“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (1 Timothy 3:2-17)”
What is Sola Scriptura?
Sola Scriptura is the principle of the scriptures being the highest possible authority on the Christian faith; it is a nonnegotiable tenet of Christian doctrine. When paired with guidance from the Holy Spirit they are also wholly sufficient for equipping men with a righteousness and wisdom that comes from having salvation in Jesus Christ. Why are these assertions so important?
Because wolves in sheep’s clothing, professing the name of the Lord in word only, would distort the true teachings of God and lead others astray. To follow scriptures only is the surest way to remove oneself for the confounding foolishness of men who would twist and add to scripture to aggregate themselves power, wealth, or veneration. All of this is cleanly summarized in Paul’s letter to Timothy.
Why is Sola Scriptura Contentious?
Sola Scriptura entirely refutes any assertion that additional traditions and rites are required outside the scriptures. It also rejects any possibility of future prophets adding or overwriting scripture, and it disarms heretical churches that have elevated their own offices as having necessary knowledge or sacraments for salvation. In that regard, this is the most dangerous tenet to any organized religion looking to aggregate power or wealth for themselves.
Now, people who argue against Sola Scriptura typically do so because they hold the incorrect assumption that Sola Scriptura is never explicitly spelled out for them in the Bible. Of course, the prior mentioned verse from Timothy pretty conclusively shuts that down. If scripture is God breathed, then clearly scripture is the highest authority on spiritual matters.
If these God breathed scriptures have declared a true, fruit bearing, faith in Jesus and the Gospel as sufficient for salvation, then nothing else outside the scriptures can be necessary for salvation or Christian practice. Which person can speak or write a precept with higher authority than something that was God breathed?
People a little more actualized in their arguments will argue against Sola Scriptura on the basis that the Bible as we know it was not assembled until hundreds of years following the Early Church. Why should we trust the veracity of the scriptures without the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, who claim to wield exclusive forms of righteousness and authority in their traditions?
Well, because the Roman Catholic Church did not breath the scriptures, God did. The Roman Catholic Church did not choose the original canon either.
Roman Catholic history cannot be ethically or intelligently conflated with Christian history. Christianity did not begin with Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholicism certainly does not definitively embody or encompass Christianity on the whole. In fact, the Old Testament was already canonized and quoted in Jesus’ time (in the form of the Septuagint) and the apostles were already differentiating between their own writings as what was and was not scripture in the New Testament:
2 Peter 3:15-16: And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
Note that the entire purpose of being an apostle, and why the “office” does not exist today, is that they have seen and “walked” with Jesus. They are not removed from God the same way the Popes, clergy, preachers, and pastors are. Of these, only the apostles have spoken with the Jesus.
The Assembling and Vetting of the Scriptural Canon Has Existed Before and Outside of Roman Catholicism
Every book within the current Bible was at some point verified to be written by a prophet, leader of Israel, disciple, scribe, or apostle. Even the rare books with contested authors have been evaluated for scriptural and logical cohesion and can reliably be cross referenced with other books with verified authors.
Unlike the Greek, Middle-Eastern, and African mythologies that were melded together and absorbed into Roman culture at the time, Judeo-Christian literature and law would not be swayed by the inspirations of the myths of other cultures, nor by whims of common men with entertaining stories.
By these higher standards, standards set by God Himself, the scriptures carried an authority on righteousness and truth that the philosophers and theologians other predominant cultures could never claim.
These Scriptures are wielded authoritatively within the Bible both in the Old Testament and within the New. Verifications typically relied on analyzing signatures, writing styles, and congruence with other verified writings. These verifications have existed long before the Roman Catholic Church and the Councils of Nicaea and Trent and have continued well after.
The Inerrancy of the Scriptures Were Actually Used to Fact Check Errors from Proto-Catholic Meddling
If you own a Bible, Catholic or not, it was actually compared to the standards and translations set by the Reformer, William Tyndale. Prior to the translations from the Reformation movement, was the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, the latter of which is favored by the Roman Catholic Church. William Tyndale, noticing significant errors in Roman Catholics’ translations made edits and corrections to the Latin Vulgate using original Greek and Hebrew transcriptions near the time of the Reformation. The scriptures were not wrong, the Roman Catholic Church was. We’ll cover this in significantly greater detail in later chapters.
Also note that both the author of the Latin Vulgate (Saint Jerome) and William Tyndale believed the Apocryphal books did not meet their standards of divine inspiration and scriptural congruence, which is why they are not used in Bibles outside the Roman Catholic denomination. The Word of God was always greater than the machinations of men, and to suggest otherwise is to detract from His power and glory.
