Scripture Is Not Private Property

Point: Scripture should judge the Church's teaching, but I should not read Scripture as if the Church were irrelevant.

As these notes keep moving among Scripture, creeds, Fathers, and confessions, I notice a temptation on both sides. I can make "Scripture alone" mean "my reading alone." I can also make "the Church teaches" mean I no longer have to test anything.

The Bereans are praised for examining the Scriptures after hearing apostolic preaching (Acts 17:11). Paul says Scripture equips the servant of God for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That gives force to the Reformed and Anglican caution. The Westminster Confession calls Scripture the rule of faith and life and the final court for controversies. The Church of England's Articles say nothing may be required as necessary to salvation unless read in or proved from Scripture.

But the Catholic and Orthodox warning is not evasive. The New Testament also calls the Church the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), and 2 Peter 3:16 admits that Scripture can be distorted. Dei Verbum refuses to separate Scripture, apostolic Tradition, and the Church's teaching office. The Orthodox Church in America places the Bible first within Holy Tradition, not outside the Church's life.

My current leaning is that Scripture must remain the norm that no later voice may overrule, because it bears the apostolic witness to Christ. But I am less convinced by a solitary, self-authorised reading habit than by Scripture read in the Church, with the creeds, Fathers, liturgy, and tested teachers acting as disciplined witnesses. I do not yet know how to adjudicate every authority claim. I think I know this much: if my Bible reading makes me unteachable, it is already disobeying the Word it claims to honour.