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-- On Scripture and Prophecy --
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/ Newsgroups > alt.christnet.christianlife, alt.christnet.evangelical, alt.christnet.theology, alt.religion.christian.biblestudy, alt.religion.christianity,
/ alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox / Christian Forums > Theology (Christian Only) > Unorthodox Theology / Date > 8 Feb 2012 / Topic >

>> cybrwurm previously wrote: <snip> And who do you choose to help you understand and interpret
>> the texts that you find in the bible?
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> vince garcia replies: not you. I do quite a fine job without you, as do tens of thousands of fine Christian
> ministers preaching the REAL Christ
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] In 'Which Came First: The Church or the New Testament?' one Fr. James Bernstein say: <snip> So we'd all appeal to the Scriptures.
] "I believe in the Bible. If it's not in the Bible I don't believe it", became my war cry. What I did not realize was that everyone else
] was saying the same thing! It was not the Bible, but each one's private interpretation of it, that became our ultimate authority.
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wurm say: Are you hearing this, vince?
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] In an age which highly exalts independence of thought and self-reliance, I was becoming my own pope! The guidelines I used in
] interpreting Scripture seemed simple enough: When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense. I
] believed that those who were truly faithful and honest in following this principle would achieve Christian unity. To my surprise,
] this "common sense" approach led not to increased Christian clarity and unity, but rather to a spiritual free-for-all! Those who
] most strongly adhered to believing "only the Bible" tended to become the, most factious, divisive, and combative of Christians …
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Does this sound like anyone you know, pope garcia?
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] In fact, it seemed to me that the more one held to the Bible as the only source of spiritual authority, the more factious and
] sectarian one became ... But the more sectarian I became - to the point of being obnoxious and antisocial - the more I began
] to realize that something was seriously wrong with my approach to Christianity.
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vince has yet to reach this stage of wisdom, but we may all hope that one day he will see the light. Anyway, the solution that
Father Bernstein eventually arrived at, after a long and exhaustive study of early church history and the gradual formation
of the NT canon, is that the authority to interpret scripture properly resides with the church. And so Father Bernstein promptly
and logically converted to the Orthodox faith!
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And while this "solution" to the problem of authority does have the merit of being somewhat more sensible than the 'every man
his own pope' approach (which is not a solution at all), all he has done (in effect) is to move from the camp of the scribes over
to the camp of the pharisees! And the only problem with this is that it *avoids* and side-steps the problem of authority, rather
than addressing it head on. For what his studies failed to make clear is that while spiritual authority is indeed closely tied to
the spirit, that spirit is NOT given to bishops, councils, and particular denominations; let alone to every believer who has
gained the fabulous ability to stick his beak into the scriptures and call them his own.
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No indeed, for the spirit of wisdom and truth is only given to certain individuals; to those few and far between men who are
specifically chosen and sent. And it is up to the Lord to decide who is chosen. Much as they would like to think otherwise, the
spirit is not a thing that can be captured and co-opted by institutions. Not even the greatest of churches can decide who will
receive the spirit and who will not. For that is a matter for the divine-Logos to determine!
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"And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a
dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that
no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of
man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." -- 2Peter 1:19-21 / RSV
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Here then is the one and only *biblical* solution to the problem of interpretive authority. It is those men who are "moved by
the spirit" who have the grace and ability to interpret scripture with authority. And these men are called prophets (or "slaves"
as per Jm 1:1, Jude 1:1, 2Pet 1:1). But wait! The scribes will now object that this is not a solution at all owing to the rather
obvious "fact" that there are no longer any prophets. John the Baptist was the last prophet, they say, and there haven't been
any prophets since.
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What an incredibly stupid thing to say! It's like saying that since the first century there hasn't been any man named Samuel! 
And WHY have the prophets suddenly gone extinct? Because, they claim, they are no longer needed, because now they have
been replaced by the New Testament, and thus rendered null and void. No longer needed! Right, that's why we have half the
believers in the world thinking that they are themselves the only ultimate authority; ‘little popes’ who need not acknowledge
any authority above themselves! Obviously the *need* for prophets is apparent to anyone who bothers to think about these
things. But the need for believers to recognize the ongoing *reality* of the prophets is even more needful ...
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For it is these very same so-called “bible-believers” – the same ones who say "I believe in the Bible; if it's not in the Bible I
don't believe it" - who ignore every single reference to the prophets given in the NT (and there are *many*), because they
know better than the inspired authors (including Paul and John) who everywhere acknowledge the necessity and reality of the
prophets. They know the Word of God is *wrong*, that God is indeed a liar, because they "know" there are no more prophets!
If all these wise and knowledgeable (ie. in their own eyes, of course; but in reality their wisdom is arrogance and their
knowledge is vanity) "bible-believers" had even an ounce of honesty within them they would change their "war cry" to
something that actually reflects the truth:
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"I believe in the Bible; *except* when it speaks about the prophets. If it's not in the Bible I don't believe it (except as regards
the unbiblical trinitarian fantasy); and even if it IS in the Bible I *still* don't believe it, because *I* know that the prophets
are not real, and therefore the scriptures are *wrong* (except when I think they are right, of course)!"
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For this is indeed the true basis for the Faith of half the believers in the entire world. And this despite the contrary
testimony of the Word of God (which they *claim* is the ultimate spiritual authority); such as these universally
mistranslated verses (which foolish believers may choose to ignore, to their eternal peril):
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"Now to the one [ie. the "slave" or prophet of Christ] who is able to guard you without stumbling and to set you before
the only God ... [grant him] glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all the age and now and into all the ages."
-- Jude 24 & 25 / Prophet Version 

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