Source: https://overviewbible.com/william-tyndale/
Source 2: https://christiantruth.com/articles/articles-roman catholicism/apocryphaintroduction/apocrypha3/
How do We Know we can Trust the Veracity of Bible After all of These Centuries and Translations?
To the Christian who is genuinely asking this question, I like to posit another question to you: Do you believe God is Sovereign and is in control of everything? If you are not sure, or believe otherwise, I believe you need to check your heart and re-evaluate the depth of your faith.
Let me walk through this with you: We know God wants a people for Himself, we know the Gospel is God’s chosen mechanism for salvific belief, and that the scriptures are the basis for knowledge of God and His will. If God is Sovereign, no amount of human meddling could suppress or destroy the scriptures, just as no amount of human meddling was able to suppress or destroy Jesus.
Using the scriptures to find and teach the truth of God was sufficient for David, Solomon, the Prophets, and the Apostles. The scriptures, even while still being written, were Paul’s chosen tool of choice to bring Jesus to all of Berea, who would not believe him until they read the scriptures for themselves:
Acts 17:10: As soon as night had fallen, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true. As a result, many of them believed, along with quite a few prominent Greek women and men.
How Well Preserved is the Bible? Well Check for Yourself
The Bible, while first and foremost a Holy Book, is also an incredible historical document. Scripture writings from various times and in various languages, over literal millennia, have been unearthed, translated, verified, and catalogued. Today, we have access to the original Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament, the original Greek translation of the Old Testament written dated back to 3rd century B.C., the Septuagint, the original translations of the Gospels and the epistles published within the 1st century A.D., the erroneous Latin translation of the scriptures (the Latin vulgate), and the current reigning translations originating with William Tyndale, who used the older translations to correct the Vulgate.
We have access to all of these at any time, from our fingertips, thanks to the internet. From the Blue Letter Bible, you can pit every prevalent translation of the Bible against each other, the newer translations, against the older, and you can see for yourself just how incredibly well-preserved modern Protestant bibles are (ESV, KJV, NKJV, NIV, etc).
Sola Scriptura Protects the Christian Church From Corruption
The importance of the canonization and protection of scripture is precisely because of the dangers of new traditions. Both Jesus and the apostles knew the early church would be corrupted almost immediately. This why the apostles instructed to preserve pre-existing traditions only in congruence with Jesus’s teachings, and why they warned of “going beyond what is written”.
2 Thessalonians 2:15: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”
Notice the tense denoted by the term “have been.” It is not ongoing, it is done. This is not a red herring, cherry pick or stretch, Paul uses past tense again in another epistle when speaking of tradition:
1 Corinthians 11:2 Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.
Which brings us to this:
1 Corinthians 4:6 Brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written. Then you will not take pride in one man over another.
Jesus fulfilled the Gospel when He died on the cross. Jesus both fulfilled and rendered obsolete the old covenants when He paid for the new one, His death was sufficient.
Hebrews 8:13: In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
He abolished the old Mosaic laws of sacrifices when He sacrificed Himself. By this, He fulfilled the Mosaic law by making a payment of divine blood, one great enough to pay for the sins of all of His followers forever. God set the wages of sin as death, He grew weary of the sacrificial system solidified in old covenants, so Jesus died to pay those wages forever. Now there are no more sacrifices in payment of sin.
Jesus pronounced this intention in the High Priestly Prayer. Knowing this, John justified his abbreviated Gospel, where he did not record all of the acts of Jesus, with the belief that Jesus’ Gospel was complete:
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
The apostles knew the Gospel was complete, which why Paul pronounces that he spoke the whole counsel of God long before any religious Roman Catholic hierarchy was ever established.
Acts 20:26-30: Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
It is also why John, Paul, and Luke warned the early church extensively of people who would make the new traditions, writings, and raise up religious leaders that would lead the church astray.
Acts 20: 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
1 John 2 18: Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
Colossians 2:8: See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
These heretics would profess to be Christian, but would preach a different gospel. Not only that, but the weaker people in the Early Church wanted this. The false gospel and its leaders that would arise in the church made them feel good, there aberrant theology was preferable to the truth of the real Gospel.
2 Timothy 4:1: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Not only that, but these false gospels and fake apostles were already corrupting the church in the apostles’ time. Listen to Paul’s exasperation and grief concerning the foolishness of the legalistic Galatians, who asserted Jewish rites as necessary for Christianity:
Galatians 1:6 I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse! 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be under a curse!
