Q&A to a Troll in a Catholic website (Part 3): "What divine authority has revealed the contents of the Bible?"

PART III

*Months ago, I was visiting a favorite Catholic website of mine on Facebook and was reading a newly released article about our Blessed Virgin Mary. As I was reading various comments of Catholics regarding the article, I noticed one particular person who appears to be trolling under the comment box, unsolicitedly "refuting" different Catholic teachings to any one who would dare to read his comments and take the bait. As I skimmed through other articles of the site, I was baffled to see that same person trolling the comment boxes again under those respective articles, taking on anybody that challenges his varied assertions and accusations, one Catholic at a time that comes his way like in a one-man-versus-an-army martial arts fighting scene. I started to see his trend.

If I recall correctly, he said he used to be Catholic and now belong to some strain of Protestantism (among the roughly 33,000 in existence today) and the Bible alone (Sola Scriptura) is his sole authority. I told him that swapping Bible verses won't get us anywhere (to argue about Mary, Purgatory, Saints and all other Catholic beliefs that Protestants think are a bunch of hooey). Instead I politely ask him if he is willing to answer 3 fundamental questions about our Christian faith. He obliged although seemingly a bit reluctant at first, but answered it nevertheless. Here's one of the questions I raised, his reply and my response back on his reply:


Me: What divine authority has revealed the contents of the Bible?

His Reply: Thank you for asking. As believers, we know that God guided the formation of the bible, and essentially all of the books of the bible were already generally accepted as scripture when the bible (the compilation of scripture, a bookkeeping exercise) was generated. The Catholic church did great work in the librarian sense, with some protestants later putting chapter and verse numbers on the bible. All this is practical in order to reference scripture, but no librarian task had any effect, nor grants any authority over understanding or teaching scripture. That's misguided, though it is a view held by a small minority. Remember, scripture is God's word, and came from God, not from men. It doesn't require men to say it's so in order to be God's word.

My response: Sorry to say I don’t find your version of History compelling. You said “essentially all of the books of the bible were already 'generally accepted' as scripture when the bible was generated” but how do you know which scriptures belong to the Bible in the first place before it was generally accepted? In the first 4 centuries there are a lot of scriptures and books floating around, some spurious and false we now know today, that claims to be divinely inspired as well. How come books like: the gospel according to the Hebrews, St Paul’s epistle to the Laodiceans, Epistle of Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, Doctrine of the 12 apostles, Apostolic constitutions, the Gospel of James, gospel of Thomas, Acts of Pilate, Acts of Paul and Thecla and many others, why are these books not in our Bible today? If the Catholic Church did just bookkeeping and plays merely a librarian like you said, they played a lousy job compiling and missing out a lot of books. So how do we know only 27 New Testament books were accepted as divinely inspired and included in the Bible? Who said so? We don’t find any verse or chapter in the Bible that says Hebrews or Corinthians or Revelation, etc., should be included in the Bible’s table of contents. Scripture itself does not dictate its own table of contents. Again, there had to be an authoritative church before the Bible was compiled to determine what books belongs to the Bible.

It is a fact of history that the Councils of Hippo and of Carthage in 397 AD (all Catholic bishops) under Pope Damasus I, gathered and determined what books were divinely inspired and which one weren’t, settled the Canon or collection of new testament scriptures, decreed that its decision should be sent on to Rome for confirmation, and promulgated it to the whole world saying this is the Word of God that all Christians ought to read. This does not sound like a job of a mere librarian to me. Of course they were guided by the Holy Spirit in determining those books, Jesus said so in Matt 16:18-19; Luke 10:16. The chapters in the Bible were later put forth by 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton (he does not sound like a Protestant to me, either), and the verses where put by 16th-century French printer named Robert Estienne (better known as Stephanus).

So if you accept the authority of the Bible, then you accept the authority of the Catholic church because the Catholic church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, was the one who "hand-picked" and decided only 27 books were divinely inspired among the rest and compiled the Bible (Old Testament & New Testament) you and I and the whole world are now reading today. (The first Protestant, Martin Luther, an ex-Catholic priest, where do you think he got the Bible from)? If you don’t accept the authority of the Church, then you might as well throw the Bible out in your hands then, because the Bible is a product of Catholic tradition.

