re: Christians who somehow thought it wasn’t Christianlike to vote for Trump

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There are numerous examples of such people being used.
However, I do not view Trump as a non-believer since by his own words it appears that he is a flawed believer.
But then, that is the case for all believers which is why we are all in need of the Savior.

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This is a fair point. I was just addressing the other poster's assumption that Trump is not saved. I will not say one way or the other because only God and Trump know for sure. My point is simply that God gave us many examples where He clearly used nonbelievers to advance His kingdom, so even if Trump is a nonbeliever that does not mean Trump is not the best choice for those of us who hold to a Christian worldview.

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Using Holy Scriptures, please explain to me where our Lord Jesus Christ say they are “the highest authority”.

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First of all, just logically speaking, God has to be the highest authority. We're told that He can't swear by any name higher than His own, so He swears by Himself.

We also need to understand that Scripture has a quality that is different from mere tradition, as Scripture is authoritative and binding in a way that non-Scripture isn't. Scripture is described as "God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:15-17), which is not a quality given to anything else that is preserved for God's people.

With that said, here are some examples of when Jesus upheld the Scriptures as the highest authority.

Mark 7:1-13
Jesus condemns the Pharisees for holding their authoritative traditions as a higher authority than Scripture. The condemnation highlights that the opposite is true.

Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus is tempted by Satan, even using Scripture as a means to do so. Jesus not only rebukes Satan using Scripture (even over His own authority as the God-man), but He demonstrates the principle of the "analogy of faith", whereby we use Scripture to interpret Scripture, so that we can make the less clear understandable by the more clear, and the harder passages can be interpreted by the easier.

John 10:31-39
Jesus is threatened with being stoned due to His claim of divinity, being God. Instead of focusing on His own authority, He appeals to Scripture, and even says that the Scriptures "cannot be broken". He gives no such primacy to any other authority, even the authority of the Pharisees, even though He acknowledge they had religious authority and sat in Moses' seat (Matt. 23:1-3)


I could go on with other proofs from Jesus and from the rest of the NT Scriptures, but the fundamental issue is that the word of God has a special authoritative status that is not given to anything else. While God gave Moses and the Prophets many commands for the people, only those written down as Scripture was binding to the people as the highest authority. The same thing happened with the New Testament. Jesus taught many more things than were even written down, but not even the RCC claims to have preserved all of those teachings and commands, which is why only those things preserved by God for the Church remain binding as the word of God.

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I don't need a flawed preacher or church father doing my interpreting for me. I can read the bible myself.

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I have no doubt in my military mind that you love Christ. To say you don’t need any help in interpreting the Holy Scriptures is fallacy brother.

As the interaction between the Ethiopian and St. Phillip (Acts 8:26-40) shows, we are not to lean unto our own understanding of Holy Scriptures, but on the Apostolic deposit as handed down by Christ to those who walked with Him and went to their deaths for Him.

I once walked where you are brother, interpreting Holy Scriptures as
my “own pope”…as the Lord tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end leads to his destruction”.

Come home to His Holy Orthodox Church.

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TheDeerHunter

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Blessed Feast!

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We also need to understand that Scripture has a quality that is different from mere tradition, as Scripture is authoritative and binding in a way that non-Scripture isn't

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Who determined what was authoritative Holy Scriptures and what is “non-Scripture”?

I’ll hang up and await your response.

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Jesus taught many more things than were even written down, but not even the RCC claims to have preserved all of those teachings and commands, which is why only those things preserved by God for the Church remain binding as the word of God.

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I have no clue what the Roman Catholic Church’s ecclesiology on the preservation of the Holy Scriptures are. Why did you even bring that up?

You’re correct that as St. John said in the Gospel of John 21:15 “ Jesus taught many more things than were even written down, And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.”

So who shared these teachings that were not written down for decades after Christ’s ascension??

From whom did St. Paul learn Christ’s teachings? Where did St. Paul hear Jesus say “…And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."' - Acts 20:35. That is nowheres in the Gospels

You want to ignore 2000 years of Church history and martyrdom all on some anti-Church heresies taught by a French lawyer who lived in the 1500s. Come on dude. Stop.

