West Wyalong Mission: West Wyalong, Tallimba, Rankins Springs, Lake Cargelligo, Tullibigeal, Ungarie, Burcher, and the Bolo Farm Chapel.
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Residential Address: 47 Church Street, West Wyalong NSW, 2671.
Postal Address: PO Box 64, West Wyalong, NSW 2671.
Fr Dominic Byrne
0269723655 Twitter: @DoHmmmmm
The Office is formally open on Wednesday (9am - 5pm) and on Thursday (8:30am - 12pm) and is also attended by Fr Dominic most days other than Friday and Saturday when he is in Lake Cargelligo.

Who can teach the truth with the same authority as Jesus?

“God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God…. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God” (1 Cor. 2: 10; 12).

Some say that Jesus alone was able to teach infallibly. This excludes someone like the Pope teaching infallibly. They use the Bible to teach but claim it can’t be interpreted infallibly by anyone, as if the Bible only led to doubt and not to the truth that Jesus said he would, “bear witness to…” (Jn. 18: 38 RSV). The Bible must help the Church teach others, “all that I have commanded…” (Mt. 28: 20).

Believing that no one can interpret the Bible infallibly leads to a fallible understanding of faith and morals, and ensures that the Christian community looks no different to any other. Then, any authority given to scripture is subjective and fleeting, allowing for the multiplicity of churches. With growth there must be a continuity of Theology’s truth. Without the ability to teach infallibly, each church is left to teach without a consistent truth or teach error on the whole. If no one has any authority to teach the truth about faith and morals, people are left to merely give an opinion, educated or otherwise, and the truth that Jesus said that he would teach can never be taught. Then, error would have to be accepted in heaven and on earth—in his Church (cf. Mt. 16: 19).

The true Church that Jesus hoped to begin must possess the same truth that Jesus possessed. The Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles, so that error was not accepted in heaven nor in his Church. This is what Jesus declared when he said, “the Holy Spirit…[will] teach you everything” (Jn. 14: 26). From time to time, error does pop up, but not for long enough for it to become doctrine, at least within the original Church that Jesus founded.  Scripture tells us that the Church “…of the living God, [is] the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

The truth that Jesus bears witness to is from within his Kingdom, whilst he is with us “to the close of the age” (Mt. 28: 20). When Jesus says, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects you rejects me” (Lk. 10: 16), he admits that his authority and his infallible nature are what the disciples also possess, to teach the truth on matters of faith and morals. Jesus also says, “I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (Lk. 10: 19). How could such an authority predispose the Apostles, and all who followed them, to teach errors on faith and morals that would guide people away from the truth? By virtue of being guided by the Holy Spirit, your interpretation is infallible. If the books of the Bible are infallible then those who wrote them must also have been infallible. Therefore, Jesus is not the only person who was or is infallible.

The power of binding and loosing (cf. Mt. 16: 19) was given to further Jesus’ Kingdom and not to individuals for the sake of their own efforts. Pride can lead a person to an unhealthy mistrust of any church, granting themselves permission to rely solely on their interpretation of the Bible. People legitimise their own opinion by inflating the errors of a church in order to leave that church. They never notice that they also move away from the truth that can come from a church. The fear of a church teaching error perpetuates only more fear, something Satan applauds.

The Church that Jesus founded can teach with authority—teach the same truth that he taught. The person who oversees that Church can teach with the same authority as that Church.  

"I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment" (1 Cor. 1: 10-11).

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