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Leading a charismatic worship: Another reason why I appreciate the Mass

Charismatic style of worship or popularly known as a Prayer Meeting, in a nutshell, is basically praising God together with fellow members in a Christian community. Usually it starts with an exhortation from the worship leader (to inspire or bring the congregation into the presence of the Holy Spirit), and then followed by fast and slow worship or gospel songs about 4 or 5 tracks.

It is originally a Protestant style of worship, fairly novel (early 20th century innovation), and still the main, normative and typical type of worship being done in various Protestant denominations in their Sunday services today. However, this is allowable in Catholic settings as well (gained popularity in the 1960's), approved by Popes including Pope Paul VI, Pope St. John Paul II and others (although not to be substituted or replaced for the Mass), and adopted by Catholic Charismatic groups.

I happened to belong to one particular ecumenical Charismatic-based Christian community here in the US. And I am currently one of only 6-7 persons in (roughly) 20+ families in the community that take turns in leading worship every other week.

When it is my time and schedule to lead, I have to prepare myself for the whole thing, usually a week before, sometimes longer. Although it is always a great privilege and a blessing to serve others and also an opportunity to "deny yourself and carry your cross" to share your time and service through leading a worship gathering, personally for me, preparation (and delivery) usually take some work, considering you have other daily concerns to attend to, like family and your day job that I bring home with me.

One of the toughest challenges in preparation for worship is looking for a material to be used for exhortation (of course, it is a given that you pray for wisdom, light and inspiration in everything you will do). After I found and worked on my material, executing and delivering it in front of people is another challenging "predicament." Once exhortation is done, you start your worship songs by cueing the music ministry and lead everyone to praise and worship by singing out loud, raising your hands and all that. During the music part, it is a standard practice that you as a worship leader initiate the community in vocal prayers in between those 4-5 song transitions and this pose a challenge as well. Spontaneity in vocalizing your prayers out loud actually requires a bit of preparation too (sounds oxymoronic) at least for me, and I do get mentally blocked or stumped or dry once in awhile, unfortunately. Even though brothers and sisters in the community generally don't mind if you make mistakes (the beauty of Christian charity and forgiveness at work), but in my sinful and proud nature, I can't help feeling a sense of embarrassment internally as well if I ever do.

These experiences brought me to reflect and see, and came to realize a certain perspective about the elements of the Mass in relation to Worship leading.

"How did our Lord really intend our worship to be?"

As a Catholic, we believe He intends that the highest form of worship is about the HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS as what the Apostles had been doing since the dawn of Christianity. Where prayers makes more sense and fitting if it is liturgical and formulary, rather than in spontaneity. Where the central part of worship is not the sermon or homily (no matter how lively or spiritually inspirational the preacher or pastor's talks are). Because if it is about preaching, worshiping our Lord pretty much hang almost solely on the knowledge, wisdom, talent, personal bible interpretation, current subjective disposition and prayer life of the pastor or speaker or the one leading the worship.

Thankfully, the good news is our Lord knew all too well how we should worship that is, not just more objective and consistent, but also more liberating for the pastor or the one leading. That is, He instituted the Mass in the upper room, where we can worship as one body--universal in scope. Not localized and not subjectively dependent on the preparedness and skill of the preacher. Wherever you are and wherever you go around the world, whichever Catholic church you hop into in every town, you hear the same liturgy, the same Gospel readings, the same rites. Across the globe, you can still know and understand (and participate more effectively and consistently) what is going on in the Mass inspite being celebrated in different languages. No worship service is as Christo-centric as the Holy Mass, wherein it directs yourself (and the one leading the worship, i.e. the priest) to focus on Jesus Christ Himself, and not on the "performance" and "meat" of the sermon of the worship leader and song choices to feed one's soul.

As a worship leader, I find it pretty liberating, indeed. It is liberating as a Catholic to know that preaching and singing songs of praise (though fun or entertaining and uplifting as it is) are not the core of worship, and thus it is more objective and consistent to worship our Lord regardless of how your feelings are or how bored you are at Mass, again simply because you are not subjectively dependent on how good or bad the preacher and the music bands are. And It is also liberating for pastors to know that they don't have to carry all the heavy burdens of preparation and leading week after week to come up with new fresh and inspirational ideas and materials in order to feed the flock spiritually. Giving a great homily or sermon is just icing on a cake, the liturgical Holy Mass worshiping our Almighty God mainly takes care of everything else (prayers of contrition, thanksgiving, supplication, petitions, praise, you name it). It has been for 2,000 years and counting.

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