Shadowing Practice: Tradition and Scripture: Meeting the Identity Challenge - Learn English Speaking with Video

Catholics often appeal to 2 Thessalonians 2.15 to support the belief that both Scripture and tradition communicate God's revelation to us.

There, Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold fast to the traditions they received, whether by word of mouth or by written letter.

But many Protestants push back.

They argue that Catholics wrongly assumed that by quote-unquote traditions, Paul meant things other than what would later get written down in Scripture.

So are Catholics reading too much into this?

Are we mistaken?

Stick around, and we'll work through it together.

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All right, let's dive in.

The Second Vatican Council and his Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, taught that the Church,

quote, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the Holy Scriptures alone, close quote.

That comes from Section 9.

Consequently, the Council concludes, quote,

both Scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence, close quote.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms this in paragraph 82.

A key biblical text that Catholics cite in support of this teaching is 2 Thessalonians 2.15.

Right after speaking about the Thessalonians being saved through, quote, belief in the truth, close quote, to which they were called through the quote-unquote gospel,

Paul writes, stand firm and hold to the traditions, Greek their periodoses, which you were taught by us either by a word of mouth or by letter.

Notice that, word of mouth or letter.

For Paul, the truth of the gospel is found in sacred tradition, along with sacred scripture.

So, we shouldn't look to scripture alone to know God's revelation.

We must also look to the non-written apostolic tradition.

Both are binding.

So the argument goes.

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

some Protestants respond by saying Catholics wrongly assume that these quote-unquote traditions include truths not also contained in Scripture.

For example, Protestant apologist Ron Rhodes, in his book Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics, argues as follows, quote,

The apostles for a time communicated their teachings orally until those teachings could be permanently recorded in written form.

That comes from pages 79 to 80 of his book.

He then quotes 19th century Bible expositors, Jameson, Faucet, and Brown for support, who write this.

inspired tradition in paul's sense is not a supplementary oral tradition completing our written word

but it is identical with the written word now complete then

the latter written word not being complete the tradition was necessarily in part oral in part written

and continued so until the latter written word being complete before the death of St. John, the last apostle.

The former oral tradition was no longer needed.

That comes from their 1882, a commentary critical, experimental, and practical on the Old and New Testaments.

The late Norman Geisler and Ralph McKenzie make a similar argument, and their book, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, Agreements and Differences.

Here's what they write, quote,

The traditions, teachings of the apostles that were revelations were written down.

There is no evidence

that all the revelation God gave the apostles to express was not inscripturated in the 27 books of the New Testament.

Close quote.

So in short, for these guys, oral tradition and written scripture are identical.

Or to be more precise, oral apostolic tradition and written scripture are identical.

There's nothing in the oral apostolic preaching, so the argument goes, that isn't also in scripture.

Okay, so here's my first response.

At least the way Rhodes, Geisler, and McKenzie present this argument, it's simply an assertion.

They assert that everything the apostles preached was written down in their inspired apostolic writings,

but they don't actually provide evidence from the New Testament to support that claim.

And here's why that matters.

If a Protestant oath is the sola scriptura, then he's going to have to justify his theological claims from Scripture alone.

So if he believes that everything the apostles preached was later inscripturated, and that belief cannot itself be demonstrated from Scripture,

well then he faces a dilemma.

Either he must reject that belief or admit that it's not binding as part of the Christian faith.

Either way, the assertion doesn't help the challenge.

Now, to be fair, some Protestants do attempt to argue for this identity claim from Scripture, and I'll deal with those arguments in a future episode.

But as it stands here, this version of the challenge doesn't succeed.

Okay, my second response.

If the oral apostolic traditions are identical to the inspired apostolic writings, Well, then Paul's command in 2 Thessalonians 2.15 becomes redundant.

Why command believers to hold fast to the oral apostolic traditions if everything in them is already in their writings?

He could have just said, stick to the written epistles.

The distinction itself strongly suggests there's content within the oral apostolic traditions that are not in their inspired apostolic writings.

Finally, the identity claim is just factually false.

The New Testament itself gives us examples of apostolic teachings,

divinely revealed truths, that are not contained in their inspired apostolic writings.

Let's look at a few of them.

In Mark 13, 14, Jesus speaks of the, quote, desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be, close quote.

And Mark inserts, let the reader understand

That implies the reader knows what Jesus is talking about

Yet nowhere in the New Testament do we get an explanation of what Jesus is talking about In 2 Thessalonians 2,

3-6, the very same chapter of the primary verse under consideration And the preceding verses,

Paul talks about the quote-unquote man of lawlessness and says to the Thessalonians, you know what is restraining him now.

But he never tells us what's restraining him.

It's not recorded in his written epistles.

He reminds them that he taught them that when he was with them, but he doesn't record it.

In 1 Corinthians 5.9, Paul mentions a previous letter to the Corinthians, one that we don't possess.

In Colossians 4.16, he refers to a letter to the Laodiceans.

