Sorely Sola Scriptura

For those who have read my last blog dealing with tradition some have wondered how I could deny the docrine of sola scriptura? It's easy. When you think logically and Biblically sola scriptura makes no sense.

1. As you read the writings from Christians of the first 16 centuries none of them held this view that all you need to interpret the Bible is the Bible itself or that the Bible is all a Christian needs to know in order to live think and breathe theology. Now of course some schismists and heretics popped up every now and then claiming all they needed was the Bible, but the Church as a whole for 16 straight centuries taught that the Bible alone was insufficient. You need tradition!

2. In order to believe in sola scriptura you have to presuppose that as long as the Church has existed their has been a closed canon of scriptures. However, there was no such canon until the late fourth centuries when the canon was decided at the councils of Carthage and Hippo. Various churches had their own set of gospels, letters, and writings, but for 400 years their was no New Testament as we know it. Thus, for 400 years the Church could have known nothing of the sort about sola scriptura.

3. Finally, in order to uphold sola scriptura you must believe that every answer a Christian needs about theology or church can be found in the scriptures. In Acts 2 we see that the apostles broke bread daily, yet did they pray before or after they had the Eucharist? Did Paul really mean that every woman in church needs to wear a head covering? Some churches like the Churches of Christ have taken this so far to the extreme that they will not allow the use of instruments in worship because you can't find them explicitally written in the New Testament.

What I find funny is the amount of churches that claim they run on sola scriptura alone, yet many aspects of their worship service or church contain elements that can no where be found in the pages of scripture. Some one please show me where Paul talked about youth pastors or kids pastors, Jesus led people in the "sinners prayer", parishoners get "slain in the spirit", or Peter and James used instruments while leading the crowd in singing the Psalms?