BreadOfLife said:
1)The verses above are
NOT a guarantee to the
individual - but top the
CHURCH as a whole.
2)As for your statement that you
never said that
"anyone" can interpret the Scriptures -
WHO, then has the Authority to do it?
3)Finally - Peter
DID warn against self interpretation because so many were
twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction
(2 Pet. 3:16)
1) i respect that the RCC attempts to present an earthly, unified Church, ok. I just find the model to be against Scripture. Which i understand that you do not, although i'm not sure how you might address a religion with billions of adherents, "Christianity," as a "narrow path." Another way to put that is that it is the individual that is called to "change their mind," and while i guess in your current view the mind-changing is a call to join a religion, and agree with its tenets, and defend them, ferociously, and go start pulling tares--which i am still doing myself, i guess, right here; i am your twin brother, tbh, attitude and all--i dimly perceive that there is another, better way. You say that those verses are not a guarantee to the individual, and i can't imagine how you justify this. Isn't the conclusion there, "Well, i joined the RCC, so i am assured of salvation?"
2) anyone reading with the Spirit as their guide, i guess. And i am coming to see that this person will evince some uniquely Scriptural attributes, that i only wish i could get a handle on, lol;
a)they will recognize and admit that they do not know the truth as an absolute, an objective,
b)beliefs will be untangled from faith,
c)the living nature of the Bible will be admitted, and it will be understood that a Passage might be understood in more than one way (many currently do this only when it serves their agenda, i guess)
d)when a passage is being discussed, Its contrasting Passage will be brought out,
e)condemnation of another's pov will fall by the wayside
f)no conclusions will be assumed, and thus no beginning premises will arise from them (ie "a saved person is one who is going to be Raptured when Jesus comes back and takes all believers to their Mansions in the Sky," etc)
3)i don't disagree, and we have plenty of popes demonstrating the idea, to put it unkindly. But what is not being recognized there, it seems to me, that those were to those popes destruction, and imo the believing Catholics of the day were not condemned because of them, which would negate your assertion that some passage is meant for a Corporate (fleshly) Church?