Whether that's the epistle to the Ephesians or a lost letter, the point still stands.

There were apostolic writings we no longer have.

And if what Paul wrote was inspired, and most Christians agree it was,

well then, there were divinely revealed truths not contained in the New Testament canon.

In 1 Corinthians 15.29, Paul references, quote-unquote, baptisms for the dead.

But he doesn't explain what that means.

Nor does he say if what they were doing is good or bad.

Whatever Paul's full teaching on that practice was, it isn't fully preserved in scripture.

In 1 Corinthians 11, 34, after giving instructions about the Eucharist, Paul says, when I come, I'll give you further directions.

This comes right after Paul gave warnings in verses 27 through 30 about receiving the Eucharist in an unworthy manner

and without discerning the Lord's body.

Those further directions, therefore, would have concerned the Eucharist.

Surely a matter of divine revelation just as much as what he taught in the previous verses.

Yet, they're not recorded.

You see the pattern?

John does something similar.

In John 21-25, he says that Jesus did many other things that were not written.

100

In 2 John 12 and 3 John 13-14, he says he has much more to write, but he prefers to speak to them face-to-face.

101

Surely that face-to-face instruction included apostolic teaching, which entails divinely revealed truths.

102

Finally, Protestants themselves believe certain truths about divine revelation that are not found in the New Testament.

103

I'll just list three here for brevity's sake.

104

I plan to do a full episode on this in a future episode, so stay tuned.

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So here are the three.

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One, Jesus will not appear again to appoint new apostles, like he did for Paul.

107

Two, public revelations ceased with the death of the last apostle.

108

And three, there will be no new inspired scriptures.

109

These are theological truths held by Protestants to be binding for

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Christian belief yet they're not stated in the new testament and

111

if someone appeals to jude 3 where jude says the faith

112

has been once for all delivered to the saints that's not going to work

113

because he would have to reject the epistle of jude itself

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or at least all the verses that come after verse 3

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since all christian doctrine would have already been delivered complete by the time they were written.

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But no Christian wants to do that.

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So the identity claim that the oral apostolic teachings are the same as the inspired apostolic writings simply doesn't hold up biblically.

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Now, some Protestants, like James White in his 2024 debate with Alex, who at the time had the channel Voice of Reason,

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respond by saying that these passages are futile as defeaters,

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Because sola scriptura doesn't require scripture to contain everything that God ever revealed.

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Instead, it only requires that scripture contain everything God intends future generations to believe.

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Here's how White puts it in his debate with Alex.

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The apostles did not address all topics, nor did they need to, nor did the Lord Jesus Christ have to address all topics in everything that he said.

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God is going to give us what he wants us to have.

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The New Testament does not give us an exhaustive account of every word Jesus ever said.

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That is not an argument against Sola Scriptura, because Sola Scriptura is not claiming that we have everything that Jesus said, or that we need everything that Jesus said.

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Now, I actually think White's counter here succeeds within the context of that debate.

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The examples I shared earlier don't automatically defeat White's version of Sola Scriptura.

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And unfortunately, some Catholic apologists have overplayed that hand, as Alex did in that debate.

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But my appeal to non-written apostolic teachings wasn't to say, here are non-written apostolic doctrines you must believe.

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It was simply to refute the identity claim.

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And the New Testament evidence that I shared indeed does that.

133

Now, I do think those examples testified to in the New

134

Testament of non-written apostolic teachings can help us out in another way.

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They show us the theological worldview of the apostles, and that's important.

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The apostles were not operating with a scripture-only paradigm.

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They lived and taught within what we might call a two-fold stream understanding of divine revelation.

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oral apostolic teaching, and inspired apostolic writings.

139

Most Protestants admit this applied during the apostolic age.

140

They argue Sola Scriptura became the paradigm only after the apostles died, or after unwritten traditions were lost.

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Here's my contention.

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If that's true, and the apostles were working off of a two-fold strain view of divine revelation,

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Well then, the New Testament passages normally used to support sola scriptura cannot possibly teach sola scriptura.

144

Take for example, 2 Timothy 3, 16-17, a favorite for Sola Scriptura advocates.

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Paul says Scripture is inspired and profitable for making the man of God complete and equipped for every good work.

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Many Protestants see Sola Scriptura there.

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But Paul says nothing that would indicate he has in mind future Christians centuries later.

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He's speaking directly to Timothy, giving Timothy instructions how to fulfill his ministry as a quote-unquote man of God.

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This being the case, Paul can only have in mind the two-fold string paradigm of revelation, not the scripture-only paradigm.

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And the text itself shows that Paul did in fact have this paradigm in mind.

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In verse 15, Paul tells Timothy that the sacred writings he was acquainted with from his childhood, that would be the Old Testament,

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instructed him for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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Now, how could the Old Testament have instructed Timothy for salvation through Jesus when the Old Testament never mentions Jesus,

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at least explicitly?