10 Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. 11 For I certify to you, brothers, that the gospel I preached was not devised by man. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Paul admonished them with this assertion:
15 We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile ‘sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Paul justified that assertion with this logic:
19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.
Jesus Pronounced the Gospel as Complete, so no Scriptural Additions or Amendments are Necessary
Paul justified his assertion not with new teachings, traditions, or rites, but with the sufficiency of the Gospel professed in the scriptures. The Gospel was already preached in its fullness and Paul was willing to bet his apostolic authority on it in 2 Timothy 4:8. Can we find evidence that Christ would die for the forgiveness of sins in the pre-existing scriptures of Paul’s time? Of course we can.
Here it is in the Old Testament:
Jeremiah 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Need more OT evidence that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice was a payment for the sins of God’s people? How about Isaiah 53?
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows3 and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces
6 he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
How about the in the New Testament, preceding Paul’s epistles?
John 1:29: The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The Scriptures were already sufficient long before the Roman Catholic church. It’s not as if Paul didn’t have access to these writings. Was Luke the Evangelist not compiling his historical book of Christ’s ministry and teachings at this time? In fact, look at the how closely Paul comes to quoting Luke:
Luke 10:7: And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.
1 Timothy 5:18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”
Paul first refers to Deuteronomy 25:4, and then he expounds on that verse by directly quoting Luke’s underlined passage. Luke’s words were scripture, he was called by God.
How were people to protect themselves from the wolves with false gospels? The apostles wouldn’t be around to dispel these lies forever; the Roman Catholic idea of the doctrinally infallible apostolic succession was not a thing they believed nor had confidence in.
Acts 20: 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
John 2: 18: Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
2 Peter 1:12 “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”
Look at the passage in Peter. What was that effort he made to ensure people remembered Christ’s teachings? It wasn’t naming a successor, it was writing another letter:
2 Peter 3: 1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
The Apostles weren’t to last forever, the scriptures and their writings were. This was clearly as intended by Jesus:
Matthew 24:15: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Peter, having walked with Christ, understood and believed that:
1 Peter 1:25 But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
The way the true path of Jesus would be preserved was to be by reading the scriptures and with the strengthening of the apostolic letters. Read this passage in Acts where Paul preaches Jesus’ gospel to the Thessalonians using scripture, and how by them many believed:
Acts 17:2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.
What about the Bereans, who tested what Paul had told them using scriptures and then they too believed:
Acts 17:10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
Note that many new traditions that are supposedly from God directly contradict scriptures. The words of men, seizing themselves power and authority by proclaiming holiness, preach things against the scriptures. The following is only a small beginning of a long list of doctrinal errors and conflicts that would have been avoided if the scriptures were really considered the word of God.
Amendments to Scripture From Extraneous Traditions Are Nonsensical When Compared to the Cohesion of the Bible
Due to limitations of the site editor, the below table may not be properly formatted for everyone. For a full sized version of the table, which has now been updated with even MORE content, go here: Scripture vs Tradition.pptx
Believing in the Inerrancy of God’s Scriptures is More Logical Than Believing in the Inerrancy of a Corrupt Church
Now that you’ve squinted your way through that extensive table of doctrinal errors introduced and endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church, I would like to present to you this statement from them on why they are infallible:
“Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly. This is so, even when they are dispersed around the world, provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter’s successor, and while teaching authentically on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as the one which must be held conclusively. This authority is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church. Their definitions must then be adhered to with the submission of faith” (Lumen Gentium 25).
In this regard, Sola Scriptura is not only the most intelligent route for a Christian, since it is the only principle to solely follow the infallible word of God. Sola Scriptura is also the most just assertion, as it only accepts God as the higher teacher and authority. According to Tradition, the Roman Catholic councils and their saints are supposed to have divine understanding of Christian doctrine. They try to garner themselves an underserved power by asserting that only the clergy can properly interpret scripture, and the Pope is supposed to be inerrant when speaking of doctrinal matters.
They only need to be wrong once for all of that Tradition to be exposed as lies and foolishness. This presents a problem for Roman Catholicism, as there are multiple instances where scripture and Catholic tradition are in irreconcilable conflict. Note that most of the arguments in the above table are covered in much more detail in other portions of the statement.
To reiterate, only a single one of my scripture based arguments has to stand in order depose Roman Catholicism as God’s one true church. How much more reasonable it is then to side with scripture, professed as “God breathed” when it comes to actual Christian doctrine?