An Orthodox Perspective on Sola Scriptura (w/ Fr. Josiah Trenham)

would you like me to say anything about solas scriptura if you'd like yeah you you mentioned i think it's the heresy that begets the other protestant heresies if i'm that might be a slight misquote but yeah maybe uh speak on that for a second you know i think most protestants who enthusiastically champion so the scriptura are doing are doing it from piety what they're trying to say is that these words are from god and we trust them 100 uh that is in fact not what sola scriptura means that is the orthodox mind and the catholic mind as well as the protestant mind that no one's questioning the preciousness and the centrality of holy scripture there was a time in the roman catholic world where the church discouraged believers from reading the scriptures that is true and the protestants are right to criticize that although the opposite idea that everyone should read it and think that it's perspicuous which is a protestant doctrine that means that perspicary in latin means to be able to see through to be you know translucent the idea that scripture is just going to make itself obvious to people who read it is not the case uh so orthodox christians are very aware that we need to read scripture but we need to read it in accordance with the way that the church has understood it sola scriptura on in its formal definition is saying that the the scriptures hold a unique authority and uh are the only authority to which we can appeal for establishing dogma and we would just say that that is nowhere taught uh in scripture as a matter of fact scripture itself says it's not sola for instance saint paul who was the spiritual father of the church in the city of thessaloniki which by the way to this day is a very vibrant church i mean i was once when i was a new orthodox priest i was in greece and i was celebrating the liturgy uh with a very esteemed older priest and we were at one of the ancient churches in thessaloniki and i noticed that the bishop's throne behind the altar there's always on the eastern wall uh what's called a scene thrown on a a a throne that's with the altar where the bishop would stand at certain parts like during the gospel reading for instance and i noticed that in that throne it was roped off and it had an icon of saint paul sitting on the on the seat of the throne and i asked him i said why is your your throne your bishop's throne roped off and why is saint paul there he said oh our bishop would never sit on that i said it's his throne i mean what are you talking about he goes no no that's the rostrum from which paul preached in downtown thessaloniki in the first century wow 2 000 years later right it's it's roped off with his icon on it because uh and now i understood why no bishop wanted to stand on it but uh i got it but when paul was was teaching that he spent months and months and months with that church teaching them every day and he wrote to them two letters which are in the new testament right first and second thessalonians and he said in those letters he said that to stand fast and to hold to the teaching that i delivered to you either by writing or by word of mouth so now imagine that you were a christian in that church and that saint paul was your spiritual father he had baptized you he had taught you the faith and he and you had spent a year every day listening to his teachings because he was trying to establish you he left you two measly letters eight chapters right that compared to what you would have heard for a year of daily teaching are we supposed to think that the moment he died at the hands of nero in rome all of the thessalonian christians said everything he taught us before is now only possible the only things we have to obey are the things that are written in the letters i mean of course on its surface it's just beyond ridiculous that's just not how it works there was no one in the church who thought that the apostolic teaching which is the authority but which comes in two ways both through oral instruction and through writing that's the authority what you heard from the amounts of the apostles is what's inspired that's why the scripture is scripture because it actually comes from the mouth of the apostles this is the orthodox mind the idea that the written portion of the apostolic teaching could be set apart by itself outside of the context of the oral uh is not feasible and so the follow-up on that would be that and the corollary is so we see it in scripture but then that tradition is lived out in the church it's passed on through apostolic succession or just like the like of the church in general okay yes and that doesn't mean everything is apostolic tradition but there are many things that are so for instance saint basil the great in his famous work on the holy spirit he describes aspects of holy apostolic tradition that were never codified in scripture but that the church has never questioned uh one of those is the making of the sign of the cross another one is praying towards the east another is baptizing by trying immersion and immersion in the name of the holy trinity so those are three clear aspects of apostolic tradition that are universal and have been done by the church in all places throughout her history that saint basil says are just as authoritative as anything found in [Music] scripture [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Gospel Simplicity

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Keywords: Fr. Josiah Trenham, Fr. Trenham, Sola Scriptura, Orthodox Sola Scriptura, Orthodoxy and sola scriptura, orthodoxy on reformation, orthodox vs protestant, rock and sand, sola scriptura debunked, sola scriptura refuted, scripture and tradition, fr josiah, st andrews riverside, gospel simplicity, austin suggs

Id: oi0l2M5u5Cc

Length: 5min 53sec (353 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020