Last week we took our first look at a foundational belief that men like Martin Luther fought so hard for. We discussed “sola scriptura,” the understanding that the Bible is our primary authority regarding truth. Things like historical teachings and our personal beliefs may assist us, but they must always agree with what is clearly taught in the Bible.
However, over time this idea has become misunderstood. People who hold to “sola scriptura” accidentally fall into some problematic beliefs, and through that we can risk missing out on the Bible’s true role in the lives of Christ’s followers. Let’s briefly look at 3 ways we may misunderstand this belief and the issues it can cause.
#1 It’s not just “me, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit”
This may be the most popular misunderstanding today. Many well-meaning Christians want to read the Bible with a sense of purity. They don’t want their understanding of the Bible to be affected by anything other than what the Holy Spirit teaches them. That means they reject using things like commentaries, Bible dictionaries, sermons/lectures, or anything else that involves something (or someone) telling them what’s being said.
And really, it sounds great. It seems like a very holy endeavor to so desire biblical truth that we want God, alone, to teach us. There’s just one problem.
This is an impossible goal.
This problematic belief actually has a different name: solo scriptura (notice the “o” at the end of “solo.” Where sola scriptura says that the Bible is our primary authority for truth, solo attempts to make the Bible the only source for any kind of spiritual understanding in our lives. But there are two things that make this not only impossible, but also a bit prideful.
First, we can escape influences in our lives. We may think we can read the Bible without any outside interference, but what we end up doing is being completely blind to those very things we think we’re avoiding. Just consider a few things in our lives that influence how we may read and interpret a particular part of the Bible:
- How our upbringing affected our views of fathers, family, and personal responsibility
- Our modern use of certain words
- The Bible translation we use
- Our country and personal political beliefs
- What sins we struggle with
- Our personal health and life goals
- Our understanding of a passage’s context
And that’s just a small sampling of things that can determine how we initially understand something in the Bible. If we aren’t on guard and willing to acknowledge how impossible it is to separate our own history and personal beliefs from our Bible reading, we’ll become entrenched in a belief that we’re positive is correct, and we can’t be convinced otherwise because we made the mistake of thinking that our personal truth was a direct teaching of the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit brings us to the second problem. When we refuse to use things like books, commentaries, or sermons from other Christians throughout history, we fail to realize something very important. The Holy Spirit inside of us, teaching and guiding us, is the same Holy Spirit within these men and women throughout history. To reject their thorough and sound teaching is to reject the truth being taught through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, this misunderstanding comes down to neglecting one important aspect of our lives with Christ. While we were designed to be in a purposeful relationship with God, we are equally designed (and called) to a relationship with other Christ-followers. By neglecting the wisdom of others, we end up with a belief that our understanding is so complete that we don’t need the truth of others. From there, we must also say that if we believe one thing through our Bible reading, anyone who disagrees with us is clearly in opposition to the truth of God.
#2 It doesn’t mean the Bible is a textbook
For April 1st, I wrote a joke article about how the Bible clearly teaches that the Earth is flat. Most of my tongue-in-cheek arguments boiled down to one thing – the Bible said it, so we have to believe it’s true. This way of thinking treats the Bible like a school textbook – it takes everything written at face value and insists that because the words are inspired by God, we must believe them exactly as they’re written.
Although we often see this with people basing their beliefs on science and diet on was is directly said in the Bible, many also fall into error when they try to model their lives after what they read in the Bible. Think of some things that we’ve seen in the Bible that aren’t done today:
- Solomon had many wives and concubines
- Christ washed His disciples’ feet
- People often mourned by covering themselves in ashes and wearing uncomfortable sackcloth
- When God called someone to serve Him, he often changed their names (i.e. Abram became Abraham)
- And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. (Acts 2:44-45)
When we read these things, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because we see it in the Bible, it’s something we need to follow. After all, sola scriptura means we use the Bible as our source of truth, and things like science and life choices are a part of our truth.
However, it’s important to remember that context is of the highest importance when we’re interpreting the Bible. We need to consider things like the time period, the type of literature we’re reading (Psalms is poetry, Genesis is history, and the woman in Song of Solomon probably didn’t look like she’s described).
Instead, it’s important to remember that the Bible is our authority for understanding truth, but it’s not our only source. If the Bible uses poetic language to talk about the Earth having 4 corners, that doesn’t mean it’s a truth statement. If modern science shows us that the Earth is round, that doesn’t mean that science contradicts the Bible because Isaiah 11:12 isn’t teaching science, but is using a common phrase to describe how far Judah had been spread (in the same way we talk about a sunset, even though the sun itself isn’t setting behind the horizon).
Thus, we don’t get every piece of truth from the Bible, but instead use the Bible as a filter to make sure that truth we’re being taught lines up with what God has revealed in His word. Thus we can agree with the science of things like DNA while still debating the belief that the universe created itself in something like the Big Bang.
#3 We don’t set rules based on what the Bible specifically allows or rejects
If we don’t treat the Bible as a textbook, perhaps we want to treat it as a rulebook. We may treat the Bible like we’re amateur lawyers, looking for loopholes or iron-clad commands to dictate what we do (or don’t do) in our lives.
For example, the Bible doesn’t forbid drinking, so people take that as a license to drink whenever they’d like. “The Bible doesn’t forbid it, so I can do it!” The same is true for things like legal marijuana or any other mind-altering substance that can be acquired legally. I’ve discussed this in my article “3 Reasons I Don’t Drink Alcohol (and 1 Reason You Still Can),” but the basic conclusion falls to this verse:
All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. (1 Corinthians 10:23)
In other words, just because something isn’t forbidden in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s good (or wise) for us to take part in it. As Christians, we’re called to understand how the Bible affects our lives so that we can use it to filter our decisions through what pleases Jesus Christ, even if it’s at the expense of something we’d like to do.
On the other end, we think our requirements begin and end with what’s specifically written in the Bible. We use this as our reason to only take part in the bare minimum of the Christian life. After all, the Bible doesn’t say to read the Bible daily or to be a member of a church, so we excuse ourselves from them.
With both of these, we treate the Bible like a rulebook. Likewise, we center our debate and understandings around the Bible as if it were a series of bullet points. If anyone questions us on what we do or don’t do, all we have to say is “Show me in the Bible where this is commanded/forbidden.” If someone can’t, then we think it doesn’t apply to us.
The importance of accurately understanding sola scriptura
When we misunderstand what sola scriptura means, we can go to some dangerous places.
- We can come away from the Bible with false interpretations (and beliefs) based on our own limited understanding
- Our witness to the world can be damaged because we try to pull things like science from a passage that isn’t making a truth claim
- We miss out on the glorious life we have in Christ because we’re more concerned with keeping the Bible at arm’s length instead of letting it radically transform our lives
God was good to give us His word. It’s how we understand the depth of our sin, our crimes before God, and our need for Christ to be our savior from the punishment we deserve. But beyond salvation, the Bible is meant to be our way of testing truth. When we understand how to read the Bible accurately, then we can be sure that anything we believe about the world will be correct because it lines up with what God has revealed to us.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)
