01-17-2008, 08:41 PM
gbausc Wrote:We would know nothing about salvation or The Holy Spirit without the Scriptures. We are saved by believing the Gospel message as written in the New Testament. We would know nothing about Yeshua without the scriptures.
Akhi Dave, none of the above is true.....at all. None of it.
It's not like Keepa showed up one day in Babylon with 22 scrolls in his hands...saying "Hi! Here are your scriptures!". The Apostles founded the churches first, by their oral preaching. Keepa wrote his epistle from there (5:13), while ministering to an already existing Christian community....as he called them the "chosen church." How could they have been missing any "Divine Wisdom" from his epistle before he wrote it from there?
Are you saying we knew nothing about Christ before the Gospels reached us in written form? Even the pagan Magi knew about him.
Again, this begs the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The Churches existed a long time before anything written was in their hands, and even longer before any sort of unified canon took form as we know it today.
This line of thinking is clearly reversed from the historic reality that the CHURCH, not the SCRIPTURES, came first. It is the CHURCH that decided upon the scriptures.
They knew **all about** salvation, the Holy Spirit, Yeshua and the Gospel message long before any NT scripture was delivered to them.