Catholic
apologists and sometimes other (errant) critics of sola scriptura often argue
thusly:
Christ Himself never wrote a line, nor ever commanded
His apostles to write.
The problems is
that this is simply false.
Firstly, in Rev
1:1-3, we read the following:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to
show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his
angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the
testimony of Jesus Christ, even to al that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads
aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep
what is written in it; for the time is near.
In this text,
the resurrected Jesus, through an angel from heaven, commands John to write the
revelation he received.
In Matt 26:13,
speaking of the woman who anointed Him, Jesus Himself said:
Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall
be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath
done, be told for a memorial of her.
It seems
strange that Jesus would expect the apostles to orally preach this anointing as
part of their oral proclamation of the Gospel; it would seem to be more
realistic to interpret this verse as teaching that Jesus understood that the
record of this anointing would be made available as part of a larger written
volume discussing various incidents in His life.
These two
passages in the New Testament, one explicitly, the other implicitly, refutes
this rather weak argument against sola scriptura.
To be sure,
sola scriptura is false, and I
have written much against it, but a critic of this doctrine should ensure
that their arguments against such do not lack exegetical soundness and
intellectual integrity.
