33 I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. 34 You
yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who
were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this
way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he
himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:33-35
(ESV)
We don’t have these words of Jesus recorded anywhere but
here. This isn’t to say that Jesus didn’t say these words. We know he did. The
gospels don’t record everything Jesus ever said. The early church, the first
generation would have had many different traditions of Jesus Christ, would have
known much more about the disciples and the things they had done than we do
today. Some of these things have been recorded through the efforts of men like
Papias whose history is preserved today in the Church History of Eusebius.
Others have been lost completely. Some of the extra biblical recordings can be
helpful in understanding scripture, and yet scripture, that which we have
recorded in the apostolic word, is what determines doctrine. The sola scriptura
of the reformation doesn’t care to ignore tradition, reading Luther and the other
reformers one is amazed at their knowledge and understanding of church fathers
and the history of the church. On the other hand they also understood that
tradition can’t be trusted completely. And of course, it would also be nice if
what was claimed as tradition might at least have some roots to at least the
second century if not the first.
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