Steve
Ray, a Catholic apologist, has an article from This Rock magazine, "Why
the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura," that is available now online here.
It is a very good refutation of how many Protestant apologists appeal to Acts
17:11 as "proof" that the Bereans and the New Testament Church taught
sola scriptura. As Ray writes:
The Bereans,
on the other hand, were not adherents of sola scriptura, for they
were willing to accept Paul’s new oral teaching as the word of God (as Paul
claimed his oral teaching was; see 1 Thess. 2:13). The Bereans, before
accepting the oral word of God from Paul, a tradition as even Paul himself
refers to it (see 2 Thess. 2:15), examined the Scriptures to see if these
things were so. They were noble-minded precisely because they "received
the word with all eagerness." Were the Bereans commended primarily for
searching the Scriptures? No. Their open-minded willingness to listen was the primary reason
they are referred to as noble-minded—not that they searched the Scriptures. A
perusal of grammars and commentaries makes it clear that they were
"noble-minded" not for studying Scripture, but for treating Paul more
civilly than did the Thessalonians—with an open mind and generous courtesy (see
I. Howard Marshall, "The Acts of the Apostles" in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1981], 5:280).
I
myself discussed and exegeted Acts 17:11 in this
blog post.
