Does Scripture Alone Mean Ignoring the Church?

Many believers hold the phrase Scripture alone close to their hearts. Some take it to mean a Christian needs nothing but a Bible and a quiet room: no church, no creed, no teachers from the past. Is that what the Reformers meant? Michael Kruger, writing for Ligonier Ministries, says no.

Kruger explains that sola Scriptura means the Scriptures alone are the Word of God, and so they are the only infallible rule for life and doctrine. The point is which authority cannot err, and only God's written Word passes that test.

Kruger warns that some have turned the doctrine into a "me, God, and the Bible" kind of individualism, where the church holds no real authority and church history is never consulted. Many congregations, he writes, are cut off from the creeds and confessions. That misreads the doctrine. The Bible is the only authority that cannot err, but it is not the only authority. Pastors, councils and creeds carry real weight. They sit under Scripture, never beside it. Rootedness in church history, Kruger adds, guards both orthodoxy and humility, while the doctrine also keeps us from lifting any human document to the level of Scripture.

Catholic readers hold a related but different view. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum, promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965, teaches that sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form "one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church." Interpreting that word, it says, belongs to the living teaching office of the Church. Yet the same document states that this office "is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on." It also holds that the books of both Testaments are sacred and canonical because they were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and have God as their author.

So where is the real difference? Kruger describes Rome's position as a trifold authority: Scripture, tradition and the Magisterium. Protestants hold that Scripture alone is infallible, so tradition and teachers can err and must be tested by it. Dei Verbum holds that tradition, Scripture and the teaching authority are so linked that one cannot stand without the others. Both call God's Word the standard. Neither sets it aside.

A simple exercise for this week: read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 slowly, then ask three questions. Do I read the Bible with my church or only by myself? Do I let the creeds and faithful teachers of the past correct my private readings? And do I test every teaching, even from my favorite preacher, against the written Word of God?

Kruger opens his Ligonier article with a plain observation: we live in a world full of competing truth claims, and people need some ultimate authority to settle them. God's people, he writes, have always affirmed that only one thing can serve as that supreme standard, God's Word. He traces the problem back to the fall, which at its core was God's people rejecting God's Word as the ultimate standard for all of life. The next question, he says, is where we go to get that Word. Rome's answer placed the Magisterium at the center, with the pope's ex cathedra pronouncements regarded as the very words of God. Kruger also warns against what he calls "traditionalism," which tries to bind Christian consciences in areas the Bible does not, so he describes sola Scriptura as a guardian of Christian liberty. His closing charge to pastors is to preach only the Word and all the Word.

Dei Verbum gives the Catholic account of how the Word was handed down. The Apostles, it says, left bishops as their successors with authority to teach in their place, and through that tradition the Church came to know the full canon of the sacred books. Scripture and tradition together, the document says, are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God until she sees Him face to face. The Church has always held the Scriptures, together with sacred tradition, as the supreme rule of faith, because they impart the word of God Himself without change.

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Ephesians 2:20, Hebrews 1:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Jude 1:3