re: Why do Protestant Christians try to use the Bible against the Catholic Church?

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yote would have to go. both a weird. but yote is a special type of weird.

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yeah, he's on one of the spectrums

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“all generations will call me blessed”

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Luke 1:48

Same Greek word (transliteration - makarizo) is used in James 5:11. In that particular passage (using the KJV) it is translated “happy.” It means to be considered fortunate, happy, blessed. It provides no significance beyond that.

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Catholics use mediators such as Mary, priests, or dead saints.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ alone is our mediator with God.

When Jesus was alive, he didn't run around telling everyone "the Bible will be your only source of authority!". He never says anything close. He spent his time and effort forming a church and giving men authority to run it. I've never understood how protestants miss that.

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You think the early Church that compiled the Bible resembles what we have today?

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Wel, in some culchas, “an eye for an eye” seems to be making a big comeback.

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When Jesus was alive, he didn't run around telling everyone "the Bible will be your only source of authority!". He never says anything close. He spent his time and effort forming a church and giving men authority to run it. I've never understood how protestants miss that.

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Please cite instances of this.

The church (transliteration - ekklesia) is only mentioned two times in the Gospels (Matthew 16:18 & Matthew 18:17).

I would highly recommend that you study the concept of “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of Heaven.” It is the central theme of His earthly message.

First message of John the Baptist - Matthew 3:2
First message of Jesus Christ - Matthew 4:17 & Mark 1:15

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I do not understand how you read this passage:

Matthew 18:18-20

And take from it that Jesus believed we should have an organized religion headed by one man who is infallible and without question.

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This isn't the Catholic position. The church is headed by Christ, with the Bishop of Rome as his vicar. The giving of the keys to Peter is a reference to the Davidic kingdom where the royal steward was given the keys to act in the King's stead in his absence.

Also, the Catholic position is not that the Pope is infallible. It's that he cannot bind the faithful to error/heresy when speaking Ex Cathedra. Ex Cathedra is extremely rare, only occurring a few times throughout 1990 years of church history. Most dogmas are formed through councils that take years to flesh out, not through "executive orders".

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Peter himself rebuked Jesus and then denied him. One of his twelve best friends betrayed him.

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Exactly. Nobody ever claimed the Pope is perfect and sinless from the Catholic side of the discussion.

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He spent his entire life rebuking the Pharisees and warning people to be wary of scribes and the traditions of men.

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Traditions of men, not traditions from God (oral teaching of the divinely inspired Apostles).

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And within a century after his death we had groups of men demanding we become slaves to tradition and insisting we must step outside the words of Jesus to be saved.

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This statement assumes a few things.

1 - That Catholics don't consider scripture to be the word of God. We do. We simply don't believe it's the only source for the word of God, and scripture itself doesn't teach this, which would be a requirement for sola scriptura to be true.

2 - That Christian's living in the 1st century after the ascension knew what the written word of God was. They had some idea, and were even sure on specific books such as the gospels, but they also considered what we now call non-canonical books to be scripture. The canon wasn't made clear until the end of the 4th century, when the Catholic Church, through the intercession of the Holy Spirit, discerned the Canon and created the first Bible, the Latin Vulgate. Which is the entire point of this thread.

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Jesus told people through his entire ministry “your faith has saved you.”

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He also inferred this about repentance, baptism, partaking in the Eucharist, and other things. Sola Fide as believed by modern evangelicals, is a false doctrine. The Reformers had a WILDLY different definition of Sola Fide compared to modern evangelicals.

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I also wonder how you deal with Mark 9:38-41

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I don't have an issue with this passage. Christ established a visible church, but that doesn't mean that people outside of its visible structure cannot be spiritually connected to it, and the Catholic church dogmatically stated this in its Lumen Gentium document from Vatican 2.

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Or the entirety of John 14

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Do you have specific points you would like me to address?

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Catholics tend to tell me I’m wrong and I need to swear allegiance to the man made and run institution in Vatican City or I can’t really be saved.

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I make no bones about there being a lot of terribly catechized Catholics in the world. This is absolutely not what the church teaches. This is also addressed in Lumen Gentium.

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Well, aside from the fact that the word “church” is mentioned twice in the gospels, there’s him giving the keys to the kingdom to his apostles. Him giving them authority to forgive sins. Him giving them authority to teach to all nations. Him building his church on Peter the rock.

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I say this with this utmost respect, you are misunderstanding the subject of this passage. If Peter is the rock upon which the church is built, then cite subsequent instances in the Scripture where he takes on this title or role. Christ is referring to Himself as the Rock and there are multiple instances in Scripture where this title is applied to Him. Peter has a prominent role in the early church, but he does not replace the centrality of Jesus Christ.

