“And [Jesus] continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:9).The struggle during the Protestant Reformation was over salvation, specifically whether we’re saved by faith alone or if good works are required, but a necessary battle was over the authority of the scriptures. What was the ultimate authority for the Church — the Bible or the traditions as taught by the Roman Catholic Church?
The Roman Catholic Church teaches the dual authority of tradition and scripture, but it is scripture interpreted according to their tradition, and when push comes to shove, if some tradition cannot be supported by scripture, tradition wins. On the other side, RC Sproul says, “Luther and the other Reformers said that only one authority ultimately has the absolute right to bind our consciences. Luther did not demean the lesser authority of the church or the importance of historic church councils such as Nicea and Chalcedon. His point was that even church councils do not have the same level of authority that the Bible has. This focused attention on the nature of and basis for biblical authority.”
It is incumbent upon us to diligently and prayerfully study the scriptures. Then we have to do what it says. Every other authority has to be subordinate to the word of God.
This does not mean that tradition is not important. The apostles taught the first generation of the church, who taught the next, who taught the next, etc. We should not ignore what they taught. But it is not scripture, and if we are convinced that they are in error, we have to follow what we believe is the teaching of scripture. As Jesus repeatedly showed in the gospels, religious traditions can run off the rails. We must always be testing tradition against scripture.
That does not mean, however, that the Bible means whatever you think it means. Many have taken the reformation slogan of “sola scriptura” and perverted it into “me and my Bible are all I need.” Instead of “sola scriptura” this error has been called “solo scriptura”.
The doctrine of the clarity of scripture comes with the caveat of diligent, educated, prayerful study. It assumes that God has given wisdom and insight to other believers and you’ve consulted their work. It assumes you’re reading the biblical text in proper grammatical, historical, and theological context. It assumes you’re keeping the sum total of the Bible’s teaching in mind.
“Me and my Bible” tends to result in heresies of every stripe. It has led people to deny the deity of Christ, to support racism, and to divide churches over tertiary issues.
Instead of “solo scriptura”, ie, my Bible all by itself, we should seek the help of educated believers who have dedicated their lives to the study of the scriptures. We have to learn to study the word well, to learn theology (which is what we’re doing right here) so we know what the right answer isn’t, and to use good Bible study tools like commentaries and Bible dictionaries. To borrow from Isaac Newton, we see further by standing on the shoulders of giants.
God wants us to know him and his will through his word. He has promised that he will help us to understand it. But it is the height of hubris to refuse the helps that he has given us through our brothers and sisters in Christ because we are expecting to be provided everything supernaturally.
“The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:9b-10).
The word of God is a treasure that is worth the effort, humility, and occasionally expense to learn to handle it properly.
For more on the authority of scripture, see “Scripture and Authority” in Everyone’s a Theologian by RC Sproul.
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