Unity in the Magisterium - Part One

I must have been around four years old when I was first paraded in front of the church to sing with my sister. The song was “The B-I-B-L-E,” and I belted the words out with all the zeal I could muster. The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the book for me; I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!

I wasn’t sure what the words meant. Was I proclaiming that I would believe in the Bible even if I was completely alone in doing so? Or did it mean that I would believe only in the Bible and nothing else?

Years later, I realized that the song was proclaiming the second of these two possibilities, a little thing Protestant Reformers called Sola Scriptura. But as a small child, I just liked to sing about Jesus, and I had no idea the problems that existed in the theology of Sola Scriptura.

Then my dad switched denominations (Wesleyan to Presbyterian) and everything changed.

I think that is when I first realized that there are many interpretations of Holy Scripture and that just because it is the inspired Word of God, it doesn’t mean all Christians believe the same way. That is a perplexing thing. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to lead the Disciples into all Truth; so why didn’t we all believe the same thing? Truth isn’t just a matter of opinion. But some of the denominations had totally different ideas on when one should be baptized, how one is sanctified and justified before God, and if one can ever lose the gift of grace and mercy once he has it. The questions weren’t simply whether Eve ate an apple or pomegranate. These differences concerned key issues of life, death, and salvation.

To complicate matters further, it was about this same time that my cousins began receiving the charismatic Gifts of the Holy Spirit (they were Assembly of God), and neither the Wesleyans nor the Presbyterians talked about that at all. Obviously, there was a problem with “standing alone on the Word of God” because that’s exactly what everyone seemed to be doing. And nobody could agree on anything.

First and Second Peter talked about following sound doctrine. First John warned about being led astray. The Book of Jude said to beware of those who seek to divide. In First Corinthians, St. Paul reminded us to be perfectly united in mind and thought.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how this was possible.

If all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching as it said in Second Timothy, then we should all be teaching the same thing. And that’s just not what I saw happening. Furthermore, if there is a disagreement in the Body of Christ, the Bible says we are to take some of the elders with us to iron out the disagreement. Fine. But which elders? From which church?

Either Pontius Pilate was right when he said, what is truth? Or Truth is a constant. It can be taught. It can be trusted. It can settle quarrels rather than create them.

There was one more problem with “standing alone on the Word of God.” We live in a changing world. The Bible doesn’t directly address issues like abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, or human cloning. Where is the teaching voice that we can trust to interpret Scripture and guide us through the cultural changes? Who can help us to stand on the Word of God without having that same Word tear us apart? Who is the benefactress and keeper of Truth? Yes, the Holy Spirit leads us into all Truth, but which voice speaks for the Holy Spirit on issues that divide? Private inspiration had not inspired unity. It had inspired over 30,000 different denominations.

The Church had always been the pillar and foundation of Truth - not the Bible. And those were the words of Holy Scripture (Timothy 3:15-16). The Church, not the Bible alone.

Part Two in tomorrow's blog

(article by Denise Bossert first published by One Bread Lay Apostolate at http://www.1bread.catholic.org/)

Unity in the Magisterium - Part One

Unity in Baptism

When I became Catholic, I was asked one question regarding my baptism: Have you been baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? I was not asked my age at the time of baptism. I was not asked if I was baptized Presbyterian or Wesleyan or Baptist. I was not asked if someone sprinkled me, dunked me, or poured water over me. I was only asked if I had been baptized in the name of the Triune God.

In St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (4:5), we are told that there is one baptism. In the Gospel of Matthew (28:19), Jesus tells his disciples to “go into all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Since there is one baptism, and it had been done in the Name of the Triune God, there was no need to do it again. While it did not mean the Church and I were completely and perfectly One yet (as in one faith and one doctrine), it did mean that the miracle of unity had begun.

In the third chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, and Our Lord goes on to describe this new birth by saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

The Disciples called the crowds to baptism, and the people presented themselves to be baptized – they and their entire household with them. We see five references in the New Testament to the baptism of entire households (so that unity can encompass everyone under the roof). Peter baptized the household of Cornelius (Acts 11:14). In Philippi, Paul baptized the household of Lydia and the household of the jailer (Acts 16:15, 33). He also baptized the household of Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he refers to baptism of the household of Stephanas (1:16). Here’s something you may not realize – in the Greek, the word for household included everybody. Grandparent, parent, teen, child, and infant. It even included the servants and their families. Nowhere in the Bible does it turn away someone on account of age.

Through Baptism, we are born into the family, and we learn to walk and skip and run in the Spirit. We are taught “to preserve the unity,” by embracing the “One Body and One Sprit,” which we have because of our “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism; One God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:3-6).

Unity begins with baptism, it grows by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and it finds fullness in the arms of the Church.

(article by Denise Bossert first published by One Bread Lay Apostolate at http://www.1bread.catholic.org/)

Unity in Baptism