Sola Scriptura

Jolly Blogger has started up a Carnival of the Reformation. By way of explanation, a Carnival is when a blogger collects a bunch of posts by different people in one place, so you go to the Carnival and you can read a whole host of opinions/viewpoints, and if the carnival has a theme, like this one, then all the posts will be on the same main topic.

The "Reformed" part of this particular carnival means that all the participants hold to tenets that came from the Protestant Reformation. As far as I am concerned, I am an Evangelical but since I hold with Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide and Soli Dei Gloria "Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone" then apparently I am also Reformed :-)

Most of the posts in the Carnival will probably be quite technical/theological I guess, but me, I don't really do theology :-) I know what I believe when it comes to the important things (like salvation!) but I'm more interested in talking about how to get kids interested in church than I am in discussing pre/post/amillenialism... lol.

So my contributions to the Carnival will be like my usual posts... mostly based on what goes on in my life.

So, with that introduction, I give you my first entry, to the first edition of the Carnival of the Reformation, which incidentally has the theme "Sola Scriptura".

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My extremely rusty Italian was enough for me to understand the meaning of "Sola Scriptura" the first time I heard it... and in any case, in Maltese our word for "Scripture" is indeed "Skrittura".

Being in a Catholic country, Sola Scriptura comes up pretty much every time that I talk to someone about religion.

A couple of months I realised just how powerful it really is - I was talking religion to two people (plus another three who drifted in and out) and I was being bombarded with questions by people who had never met anyone like me before - an ex-Catholic.

Over and over I found myself saying "Because that's what the Bible says! My faith is based on the Bible only! The reason I don't believe in what you are saying is because that's not in the Bible."

It was only afterwards that I realised what I had been doing - although I was just defending myself, it was cool that I had been repeatedly pointing to the Bible!

I have been with a new friend who likes to witness to people a lot :-) and one time I heard her make the statement "You don't even have to believe anything that we are saying. Just read the Bible, because everything we believe and everything we are telling you is in there."

It sounded kinda wierd at first, because so often we are told that what we say to people when witnessing is so important... but really I guess it's not :-D Then later I used it myself, and it was very liberating to say that, actually, because that took most of the pressure off me to "say the right thing"! I mean, I still answer all the questions and explain whatever the person wants to know, but I'm not asking them to believe what I'm saying because they like me or because I have glib answers or whatever - only because it's the truth, and they can go see that for themselves.

Sola Scriptura may sound like a simple concept, but when it comes to Catholicism it's like dynamite.

That's because most of what makes Catholicism Catholicism is found in the Tradition rather than the Bible sources of doctrine. Specially when it comes to the kinds of folk Catholicism that you find a lot in Mediterranean countries (like Malta, duh), where many of the beliefs handed down aren't actually official doctrine from the Vatican.

So when I come in spouting Sola Scriptura and we get down to the nitty gritty of what this Scriptura actually says, the Catholic gets told that all of the following come from tradition and are rejected under Sola Scriptura, either because they're not found in the Bible, because us anathema heretics reformed Christians interpret the verses differently, or because it actually goes against what the Bible says: Mary remained a virgin the whole of her life, Jesus had no brothers or sisters, the bread becomes the actual physical body of God during the Mass, Mary was without sin, Mary ascended body and soul into heaven (the assumption), if you want God to forgive your sins then you have to confess to a priest who has the power to forgive you, if you want to go to heaven then you have to: be baptized, have communion, go to mass at least once a week, be nice to other people, have the last rites when you are near death, and even then you're NEVER assured of your salvation...

So yeah, powerful stuff that Sola Scriptura.

I would never get away with saying all that stuff if I didn't have the defense "But that's what the Bible says!" :-)

So what does Sola Scriptura mean to a Maltese Catholic?

It means the rejection of pretty much everything that you've ever been taught about God, Jesus and Mary, by your parents, your teachers, your priests... it means the rejection of your family's beliefs, of your friends' beliefs... but it also means stepping into the New Testament age of grace, and receiving salvation from a close, personal and loving Father instead of condemnation from a cold, distant and uncaring God.

It also means becoming part of a small but close community of broken and loving people who have also been through the pain of the transition, who know the hurt that your family, friends and even aquaintances can inflict on you for breaking away. It means becoming part of God's family, instant brothers and sisters of all ages, a family that will always have a place for you no matter what happens because now...

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Comments

[LittleA]

Great post.

It really is liberating to know that *we* aren't the ones that "save" people. Salvation is the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit. We are called to bear witness of the Good News, but the hearer of the Good News is the one responsible for what they will do with it.

We studied Luke chapter 8 last week in Sunday School - The Parable of the Seed (Sower). At the end of this parable, Jesus says for those who have ears to hear. Later in the chapter he again talks about how we should be careful how we hear.

Jesus is speaking about the responsibility of the hearers of the Word. They (we) must decide what they (we) will do with it. Those who truly "hear" will be the ones who bear fruit and who are like candles, spreading light. Others will seem to hear, but they will not bear fruit and will not spread light.

It's so easy to think that the fruit He speaks of is the salvation of others, but it's not. We bear fruit/spread light when we tell others of OUR salvation.

I'd better end now before I wind up reteaching the whole lesson. :-)

[MaltaGirl]

Thanks for sharing :-) That's a good point, that the fruit is actually us sharing (like the wise-man-built-his-house-upon-the-rock thingy, many people think it is about salvation but really it's about obedience)

I don't mind you re-teaching the lesson since I wasn't there for the first one ;-)