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Well, the answer is through the apostolic preaching.

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So Paul cannot be teaching sola scriptura in that passage because he doesn't have the future church in mind,

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and he's operating within a paradigm that includes both written scripture and unwritten inspired apostolic teaching.

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Again, he's operating off of the twofold stream view of divine revelation.

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Now, a Protestant might try and counter that although Paul isn't directly thinking of future generations,

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that doesn't mean we can't extract Sola Scriptura principles that would apply to Christians in the future.

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But that just misses the point of my argument.

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I'm not saying that Paul can't be teaching Sola Scriptura simply because he's not thinking of future generations.

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Rather, it's the lack of consideration for the future church along with his theological worldview of the twofold streams of divine revelation.

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Such a view of divine revelation excludes any possibility that Paul would be laying down sola scriptural principles in the first place.

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Moreover, if we allow for Paul's teaching to apply to future generations,

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well then it's going to be the two-fold string paradigm of divine revelation that would carry forward, not sola scriptura.

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So let's sum it up.

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First, it's just simply false that oral apostolic teachings are identical to the inspired apostolic writings.

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Second, it's true that the existence of non-written apostolic teachings testified to by the New Testament

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doesn't automatically defeat every version of sola scriptura.

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But third, and most importantly,

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those non-written apostolic teachings testified to by the New Testament revealed the theological framework the apostles operated within.

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And that framework was not sola scriptura.

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Which means the New Testament passages normally used to support sola scriptura, like 2 Timothy 3, 16-17,

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can't possibly be teaching sola scriptura.

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Well, my friends, that's it for today If you found this video helpful, make sure to like it, comment below, and share it with someone who might need to hear this

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And don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already For more resources, check out Catholic Answers at catholic.com My personal website,

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Friends, thanks for hanging out with me today.

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I'll see you next time.

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God bless.

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel C1 se basa en el vídeo “Tradition and Scripture: Meeting the Identity Challenge”. Las palabras que más se repiten: apostolic, written, scripture, Paul, sola. Este vídeo tiene 186 frases y 2489 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 18:11. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 137 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. Solo el 77 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
apostolic adjetivo	/ˌæp.əˈstɑːl.ɪk/	apostólico
scripture sustantivo	/ˈskɹɪpt͡ʃɚ/	escritura, escriptura
testament sustantivo	/ˈtɛs.tə.mənt/	testamento
revelation sustantivo	/ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/	revelación, develamiento
apostle sustantivo	/əˈpɑsl̩/	apóstol
inspire verbo	/ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/	inspirar, infundir
paradigm sustantivo	/ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/	paradigma
theological adjetivo	/θi.əˈlɑd͡ʒɪkl/	teológico
epistle sustantivo	/ɪˈpɪs.əl/	epístola
preach verbo	/pɹit͡ʃ/	predicar
fold verbo	/ˈfəʊld/	plegar, doblar
testify verbo	/ˈtɛstɪfaɪ/	testificar
apologist sustantivo	/əˈpɒl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/	apologista, apologeta
inscripturated adjetivo	/ɪnˈskɹɪp.t͡ʃəˌɹeɪt.ɪd/	inscripturado
instruct verbo	/ɪnˈstɹʌkt/	instruir

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Significado
check out verbo	investigar, chequear
hold up verbo	aguaitar, esperar
lay down verbo	soltar
write down verbo	apuntar, anotar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

Stick around, and we'll work through it together.
I'm so glad to have you here with me.
All right, let's dive in.
Let's look at a few of them.
You see the pattern?

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

Estructura	En el vídeo
“Used to” used to + verbo — un hábito o estado pasado que ya no es cierto	used to support
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	must be accepted · being saved · were taught
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	haven't done · has been · have overplayed

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 39 contracciones y formas reducidas, como doesn't, can't, don't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: theological /θi.əˈlɑd͡ʒɪkl/, unworthy /ʌnˈwɝði/, oath /ˈoʊθ/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, assertion /əˈsɜɹʃən/, salvation /sælˈveɪ.ʃn̩/, devotion /dɪˈvoʊʃən/, contention /kənˈtɛnʃən/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: apostolic /ˌæp.əˈstɑːl.ɪk/, revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, theological /θi.əˈlɑd͡ʒɪkl/, apologist /əˈpɒl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, inscripturated /ɪnˈskɹɪp.t͡ʃəˌɹeɪt.ɪd/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: scripture /ˈskɹɪpt͡ʃɚ/, scriptural /ˈskɹɪp.t͡ʃəɹəl/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, salvation /sælˈveɪ.ʃn̩/, exhaustive /ɪɡˈzɔstɪv/, reverence /ˈɹɛv.ə.ɹəns/, derive /dɪˈɹaɪv/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: discern /dɪˈzɝn/, exhaustive /ɪɡˈzɔstɪv/, baptism /ˈbæptɪzəm/, possess /pəˈzɛs/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como apostolic, scripture, testament.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →

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