Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 5
May 28, 1953
NUMBER 4, PAGE 5b

"Is The Bible The Sole Guide?"

R. Ervin Driskill, Columbus, Georgia

We continue with the third installment of our answer to the Catholic Ad in the Ledger, October 19, 1952 issue. Catholic quotation: "And Christ had established His church.... long before any books of the New Testament were written. The Savior did not command us to read anything, but He did command us to hear His church." The reasoning (if indeed it can be called reasoning) goes like this — the church got along without the written word (Bible) in the first century and can get along without it now; the church existed before the written word (Bible) and can exist without it today. It is true the church existed prior to the written word (New Testament) and got along without the written word (New Testament) for a time but the church did not exist before the INSPIRED word (unwritten word) existed, nor did the first church get along without what is in the written word (Bible).

The church did not exist before Pentecost, of Acts 2, but THE PREACHING OF THE INSPIRED WORD, ON THAT DAY, PRODUCED THAT FIRST CHURCH therefore, the INSPIRED WORD (that which is in the inspired book — BIBLE — now, existed before the church. The idea that the church produced the word of God instead of the word producing the church is Catholic propaganda, designed to hoodwink people into believing the Romish Church is the authority in Christianity. The Romish Church had nothing to do with giving us the written word (as we showed in last weeks article) neither did they have anything to do with the giving of the unwritten word (proclaimed by inspired men) of the first century. God has preserved a record of what inspired men taught (Bible) and these inspired men were not Roman Catholic nor Protestant. They were Christians; members of the church Jesus built and thus the word has come to us from God and not from any Catholic or Protestant group or individual.

That the Romish Church existed, before any of the New Testament books, is not true. The "mystery of iniquity or lawlessness" (2 Thess. 2:7) which later produced the Apostate church was at work when Paul wrote this letter but the Apostate Body had not developed before the writing of these New Testament books. If the Catholic Church wishes to affirm they existed, before any of the New Testament books were written, we will accommodate them by denying it. The only time Jesus said; "hear the church" is in Matt. 18:17. This, however, was to care for conditions or differences that would come up between individuals in the LOCAL congregation (church) and does not pertain to doctrine or dogma, and does not fit the idea of hearing an ecclesiastical hierarchy.