations' not" Give each person a Bible and let him figure it out for himself. I'll see you at the judgement"

The Bible as a set collection of OT or a written NT did not yet exist at all

Scott Hahn shows that Sola Scriptura is not biblical,logical or historical in his tape set The Bible Alone (Matters of Faith;2000) Saint Joseph Communications www.saintjoe.com

Answer 6

Clearly teaching. While Scripture is certainly a part of this....see the following Scriptures that clearly show that Tradition and Teaching were often oral and very important:

Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15 - those that preached the Gospel to all creation but did not write the Gospel were not less obedient to Jesus, or their teachings less important.

Matt. 28:20 - "observe ALL I have commanded," but, as we see in John 20:30; 21:25, not ALL Jesus taught is in Scripture. So there must be things outside of Scripture that we must observe. This disproves "Bible alone" theology.

Mark 16:15 - Jesus commands the apostles to "preach," not write, and only three apostles wrote. The others who did not write were not less faithful to Jesus, because Jesus gave them no directive to write. There is no evidence in the Bible or elsewhere that Jesus intended the Bible to be sole authority of the Christian faith.

Luke 1:1-4 - Luke acknowledges that the faithful have already received the teachings of Christ, and is writing his Gospel only so that they "realize the certainty of the teachings you have received." Luke writes to verify the oral tradition they already received.

John 20:30; 21:25 - Jesus did many other things not written in the Scriptures. These have been preserved through the oral apostolic tradition and they are equally a part of the Deposit of Faith.

Acts 8:30-31; Heb. 5:12 - these verses show that we need help in interpreting the Scriptures. We cannot interpret them infallibly on our own. We need divinely appointed leadership within the Church to teach us.

Acts 15:1-14 – Peter resolves the Church’s first doctrinal issue regarding circumcision without referring to Scriptures.

Acts 17:28 – Paul quotes the writings of the pagan poets when he taught at the Aeropagus. Thus, Paul appeals to sources outside of Scripture to teach about God.

1 Cor. 5:9-11 - this verse shows that a prior letter written to Corinth is equally authoritative but not part of the New Testament canon. Paul is again appealing to a source outside of Scripture to teach the Corinthians. This disproves Scripture alone.

1 Cor. 11:2 - Paul commends the faithful to obey apostolic tradition, and not Scripture alone.

Answer 7

Christ founded a loving, tolerant, helping the community church.

Answer 8

Exactly. And I wish more Christians would realize it.

Jesus said over and over that the way to God is through him, and that his words are divine. The Bible make no explicit claim to be the word of God, and the verse often used to justify the bible being the word of god says no such thing, and is over-interpreted by fundamentalists.

On the other hand, Jesus says over and over that he is the word of God. True Christians will follow the words of Jesus before the human-authored Bible.

Answer 9

Since the bible was created four hundred years after his death, I think Christ cares little for the bible my child.

Go in peace with the Lord.

Answer 10

Christ ? The fictional character?