Sola Scriptura: The Freedom of a New and Better Word

REFLECTION QUOTES

“[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

~Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), U.S. Founding Father

“Americans have…a new rule written into their mental operating systems: Do your own thing, find your own reality, it’s all relative. …Today, each of us is freer than ever to custom-make reality.”

~Kurt Anderson in “How America Lost Its Mind”, Atlantic Monthly (9/2017), adapted from his new book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion….”

~John Adams (1735-1826) in a 1798 speech warning his fellow countrymen

“Scripture is its own light. It is a fine thing when Scripture explains itself.”

“[Christ] is everywhere, but he does not wish that you grope for him everywhere. Grope rather where the Word is, and there you will lay hold of him in the right way.”

“Christ is the center of the circle, and all stories in Holy Scripture, viewed aright, have to do with Christ”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer

“It is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Scripture.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Italian Dominican friar

“Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures.”

~Cyril of Alexandria, 5th century bishop

SERMON PASSAGE

Selected Passages (NASB)

Ephesians 2

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone…

Luke 24

44 Now [Jesus] said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Hebrews 1

1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.