shadmans Musings  

(8) See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (9) For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, (10) and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;   (2:8-10) To begin a study of this verse we must first define a term which is only used once in the Bible, and therefore cannot be considered a biblical term since its usage is in a negative light. That is the only way we can understand what Paul is saying in this verse.  The term in question is the word “philosophy”. So, what exactly is philosophy? The word comes from two Greek words, phileo , which means “to love” and sophia , which means “wisdom.” Philosophy is therefore the love and pursuit of wisdom. In some ways it’s what causes us to ask questions like “who am I?”, “why am I here?”, and “where am I going?”. ...

If I haven’t touched a nerve in those that reject Sola Scriptura so far then this next Church father might just do so, not that I’m purposely trying to do that. As I’ve examined the major early Church fathers, I’ve been systematically creating what I’ve been calling a ‘firewall’ between Jesus and the Apostles and the later Church fathers when it comes to their view of tradition. To make sure my terminology is understood properly, I simply mean that because there is no mention of the ‘type’ of tradition the Catholic Church says existed during the early church era, there is a real and demonstrable break between the Apostles and the later Church fathers. I’ve been writing this series because the Catholic Church believes that ‘tradition’ has the same authority as Scripture. As a reminder, the Catholic Church’s view of ‘tradition’ is an Apostolic teaching which has remained unwritten for the past 2000 years and has been orally preserved and transmitted its content over those years by the ‘...