Blog 2023-09-13
Sola scriptura IS wrong, but that does not mean the Catholic church is right. Wait, What?
Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to guide in all truth. The problem is that no one listens.
Peter said Jesus was the Messiah, son of God by the scripture AND the Holy Spirit. He knew the scriptures, saw what Jesus was doing, and the Spirit helped him connect the dots.
The question was "Who do men say that I am?" the answer is He is the Messiah, Son of God, and the key to that teaching is that he must die. Jesus showed him in the scriptures that he must die:
In prophetic riddle, he is Adam who went to sleep to obtain his bride, he is Cain and Abel who laid down his own life. He is Noah who 'died' between the waters. He is Noah who slept naked. He is Abram renamed Abraham. He is Isaac and the ram who died on the altar, he is Jacob in the ditch. He is the sons of Tamar threatened with death.
When Jesus read the Bible he saw himself. The many churches do not see Jesus in it but read and argue about Adam, Noah Abraham and the rest. They read the literal history, not the prophetic riddle. They have identified the genre of scripture as literal-historical and defined Christ out of it. Their experts reluctantly admitted that they could not read the OT the way Jesus and the NT authors did, during the sensus plenior debates of the last century. But Catholic Raymond Brown, the one who started the debate, also could not read it.
The kingdom of heaven is teaching, and the keys to the kingdom are the riddles of Christ's death and resurrection on the cross. You must be born again; in Hebrew 'taught again' by the Spirit to see/understand the kingdom.
It is not free-for-all allegory. It is the unpacking of the riddle with the assistance of the Holy Spirit in a reproducible and verifiable way.
It is true that outside resources are not required to solve the riddles. Everything needed is in the Bible. But you cannot solve them without the Holy Spirit.
It is not sola scriptura. It is the Bible AND the Spirit.