Foomanchoo,
Seriously brother, why do you hold onto empty, legalistic ecclesiology? Have you attended an Eastern Orthodox service? Come and see…come home to the Holy Orthodox Church of the King of Glory.

Protestant heresies

Dude, do you even Gospel bro?

When you answer my question WHOM declared and collated the Gospels and Epistles as Holy Scriptures, we can move further in a real debate.

You and I both know it was St. Athanasius, a Father of the Holy Orthodox Church.

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I have no clue what the Roman Catholic Church’s ecclesiology on the preservation of the Holy Scriptures are. Why did you even bring that up?

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I forgot that you weren't RCC. Orthodox and RCC are very similar most respects prior to the Schism about 1000 years ago.

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You’re correct that as St. John said in the Gospel of John 21:15 “ Jesus taught many more things than were even written down, And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.”

So who shared these teachings that were not written down for decades after Christ’s ascension??

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The apostles did, and those things which were necessary for the Church to preserve were recorded in the Scriptures. The same thing happened in the Old Testament. Those things which were necessary for the OT "Church" if Israel were recorded as Scripture, and Scripture was the highest authority. Even the authoritative traditions of the Pharisees, who sat in Moses' seat, were not more authoritative than the Scriptures.

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From whom did St. Paul learn Christ’s teachings?

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According to Paul, he first heard by revelation directly from Christ (Gal. 1:11-12). He also claimed to have been caught up into Heaven and received visions and revelations (2 Cor. 12:1-4).

I suppose you're hinting at Paul's meeting with the other apostles. He said in Gal. 1:16-19 that after his conversion he waited 3 years to meet Peter and James for confirmation that his teaching was in accord with what they saw. He met with Peter for 15 days, hardly enough time to learn and memorize all that Christ had done.

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Where did St. Paul hear Jesus say “…And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."' - Acts 20:35. That is nowheres in the Gospels

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We're not told. He could have heard that directly from Christ through revelation, or from the oral tradition of the apostles in the 20 or so years from his conversion until that point.

Since not all quotes from Christ were preserved, even by oral tradition, it's clear that only certain truths have been preserved for the Church. Sola scriptura teaches that only the Bible is infallible in the information it has preserved for the Church.

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You want to ignore 2000 years of Church history and martyrdom all on some anti-Church heresies taught by a French lawyer who lived in the 1500s. Come on dude. Stop.

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I don't ignore Church history. I hold Church history up against the only infallible standard for the Church, the word of God. I do the same thing for Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and so on.

You seem to have been taught that Protestants have no authority but the Bible and care nothing for history. That's false. This issue always boils down to ultimate authority, and all we're saying is that whatever authority that does exist (and I acknowledge the Church has authority), is subject to correction by the word of God above all else, as the only infallible rule for the faith and life of the Church.

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Seriously brother, why do you hold onto empty, legalistic ecclesiology? Have you attended an Eastern Orthodox service? Come and see…come home to the Holy Orthodox Church of the King of Glory.

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I actually attended a Greek Orthodox Church once near Atlanta many years ago. It was all about the externals. I prefer simple, biblical worship.

A Christian is a believer, and a believer as defined in scripture is not identifiable by their sinlessness, or perfection, but rather their placing their entire belief, trust, and reliance upon Jesus for their salvation, rather than upon their own self righteousness, ability to be righteous, control their salvation, or dependence upon any other person or nuance for their salvation. It’s a believing upon what Christ has already done 2000 years ago for those sins, and surrendering what they think they can do to earn salvation in reliance upon Christ’s finished work on their behalf.

I would imagine that if David ran for president he would also be rejected for his unrighteousness in his dealings with Bathsheba and her husband whom he had killed in battle to be with her and yet David was considered a man after God’s own heart, not because of his righteousness, but because he believed God. Similarly was Lot who had to be drug out of Sodom kicking and screaming even after offering up his own daughters to the degenerates, or Noah who got hammered drunk and took off all his clothes, or Abraham who failed God many times, but scripture tells us was saved because he believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

The sooner people realize this is about God and faith and reliance upon Him alone, the sooner people can stop lying to themselves about their own righteousness and start relying upon Jesus instead.