“….no prophecy is of any private interpretation.  For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20-21 KJV).

Private interpretation of Scripture carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and caution should be taken when interpreting the Bible.  For example, in group bible studies, evangelicals gather to discuss the bible and what it teaches.  But most of the time, these groups are nothing more than a pooling of ignorance; and they depend on bible study guides which are so shallow as to be worthless.  And to complicate it, each person brings with them their favourite bible version which frequently bogs down the discussion as individuals wrangle over which is the better or truer translation of the word or passage being discussed.

And this confusion makes itself felt on a far bigger scale when an uninstructed deacon with delusions of his own importance and love of power thinks he can do better than the pastor, so he organises a coup; or a deacon with undue power in the congregation sacks the pastor so he can bring in a new pastor whom he and the other deacons can more easily control.  Or he steals part of the congregation and forms a new one under his leadership (see 3 John 9-10).  Or when a group of Christians decide to form a church which is “closer to the New Testament” than the one(s) they’re in, often trying to dignify their sin and vanity by calling it “separation from apostasy” or some such pietistic guise. 

There is a time for separation from apostasy (2 Cor 6:17) but evangelicals and fundamentalists easily abuse it by engineering a narrative which allows them to do so without feeling any guilt.  Baptist churches are particularly prone to these kinds of sins because of their upside-down church polity of deacons running the church instead of elders (1 Tim 3:4-5; 1 Pet 5:1-3); and Pentecostals likewise at the drop of a hat, which pop up overnight like mushrooms and disappear just as quickly.  And bizarre cults continue to form, all based purely on scripture, of course, with doctrines never before seen in the Church.  All this and so much more, with each new group claiming they base everything on scripture alone.

According to World Christian Encyclopedia, the body of Christ worldwide now numbers approx. 40,000 denominations, sects, cults, house churches and many other different organisations and organisms – and every one of them claims to use the bible as their authority.  This began with the Reformation and quickly became a huge problem during, during which time the bible was taken from its natural context within the Church and given to the laity, a bare book “in which are some things hard to be understood” (2 Pet 3:16).

It took a Catholic….

To our shame, we evangelicals should have researched and found the following information ourselves.  In 1907, Thomas Carr, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia, demonstrated the disastrous legacy of the abuse of private interpretation of scripture unleashed on the Church and the world by them; which principle was linked with “sola scriptura” by the Reformers.  Using only the testimony of Protestants he quotes one Protestant after another who complains or writes about the problems which confronted the new churches arising from this practice.

Below is a selection of quotes from Carr’s book – quotes which he selected from their writings:

• From Martin Luther: “This one will not hear of baptism, that one denies the Sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day; some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that; there are about as many sects and creeds as there are heads.  No bumpkin is so rude, but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet”. 
• And of the utter confusion of doctrine, Luther is compelled to declare: “If the world endureth much longer, we shall be forced, by reason of the contrary interpretations of the Bible which now prevail, to adopt again, and take refuge in, the decrees of the councils, if we have a mind to maintain unity of faith”.
• John Calvin writing to Melanchthon: “It is of great importance that the divisions which subsist among us should not be known in future ages! For, nothing can be more ridiculous than that we who have been compelled to make a separation from the whole world, should have agreed so ill amongst ourselves from the beginning of the Reformation”.
• Carr says: Beza is even more emphatic: “Our people…are carried away with every wind of doctrine.  If you know what their religion is today, you cannot tell what it may be tomorrow.  In what single point are those churches, which declared war against the Pope, united amongst themselves?  There is not one point which is not held by some of them as an article of faith, and by others rejected as an impiety”.
• Jenaer: “How insecure the Bible is, as a foundation for a system of religion, may be learned from the fact, that all the advocates of the Bible have formed their peculiar and contradictory creeds from the same volume, and anathematized and persecuted each other on the same plea”.
• Dr. Honinghaus, writes Carr, “gives the views of non-Catholic German writers….that the new doctrine as to the Bible being the sole Rule of Faith, is eating into the very vitals of religion in Germany”.  Carr then supplies the following four German non-Catholic theologians from Honinghaus’ work. 
• “Can any man deny, that there are but few passages in the New Testament from which all readers deduce the same meaning?  Now which of these is right?  Which should be adopted?  Who is to decide? – who can decide?” Lessing, Beitrage zur Gesch. Der Literat., B. vi, s. 58
• “Were Luther to rise again from the grave, he could not possibly recognise as his own, or as members of the society which he founded, be considered as his successors.  He founded the Church in Saxony.  We come together to thank God for its foundation; but alas, it is no more” Reinhard, uber die Kirchen, Verbesserung, 1800
• “According to genuine Protestant principles, it is impossible that the internal dissensions of the Church can be cured, except superficially; they cannot be stopped by the power of the [Catholic] Church, but must bleed on internally” Schleiermacher, Reformations-alman., 1819
• “Within the compass of a square mile, you may hear four, five, six, different gospels.  The people, believe me, mark it well; they speak most contemptuously of their teachers, whom they hold either for blockheads or knaves, in teaching these opposite doctrines; because in their simplicity they believe that truth is but one, and cannot conceive how each of these gentlemen can have a separate one of his own”.  From his “uber der Kirchen, Verbesserung, 1800”.

