I believe every word, every punctuation in the Bible is HIS Word....Can you say that?
I believe in Sola Scriptura, which is why I'm a vanilla Roman Catholic simpliciter, to put it bluntly, and I think all the rest of you are wrong, just as simply put.
I'm not here because I have to be. I love it. It's at least a favorite hobby of mine, like some folks love to ski so much their whole winters, every year, center around skiing and ski trips. That's TOL for me. I want to ski better and better, each and every time I hit the slopes. idk any other way.
As soon as you get to the bishops (aka overseers) and elders (presbyters) when you're reading the Bible, those should have a personal connection for you as you continue to read, so that you can plug yourself into the story, because you do become a participant in the story at one point, and it's when the very first bishop was made, which was unwittingly done by ofc, Peter. He presided over the election of Matthias, who turned out to not be the Twelfth Apostle (that would be Paul), but Matthias was actually ritually commissioned to an actual office, even though it was not the apparent office of Apostle, which was obv held only by Jesus's students (aka Disciples).
That is the office of a bishop (see 1st Timothy 3:1, an epistle where Paul WRITES to a bishop, and names the office by name, he calls it the office of a bishop—he talks about his own ontology, himself as an Apostle, in distinction to bishops—Apostles and bishops are not the same—but there is a relationship between the Apostles and bishops—the FIRST GENERATION of bishops were all made directly by the Apostles, through the imposition of their OWN hands—this is all over Acts—such that when a bishop identified himself as a bishop, everybody knew, this man was touched by an Apostle, and these were people who believe in charms and fetishes (like rabbits' feet), and so there's more of a forceful communication of legitimacy for the ancients than it is for us, since we don't tend to believe in stuff like that (though compare the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologies of relics to most Evangelical theologies of relics).
The first generation of bishops were like the next best thing to having an actual Apostle with you.
The idea that Apostolicity is like the brilliance of the Sun, and that when the Apostles made the first generation of bishops, that ofc the Sun's brilliance diminishes the farther it travels away from the Sun, is one notion, but it isn't even the prima facie highest plausibility notion, when the Scripture is examined within the context of reliable, known and non-controversial history.
That notion would be that the full brilliance of the Sun is transmitted to the new bishops in its entirety and with no lack, such that Apostolicity in the first generation bishops, is of the same kind and concentration and purity today, as it was then. The actual men, like Matthias, like Silas, Luke, Timothy and Titus, were touched by Apostles.
Without the Apostles present, there was nobody who could credibly contradict the bishops. Not unless there was another bishop, and they had a squabble, then we would not know what to do—but alas. In Acts we actually see what the actual Apostles did when you had squabbling bishops. You have a Church council. All or at least near all and at the very least a sizable representation of all the bishops, gather together and have a conference.
We have good records, like records of an NFL championship game from the 1950s. We know what happened, we know what the game was like, we know the players, and we know who won.
That authority, to override bishops, is definitely Apostolic. And we know from our favored perch, centuries and centuries after the facts, in a World detached from the World where the Church is such a major societal influence, that the Church was ALWAYS right in ALL of these councils.
How is that possible, given all of the Church's current controversy and disagreements and factions?
Apostolicity. You have problems where you have some wayward bishops, perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, perhaps by accident, which is what I think a lot of Arian bishops were guilty of, more than anything else, it was just an accident. You convene a council. The council's conclusion is like a Supreme Court ruling here in the United States. It's like absolute law, and immediately valid, and so all these bishops who are on the wrong side, have to make a choice.
In Acts 15 the bishops on the wrong side had to make a choice. Apostolicity had spoken—Apostolicity had ruled. (In this case by the actual Apostles, which is in a sense beside the point, this was a pattern for future bishops; obv, now, looking back, with hindsight.)
The Church won like the first seven world championships, the first seven "ecumenical" Church councils. That brings us to the fifth century at the earliest. Which means Apostolicity was completely intact that WHOLE time, meaning it ontologically existed within the bishops, and it was transmitted from bishop to new bishop to new bishop.
And that's the authority of Apostolicity. So when the bishops start popping into the story of the Bible, if you don't have a personal connection in your mind, with the office of a bishop, then you're not reading the Bible the same way the earliest Church was reading the Bible, they all had a bishop. They knew their bishop, because this man was the next best thing to the Apostles, and the Apostles were the ones teaching and preaching the Gospel, and about our Lord Jesus Christ.
So they all had a personal connection to the Apostles in their minds, they either knew an Apostle personally, like Titus and Timothy and Luke and Matthias and Silas and Priscilla and Aquila. Or they knew a first generation bishop, and that was the next best thing, for a first generation Christian. But everybody had access to Apostolicity directly, through their bishop.
If you don't have direct access to Apostolicity in the Biblical pattern, meaning through your bishop, then you're not reading the Bible right. You're wrongly dividing it.
$$ Ac 1:25
That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
$$ Ac 1:26
And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
I'm an Acts 1 Dispensationalist, aka a vanilla Roman Catholic simpliciter. This was NOT Matthias becoming an Apostle, as Peter wrongly thought (what else is new). But it was the creation of the very first bishop. And this is where you as a Christian today, should start identifying with the story directly, kind of like when Luke suddenly starts using the words "we" and "us", and becomes part of Acts later on, once Matthias is made a bishop, now you are actively participating in the story yourself, because you, have a bishop.
Or at least you're supposed to.
So ... yeah. I believe every word of the Scripture, just like you.
