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The Place of Scripture in the Life of the Church
One modern distortion stands out in our approach to revelation: our preference for the written word over (and even to the exclusion of) the spoken word. Another modern distortion is that we think of books as private rather than public. As Mary Mills explains in her commentary on Ecclesiastes, “in the modern world much reading is a private matter in which, through the possession of literacy skills, one individual engages with a text in a direct and personal manner.” The combined effect of those
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Mar 29th 2022
How Do We Know Which Books Early Christians Used in Liturgy?
As Valeriy Alikin of St. Petersburg Christian University explains,“Christians began to read apostolic epistles in their gatherings at the latest from the middle of the first century onwards.” At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul instructs,“I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brethren”(5:27). And after the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the leaders of theChurchsend Paul and St. Barnabas to Antioch with a letter addressed to“the brethren who are of
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Mar 21st 2022
Advent Apologetics: What is the “Word of God”?
The term word of God refers to God’s divine revelation to humanity, in which he reveals himself to us for the sake of our salvation. The Vatican II document Dei Verbum (DV) explains: Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate himself and the eternal decisions of his will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, he chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind (6). Christians generally agree that the full
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Dec 3rd 2020
The Deposit of Faith: How Scripture and Tradition Work Together
Catholicism teaches that the doctrines contained in Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and Sacred Tradition (the Church) are authoritative because God’s revelation is the source of both. The Catechism puts it this way: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the word of God” (97).This means that “both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence” (82).To some Protestants, this might sound blasphemous. The idea th
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Aug 4th 2020
Tradition in the Early Church
At first, the apostles conducted their teaching mission in a purely oral form. Peter preached a sermon on Pentecost.He did not issue a pamphlet.By teaching orally, the apostles followed the example of Jesus, who didn’t author any books, letters, or treatises. Only once do the Gospels mention Jesus writing, and that was with his finger on the ground (John 8:6, 8). Communicating God’s word orally was the most effective way to do it. The great majority of people—even in Israel—were illiterate.
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Dec 11th 2019