Authority

I've been thinking alot about how, when Jesus was alive and preaching, He wrote nothing down.  His followers, as they watched Him perform miracle after miracle.... wrote nothing down.  There is some evidence that someone wrote down what Jesus said, (Q), but that is merely a theory, and no one knows for sure.  Surely no such manuscript survives in any form.   Muhammed reportedly dictated to scribes the Quaran as it was "revealed" to him.  Jesus did nothing of the sort.  The first Christians knew how to read and write.  Their Jewish heritage had taught them that.  But they were too busy DOING, ACTING, CONNECTING to write something down right then and there.  Jesus spread His message, revealed His Father, not by sitting at a desk and writing dialogues and letters (as others after Him would do).  No.  Jesus WAS the Word.  The Word made flesh.  And He acted in the flesh.  He spread the Truth through His words, His touch, His actions.  He connected with PEOPLE.  When He died on the cross, later when He ascended to Heaven...  He didn't tell those He left behind to "go, write a book".  He told them to go ACT, to establish a Church, HIS Church, to make disciples of all men.  Go spread the truth to the corners of the Earth, and baptize them.  ACT.  DO.  TOUCH.  TELL.  ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS.  BUILD.  MY. CHURCH.   That infant church spread by word of mouth, by one person telling another, by one person seeing the work of the Holy Spirit in another, by witness of the lives those very first Christians led.   It was later, after His death by several years, that the apostles and first followers started writing down what they had seen and heard, what they had learned as the TRUTH.  The earliest New Testament books - written by Paul and James - are thought to be from about 45 AD... 13 years after Jesus' death.  The first gospel account (Mark) wasn't written until about 70 AD.  These followers of Christ wrote the Truth down, because, as the Christian church grew, they needed tools to communicate to distant others what they had first learned in person.  To encourage each other.  These writings were infused with the Holy Spirit, sacred, inerrant.  But they were tools of the early church, to reflect what it was already doing, spreading, teaching.  Passing down to the next generation of believers.  It was several hundred years before those sacred writings were compiled into a definitive book.  The church came first, and then the book. There is no book without the church.   So when questions today arise about how to interpret the book... it is natural and logical to go to the source, to the place where Christ divested His authority.... HIS CHURCH. (Matthew 16:18).   Because that's how Christ designed it to be.  He left behind HIS church to teach the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIGHT.

Pope Bendict XVI (December 25th, 2010):  "... an eclipse of reason has taken place ... man no longer uses his intellect in search of God ... but is driven by his passions and desire for self-gratification."