Sola Scriptura: The Freedom of a New Authority

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Mental health requires that the human will submit itself to something higher than itself. To function decently in this world we must submit ourselves to some principle that takes precedence over what we want at any given moment.”

~M. Scott Peck (1936-2005), American psychiatrist and author

“Americans have…a new rule written into their mental operating systems: Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative. …Today, each of us is freer than ever to custom-make reality, to believe whatever and pretend to be whoever we wish. Which makes all the lines between actual and fictional blur and disappear more easily. Truth in general becomes flexible, personal, subjective. And we like this new ultra-freedom, insist on it, even as we fear and loathe the ways so many of our…fellow Americans use it.”

~Kurt Anderson in “How America Lost Its Mind”, Atlantic Monthly (9/2017), adapted from his new book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

“Everything I have said and done…is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and…objective immortal truth…then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity… [T]he modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”

~Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian fascist dictator

“…we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings.”

~Gregory of Nyssa, 4th century bishop

“…there is the view that God still speaks to us independent of the Bible. Drink this milk for a number of years and you will soon be attributing to God the inner voices coming from your fallen self.”

~Conrad Mbewe, pastor in Lusaka, Zambia

“But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!”

~John Calvin (1509-1564) Swiss reformer

SERMON PASSAGE

Selected passages

Ephesians 2 (NASB)

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone

Galatians 1 (NASB)

8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

…11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:1-9, 11, 14 (ESV)

“I went up…[to Jerusalem to] set before [the other apostles] the gospel that I [received]…. And…those…who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel…just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel…they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me….”

“But when [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. …I saw that [his] conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel…”

John 1 (NASB)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 8 (NASB)

31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

2 Timothy 3 (NASB)

15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Proverbs 29 (ESV)

18 Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.