Cite examples of the apostles forgiving sins. You are assuming that “binding” and “loosing” means forgiveness of sins.

In regards to the role of Peter, I can show you a clear instance in Acts 15 that James (the half-brother of Christ cf Matthew 13:55) was the central leadership figure in the church at Jerusalem. Peter appeared before the Jerusalem council (being led by James) to give testimony to the conversion of Cornelius, the Roman centurion in Caesarea (Acts 10-11). James concluded the council with instructions to the believers among the Gentiles.

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And then there’s just the very obvious yet often overlooked fact that he spent his time alive basically training the apostles to operate the church. He counted on men to lead it when he was gone. He promised that the Holy Spirit would come to them to guide them. He gave them authority to lead it in the instances I cited above.

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He trained and equipped them to share the Gospel of the Kingdom. An outgrowth of that was the local church to accomplish this task and purpose.

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By contrast, there’s no instance of Jesus explaining that the Bible was going to be the soul source of authority for his teaching. What is the typical Protestant response to that observation? I assume there is some response they’ve formulated. I’ve never heard it.

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I can cite instance after instance of the centrality of the Scriptures in the Gospels alone. Both in the life of Jesus Christ and His disciples. I can see no instances where it was not used as the sole authority for faith and practice.

Matthew 4:4, Matthew 5:17, Luke 3:4, Luke 4:17 & 20, Luke 20:42 are just a few examples of His custom and practice during His earthly ministry.

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What do you think about the fact that Jesus never says anything remotely like "we are only going to have scripture moving forward"? The scripture you cited doesn't say that at all. He didn't say it at all. His disciples didn't say it at all. A question by extension is: how do you even know what scripture is? What you're calling scripture was written decades after Jesus died. If you claim no authority on earth, who decided the gospels and the particular letters in the New Testament are scripture?

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The Scripture that is cited by Jesus Christ and His disciples is primarily the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). That would be the sole Scripture available to Him at the time and he quoted it frequently. What you are referring to is the accepted canon of Scripture (what is considered authentic and authoritative) that incorporates the teaching of the apostles (Matthew, John et al) and other first century disciples (Luke, Mark et al). That takes us into a completely different direction (which is a fair discussion to have). I can cite multiple instances of the use of Scriptures within the first century. I cannot cite an instance of their authority being rejected. You can debate whether established canon is authoritative. You cannot dispute that Scripture was the central means to determine faith and practice in the first century local church.

If you want to do a good historical study, look up the challenges of assimilating "Greeks" (e.g. Gentiles) in the early church. For a myriad of reasons they were not accepted by early Jewish believers. Most of the Pauline epistles are addressing how to achieve peace and harmony in the local churches as they struggled with understanding the teachings of the Tanakh and applying them in the light of the appearance of the Messiah. Superimpose that with an integrated church of Gentiles and Jews and the early church leaders had their hands full.

As an example, the earliest preserved epistle is probably that of James (there a myriad of reasons why). He deals with the most rudimentary aspects of Christian love and conduct within the local church.

At the conclusion of the first missionary journey, Paul begins to write epistles to address error and conflict within the local churches. These are known as the "occasional" epistles (written for specific occasions and issues). Each one (Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians) addresses particular issues for each local church and encourages them to continue in the faith. There are also personal letters (Philemon, delivered at the same time Ephesus and Colossians were) that addressed individual conduct between a master and his runaway slave who had come to faith in Christ.

Somewhere in the midst of these disparate epistles being written, the Gospels were penned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Most believe that Mark wrote the first Gospel (serving as a writer for Peter), then Matthew and/or Luke (two volume set actually) and finally John. Each epistle served a separate and distinct purpose according to the plan of God.

When you see the New Testament in the light of an emerging body of Jewish believers (referred to as "the way") and how they shared the Gospel with the lost, it begins to fall into place.

Not questioning your understanding of the writing of the epistles or the gospels. Just establishing my position.

Yes, there was a requirement to eventually determine what was considered scripture versus that was counterfeit. We both know how that unfolded by means of council.

You are using a circular argument in regards to the sole use of scripture. The fact that they used scripture in their teaching and they never refer to any other form of authority pretty much ends the debate. They do not have to state it. They did it. In the same vein, God never declares He exists. You either accept it based on the evidence He provides (Romans 1) or you reject it.

In the beginning, God…

We will have to agree to disagree. My sole authority comes from scripture. I know where it comes from and it is settled in the heavens. If you think there is another form of authority beyond scripture then we are never going to be in agreement. And that is fine with me.