Dr. John Bergsma

Because some of these questions that are coming in are based on a kind of a sola scriptura approach to the Christian faith, that if I'm going to believe something, it has to be an exegetical slam dunk from the written word of God.

And the church has never operated that way.

And in fact, the scriptures do not teach sola scriptura.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that everything that we need to know in order to do church or be a Christian is contained in the scriptures.

The closest that the scriptures ever come is 2 Timothy 3.16, and all that that says is, all scripture is breathed by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, ready for every good work.

And all of us as Catholics can say yes and amen to that, but 2 Timothy 3.16 does not teach sola scriptura.

in the sense that everything that we need to know is in the written word of God.

Instead, we find three places actually where St.

Paul urges us to hold fast to tradition.

The clearest case is 2 Thessalonians 2.15, where St.

Paul says, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught by us, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

And it is the word tradition.

Many Protestant translations render the word teaching there.

My Protestant translation rendered it as teaching.

I was shocked when my friend Michael showed me it from his Catholic RSV.

I looked up in the Greek and sure enough, the Greek word is parodicis, which is tradition.

So this is not Catholic trickery here.

This is the Greek of the New Testament.

St.

Paul himself says, hold to the traditions that you're taught by us, whether by word of mouth, that's beautiful because that illustrates unwritten traditions that are passed down or by letter.