"I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history." -Cardinal Francis George

Friday, April 5, 2013

Jesus Didn't Write a Book

The only time Jesus is described as writing, we don't know what he wrote.

Jesus didn't write a book.

Think on it people. He could have easily done so. Why didn't he? If you find yourself wishing he had, or wishing perhaps his apostles had written more -in general or on your pet topic- then your paradigm is wrong. Find a paradigm where it make perfect sense for Jesus not to write down his teaching, and not to write it down in such a way that would supposedly clear up misinterpretations of future Christians. You should find that paradigm because that is what happened. Jesus actually didn't write anything down, and his apostles wrote shockingly little. And we don't even know if he told his followers to write anything down, and often it seems they dont expect it to be scripture anyway. Did the apostle John think 3rd John would be scripture? Did Paul know Philemon would be read by people 2000 years later as scripture? And if Jesus had intended the future Church to be guided solely by a book, we should expect the apostles would have written much, much more! would have written on some very basic topics like.. oh... what do we do when we gather on Sunday morning for instance. Yet they apparently didn't think it was necessary to write that down! That makes no sense at all in scripture only Protestantism. Did it skip their mind? Do you find yourself wishing they had spelled things out better on topic X? If so, you may be assuming that the text was meant to explain topic X. But if Christ left everything this Church needs, yet forgot to leave them a way to sort out topic X, then there is a problem. And in the Sola Scriptura paradigm, that is a problem.

But for Catholics, we know he didn't write a book because he sent men. And he told us that if we have a problem to "take it to the Church". We can affirm that the bible consistent with everything we need to know, and that Christ left us with everything we need, but that includes successors of the apostles authorized to rightly interpret scripture.

So if you find yourself wishing more were written down to explain something, or wishing perhaps Jesus had personally written down stuff, you need to change your paradigm. Go to the Church. Those men Jesus commissioned commissioned other men, who in turn did the same, all the way to the present day, and their identity is not mysterious or controversial.

If the bible were meant to be the sole authority in the Church, shouldn't there be a heck of a lot more info in there? And shouldn't it be a heck of a lot clearer so there perhaps would be just a few dozen Protestant interpretations, rather than thousands?

It really is this simple folks.

3 comments:

  1. Excuse
    me?

    http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-jesus-didnt-write-book-objection.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also...

    http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2015/02/12/actually-jesus-did-ask-someone-to-write-a-book/

    ReplyDelete
  3. And yet the fact remains... Jesus didn't write a book.

    I remember as a Protestant wishing there was way more scripture specifically defining way more things. Off the top of my head... more specific on contraception, Church polity, sacraments, order of worship. Don't you wish that were the case? Of course you do. Wouldnt it make things easier in your interdenominational (and intra of course) squabbles.

    As a Protestant, it puzzled me why so many loose ends tripped up us Protestants up all the time, and how vulnerable we were to the winds of change (think Lambeth conference).

    Why couldnt He have just written a catechism? It is totally possible for Him to have done so... yet He did not. As a Catholic, this bothers me not a bit, because I know Christ teaches His flock through the Catholic Church and it's living magisterium, just as Scripture points out. Just as He intended it to be. There is an unchangeable deposit of faith in the scripture and tradition, and these are guarded and defined by the magisterium.

    So scripture does not need to go into detail about contraception, or polygamy, for instance. The magisterium can define what the deposit of faith teaches about it if needed. Without a magisterium, you get Sola Scripturists like Luther believing polygamy is ok simply because scripture does not prohibit it. Insane.

    Have a blessed Ash Wednesday brothers,

    Peace,

    David

    ReplyDelete