Worship God, not the Bible

Protestant and non-denominational Christians idolize the Bible. There, I've said it. Sola Scriptura is actually un-Biblical, if you want to get technical. Let's look at what the Bible has to say about itself:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  -2 Timothy 3:16

It doesn't say that Scripture is the only inspiration of God. It says that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." To believe that the Bible is all there is to go on for Christianity is exceedingly narrow-minded and excludes hundreds of years of Church history.

Scripture is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." This is a grossly underwhelming statement compared to that which Protestants will tell you about Sola Scriptura. The Bible is profitable for these things. It is not the totality. I am not saying that the Bible is unimportant. It is extremely important, it is the Word of God. But there is more to Christian history, teaching and life than Scripture.

God didn't stop with the Bible. There are no more Scriptures set forth, that's not what I mean. But He didn't stop putting forth inspiration and grace to his faithful people. When Jesus said, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the age," He didn't just refer to His presence in the Bible. He has sent his Holy Spirit, yes, to be our Comforter and Guide. But He also has sent His Mother to be a witness and sign of what is to come. She is the closest thing to perfection that the human race can boast of, thanks to God's grace and perfect love. She had to be, in order to be the perfect vessel to hold the Lord. And Jesus proclaimed from the Cross that she is to be our Mother also.

We Catholics don't worship her. We love her, have great devotion to her (no different than to our earthly mothers), and pray to her so that she may pray for us to Her Son. She doesn't do anything of her own power. She talks to Jesus for us. It doesn't replace our own talks with Jesus. Of course we can go straight to Him, and we do. But Her influence with Him is powerful, and she is the Queen of Heaven. 

"What then does it mean for Mary to be the Queen of Heaven? In the Old Testament monarchy the Queen of the Davidic Kingdom was the Queen Mother. The Kings, for reasons of state and human weakness, had many wives, none of whom fittingly could be called Queen. That honor was reserved for the mother of the King, whose authority far surpassed the many "queens" married to the king. We see this is the role Bathsheba played with respect to King Solomon and the occasions when the Queen Mother acted as regent on behalf of juvenile successors to the throne.
The role of the Queen Mother, therefore, is a prophetic type of the Kingdom role of Mary, just as the role of the Davidic King is a prophetic type of the Kingdom role of Jesus. Jesus inherited the Kingdom promised to David, who was told that one of his descendants would rule forever. The angel Gabriel revealed this fact to Mary at her Annunciation,

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." (Luke 1:31-33)

Aside from the prophetic types present in the Kingdom of Judah, there is also the text of Psalm 45, which when speaking of the Kingdom of God also speaks of its Queen.

[6]  Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. [7] Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. [8] All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. [9] Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. [10] Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; [11] So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. (Psalm 45:6-11, KJV)

That Kingdom ruled by God is the same as the Kingdom ruled eternally by the Son of David. It is not an earthly kingdom, though it is present on earth in the Church, but a heavenly kingdom, the Kingdom of God. The Queen of that Kingdom is the Blessed Virgin Mary,  the Mother of the Lord God Jesus Christ."   --https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/mother.htm

What's funny to me is that even though non-Catholic Christians profess to take the Bible literally and as the sole source of doctrine, they don't take Jesus at His Word when He broke the bread at the Last Supper and said,  "'Take and eat; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" And yet they don't believe in the Eucharist, that is, the bread and wine turned into the literal body and blood of Christ. For them, it is merely symbolic. As for me, I believe Jesus' words.

As for priests being unmarried, this is Biblical too. Peter was married, but he left his wife to follow Jesus and to preach the Gospel after the Ascension. Paul was unmarried, and wrote, "

A man does well not to marry.[a] But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband. A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs.  A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is. Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.

 I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission.  Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift." --1 Corinthians 7: 1-6

Here Paul is speaking not only of an Apostle's proper position as an unmarried man, but that celibacy is better (holier) than marriage. It is clear from this excerpt that marriage in the fallen age is a concession to man's depravity. Protestants point to the Old Testament in Genesis where Adam and Eve are instructed to "be fruitful and multiply" and value married life as the ultimate in holiness. They have ignored Paul's teaching entirely. The New Testament contains instructions for fallen man, on how to build the Kingdom of God on earth, after Jesus fulfilled the old law. Adam and Eve were given their instruction before the fall. And Paul states, "I tell you this not as an order," meaning that it is not an order than all must be married, but rather he would wish that all were celibate as he is.

I am not a biblical scholar nor an expert Catholic apologist. I am simply one who sees glaring holes in Protestant doctrine and frankly, can't believe my ears when I hear it, it's so obviously incorrect. The Spirit convicts me as well. 

Here's the old but still practical argument: If the Bible is all Christianity has to go on, what did Christians do before it was compiled and used in its current form? 

"There was no canon of scripture in the early Church; there was no Bible. The Bible is the book of the Church; she is not the Church of the Bible. It was the Church--her leadership, faithful people--guided by the authority of the Spirit of Truth which discovered the books inspired by God in their writing. The Church did not create the canon; she discerned the canon. Fixed canons of the Old and New Testaments, hence the Bible, were not known much before the end of the 2nd and early 3rd century." 

http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap030700.htm

The fullness of God's revelation is in the Catholic Church. I don't mean to say that humans within the Church have been perfect, far from it. The Church is an earthly institution made up of sinful humans. But that doesn't remove the graces that God has bestowed upon it, nor does it take away from the fact that its doctrine and dogma is the most complete.

I am always annoyed when I hear Protestants start, "Well, the Bible says..." as if the Bible itself were a person! I hear that more than I hear, "This is what God's Word says," or "This is what Jesus said..." I also am offended by the terms "Bible-believing Christian" or "Bible-believing church." Many think Catholics don't believe the Bible because of the many things we believe that aren't expressly stated in the Bible. That is illogical. We believe everything the Bible teaches, in addition to the traditions of the Church handed down from the original Christians, and all the visions and revelations given to faithful Christians over the centuries. As I said before, God didn't stop with the Bible. He is constantly providing us with guidance and drawing us to Himself. None of the visions and revelations contradict what is in the Bible. It is all one cohesive plan unfolding to draw all men unto God.