Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
Does the Bible include every single detail of how a Christian ought to live his life? Sometimes, we meet people that will say something like: If God wanted me to do this or that, He would have written it for me in the Bible. But is this an acceptable assumption? Let me be clear... In the Orthodox Church, we believe that the Bible is the word of God and we believe in reading it and studying it, so we may live a proper Christian life.
This belief is reflected in our liturgy, where prior to the reading of the Gospel, as we all stand up, the priest holds the book of the Gospel in his right hand and avoids holding it under his eyes, because this would imply that he analyzes the Gospel, because it is under his eyes. But he puts it above his head and says: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord God of hosts. The priest holds it on top of his head to declare that the Bible is the one that searches him, the one that leads him to repentance. This is a crucial detail, because the Bible is truly the word of God given for our edification. But does this mean that all the details are written in the Bible? Does that mean that I do not need the tradition of the Church? No, it doesn’t.
Let me explain by starting with this question... When Christ became 30 years old and was able to start His service, why didn’t He get crucified immediately? That was His main purpose after all: the cross and the resurrection. But He stayed three and a half years doing many wonders and leading people to believe in Him, but most importantly, He was discipling His apostles. He taught them how to pray, how to fast, how to have mercy on these sinners and tax collectors, how to rebuke the Pharisees. He taught them humility, sacrificing oneself for the sake of the other; he taught them how to live a true Christian life. Then, as His mission on earth was coming to an end, He said the following to them in Matthew 28:
'' 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and (...) the Son and (...) the Holy Spirit, [because He had given them authority prior to this in John 20 to baptize, by giving them His priesthood] 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.'' (Matthew 28:19-20)
So, He commanded them to take that life that they had received from Him and, in turn, to disciple others, to teach others to observe all things that Christ commanded them. Till today, Christianity's about living this life; this is our purpose.
Now that we understand that God gave us a life to live, we ought to ask ourselves: Can an entire life fit in a book? At the end of his Gospel, St. John clearly answers this question. He says:
'' 25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.'' (John 21:25)
There are not enough books in the world to hold all of what Christ did. Let us be clear on the following concept: a life leads to writing. Again: a life leads to writing. Not the other way around. For example, if I read someone’s biography, it is because this person was alive and through his actions, he lived a significant life and as a consequence, his life was written down. But can I write a biography of someone and then take that biography and let it dictate his life? Of course not.
That life God gave us is the tradition of the Church, capital T tradition, which means the life of the Church. That was received from Christ Himself and till today we continue discipling this life from one generation to the other, as he commanded His apostles in Matthew 28. So, it is normal that sometimes we find details of our Orthodox Christian faith that are not written explicitly in the Bible or at least not written in absolute clear way. Is this anti-biblical? Not at all! Actually, in Acts 1:3, St. Luke says the following about the appearances of Christ during the forty days between His Ascension... sorry... resurrection and Ascension. He says the following:
'' 3 (...) to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.'' (Acts 1:3)
The kingdom of God here is the Church. The apostles are about to start establishing the Church through their preaching, so Christ declares to them things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Where are these things written? They are not. Again, we cannot put a complete life in a book.
Let me give you another example. Let’s say two people go for dinner in a restaurant and spend about an hour together. Can someone write down all the details of this event? What they were wearing? Who sneezed at what time? When did person A go to the bathroom? What did they eat and how was the food placed in their plates? What did they discuss or talk about? You see where I'm going with this... It is not possible. And that is why Christ never gave the command to His disciples to actually write the Bible. This is crucial. It is not written anywhere in the Scriptures that He has given such a command.
So why did they write the Bible? We have an example in the book on Church history written by Eusebius of Caesarea, where the people weren’t sufficiently content with hearing the life of
Christ, so they asked St. Mark to write down his Gospel, and so he did. The Gospels also were written to defend the faith against heresies, and we're... they are very... we are very thankful that these were written 'cause they record the truth. But it was never meant to be a sole source of how one ought to live a Christian life. For Orthodox Christians today, the Bible is the true word of God and consists of the principal element within the tradition of the Church, the life of the Church, that guides us in living a genuine Christian life.
If all the above was not convincing enough, let us simply look at when the books of the Bible were written. Although this is not an exact science, it is common knowledge now that St. Mark wrote his Gospel in the 60s, while St. John wrote in the 98th to 100th at the end of the first century. Many say that Sts. Matthew and Luke wrote between St. Mark and St. John. Now the obvious question becomes: When did the Church start? And we all know the answer to this one: in approximately 33 AD.
So assuming the Gospel according to St. Mark was written in the mid-60s, let’s say 65, then the Church lived for about 32 years without having one Gospel written down. Was the Church strong? Evidently yes. A quick glance at the Acts of the Apostles will reassure us of this. But how, how was the Church strong if they didn’t have the Bible, not even a Gospel? Because the Church lived the Bible through oral tradition. Remember: this is the ultimate purpose of Christianity: living like Christ lived.
So, when someone says: well, it is not written in the Bible, our answer should be: it doesn’t have to be. We know it is right, because it was part of the life of the Church from the beginning, from the get-go. Having said this, it needs to be clear that the Orthodox Christians or Orthodox Christianity doesn’t hold any dogma that's contradictory to the Bible, absolutely not. As I said before, the Bible is the most revered element of the life of the Church and it is held with tremendous and utmost respect.
In another video, we will try to explain what is the difference between the tradition of the Church and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, meaning Bible alone, but in the meantime...
Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.