Chapter VI: Standard of Authority Necessary

Before these things which I have been advocating can be successfully applied we must first of all have a common standard. It was brought out in the panel discussion last Tuesday night that the three men on the panel each had a different standard. Assumedly, the Protestant speaker accepted the entire Bible as the inspired word of God. The Jew did not. He did not accept the New Testament or the Christ of the New Testament; he accepted only the Old Testament. The Catholic speaker plainly stated that he accepted neither as his authority, but that he placed his confidence in the mind of man; of course, that meant the mind of one particular man whom they are pleased to call their pope. The word “pope” means father. The man whom they call pope is not married, never has been married. He is an old bachelor, yet he is called father by more people than anybody else on the earth. The Bible says “call no man your father upon the earth” (Matt. 23:9).

The Catholic speaker was addressed in the panel discussion as “Father So and So.” If I had been on that discussion I would have called him Mr. Cleary. I suppose during a meeting advocating tolerance he would have meekly tolerated my doing so. For me to call him father would be a violation of my conscience and of the word of God. I couldn’t have called Mr. Julius Mark “Rabbi Mark,” because my Bible says, “But be not ye called Rabbi” (Matt. 23:8). I know Mr. Mark doesn’t agree with me on that because he doesn’t accept the New Testament as his Bible. I know the Catholic wouldn’t agree with that, because he says the Bible is not the standard, that this man whom he calls father is the standard.

Just think how ridiculous it is for three men to pretend that they are brethren when two of them propose to believe in Christ and the other one doesn’t; one believes the New Testament and neither of the others do; and one believes that the man whom he calls pope has all the authority and neither of the others do. They haven’t yet agreed upon the authority or standard to which we should make appeal in order to settle our differences.