Carr writes further: “The injury to public morality is a branch of the subject I approach with repugnance and it is one on which I do not desire to dwell.  Luther will tell us what promiscuous reading of the Bible did for Germany.   With all his partiality for the work of his own hands, he is forced to admit that it were no wonder if his beloved Germany….

• …..“were sunk in the earth or utterly overthrown by the Turks and Tartars, by reason of the hellish and damnable forgetfulness and contempt of God’s grace which people manifest; nay, that the wonder is, that the earth does not refuse to bear them and the sun to shine upon them any longer” (Luther quoted in Dollinger’s Die Reformation, Vol. 1., p. 312, by Carr)
• Luther from Dollinger:“Everything is reversed…the world grows every-day the worse for this teaching [private interpretation of scripture]; and the misery of it is, that men are now-a-days more covetous, more corrupt, more licentious, and more wicked, than of old under the papacy” (Carr’s quote from “Die Reformation”, by Dollinger, Vol. 1, p. 297).
• And Luther, from p. 285 of the same book: “Our evangelicals are now sevenfold more wicked than they were before.  In proportion as we hear the Gospel, we steal, lie, cheat, gorge, and commit every crime.  If one devil has been driven out of us, seven worse ones have taken their place, to judge from the conduct of princes, lords, nobles, burgesses, and peasants, their utterly shameless acts, and their disregard of God and His menaces”.

As a Reformed Christian it grieves me to see the evil fruit of the corruption of evangelicals’ revered doctrine of “every man a priest”, or “Scripture alone” etc., all of which come from the individual’s private interpretation of Scripture.  But what can one expect when we think we know better than God and the Church, and mess around with his Word?   The Church does have the authority to interpret Scripture but that authority is to be found in the Bible alone by comparing scripture with scripture – a principle rightly stated by the Reformers themselves.  But the uninstructed laity, once they had the bible in their possession, exemplified Peter’s warning about careless handling of Scripture.  He wrote: “….in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16).

The Reformers were steeped in the Scriptures and also in the writings of the Church Fathers and, in particular, of the Ecumenical Councils of the first few centuries.  The Apostle Paul refers to the Church as “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).  The Fathers and Councils defended the Faith against all heresies and defined and formulated the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and stated them clearly and concisely in the Councils and Creeds of the Church.  Their writings, always subject to Scripture, have been preserved and they are a guide to us all as we seek to understand the Scriptures.  They are not of equal authority with Scripture – nothing is – but they rightly interpret Scripture.  Just as in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) where the assembled Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, expressed the mind of the Spirit, and defined his will, the Ecumenical Councils did likewise.  This historic teaching (i.e. Tradition) has been handed down to us from the early Church, and Scripture should be translated in the light of it.

Further examples of the evil fruit can be seen glaringly and shamefully demonstrated in the lives of televangelists who are no less corrupt and immoral than those whom Luther condemned.  With their brazen sexual immorality, fraud, embezzlement, and false teaching, hardly any of them in the last century have stood firm.  Their corrupt history goes back to the beginning of their own Pentecostal movement, and the corruption and false teaching ever since have been astonishing.  They present themselves as authorities because not only is their interpretation of the bible true, they claim, but even more importantly, they have the Holy Spirit and they demonstrate that at every meeting with showy displays of power.  I once heard Benny Hinn on his TV show saying that the Holy Spirit told him that God isn’t a Trinity – “there are nine of them”, he told his audience.

But it hasn’t been limited to televangelists and the Pentecostal movement.  The sexual immorality, adultery, and paedophilia committed by some clergy and other church leaders, as well as false doctrine, church practices, and church polity, are evident in every church in every denomination.  It is not only the doctrine of sola scriptura which has been badly misused by fundamentalists, but also the misuse and abuse of the doctrine of sola fides (faith alone), which the abusers use as licence to sin, because as long as we repent by “rededicating” our lives to Christ at some church meeting or “crusade”, we think we can repeatedly get away with anything.  As one cynic I knew said, “It’s easier to obtain forgiveness than permission”. 

Reference

Carr, Thomas Joseph, Archbishop of Melbourne, “Lectures and Replies”, 1907, p. 21-23, publ., The Australian Catholic Truth Society, Melbourne, Australia