When we look back at how the early church developed into the Catholic Church, much of it boils down to one simple problem: Christians weren’t encouraged to read the Bible. The church authorities, whether the pope or his bishops, were instead the ones who were in charge of reading the Bible and telling everyone else what it meant. What God actually said became less important than what religious teachers think He meant.
It should be no surprise that God brought about the Protestant Reformation through people who had done the very thing the Catholic Church feared – they read their Bibles and realized that what they read was so very different from what they were taught to believe. And from there, the doctrine of sola scriptura was born.
What does sola scriptura mean?
This understanding, like the rest of the solas, came about as a direct reaction to the false teachings of the day. Sola scriptura, or “scripture alone,” is the understanding that the Bible is our primary authority for everything we need for life and godliness.
It’s important to consider how radical this was at the time. By the 1600s, religion had become nothing more than a series of rituals. A variety of holidays, activities, and religious practices were seen as essential for salvation. People believed that the church held the power to give or remove a person’s eternity with Christ. People confessed their sins to priests instead of directly to God. These endless traditions had become a way of life for much of the world.
The problem, of course, is that none of this was found in the Bible. Instead, people based the majority of their beliefs on the teachings of religious authorities. They received their truth and worldview from the traditions of men instead of the clear teachings in the Bible.
The belief in sola scriptura is our response to that. It is the understanding that, although tradition and the teaching of others are valuable to our lives, they must always agree with the Bible. If a pastor says one thing and the Bible says another, our call is to obey God rather than men.
Why Christians care about sola scriptura
But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:13-17)
Throughout history, the value of God’s word has been under attack. Sometimes these attacks come from those outside the faith, but so often these attacks actually come from those claiming to be followers of Jesus Christ. God clearly gave us His word for our benefit, and means for us to use all of it appropriately. However, that hasn’t stopped many from trying to dimish the importance of the Bible. Consider some popular beliefs about the Bible from throughout history:
- It teaches good, moral living
- The supernatural stuff is made up
- It can’t be easily understood by regular people, so they shouldn’t read it
- The Old Testament has absolutely no value for Christians
- The Bible can’t help us with our current problems, so we need to seek help from modern understanding
Beliefs like this belive one simple thing about the Bible. They don’t believe that it’s enough. These beliefs acknowledge some value in the Bible, but it needs some kind of help for it to hold the most value in our lives.
However, beliefs like this fail to realize that the Bible was given to us as the very words of God. These are things He chose to reveal to us, then called us to use it to radically change how we view the world. God gave us the Bible to be our authority, and the Bible holds more truth for us than our emotions, modern thinking, and even the church traditions we may have grown up with. If something claims to be truth, then it absolutely cannot contradict what’s taught in the Bible.
How does sola scriptura affect our lives?
As we continue looking at the different solas in this series, we’ll get even more clarity on why this is so important for Christians. Sola scriptura holds three important points that dictate how much impact the Bible is meant to have in our lives.
First, sola scriptura is all we need to understand salvation. In other words, a person should be able to open the Bible, read something like Romans, and understand the gospel message. Although other things can help clarify what’s being taught, someone sitting in a room with nothing but the Bible should be able to understand everything they need to understand salvation, who God is, holiness, and any other important part of the Christian life.
Second, the Bible is all the church needs to dictate its beliefs and practices. That’s not to say that we must do things like model the church in Acts, but that the Bible gives us the basic structure for how we should conduct ourselves as a local body of believers. That means that, no matter what the culture says, the church will continue teaching things like:
- What sin is and why God hates it
- The requirements of a pastor
- Living holy lives to the glory of God
- The absolute need for Christ alone for salvation
- Purity before, and within, marriage
The culture around us changes, but God’s truth remains eternal.
Third, the Bible alone is sufficient for us to understand the world. What is my purpose in life? Why am I angry, anxious, or depressed? Why is there something instead of nothing? How should I view sickness, or politics, or morality? Whatever question we may have, God has given us His word so that we can allow our minds to be transformed to view the world like Christ does.
All of these work together to give us a biblical worldview. If we believe that the Bible alone is inspired by God, then how we live and think will change. Although God blesses us with church tradition, pastors, and even wise men women who can interpret and understand the Bible, whatever they say or believe must line up with what we see in the Bible.
Closing thoughts on sola scriptura
Sola scriptura means that our opinion about the Bible doesn’t matter. Our desire for our particular denomination or tradition to be the “correct” one is irrelevant. Philosophy, science, psychology, ethics, morality… everything we encounter in life must either agree with the timeless truths that God has given us, or else we must acknowledge that it is flawed and belongs in its proper place.
This is what our Christians brothers and sisters fought for. They risked their lives to stand up and say that the Bible, alone, is our authority. Teachers and preachers must put their opinions under the Bible, studying and teaching with great humility as they recognize that it’s God, not them, who says what is true.
And as individual Christians, it’s important for us to let the Bible mean what it means. It’s very tempting to twist the words in this sacred book to agree with our beliefs and opinions. I’ve witnessed so many Christians, even pastors, take God’s word and distort what the Almighty God says in order to get people to agree with their particular tradition. I’ve seen others diminish the power of the Bible to make it agree with whatever political movement they’re fighting for.
God has given us all we need in His word. It’s critical that we treasure this word that spent centuries being ignored and abused. We must always be on guard, protecting the truth of God from Christians, unbelievers, and even ourselves. All truth is found in the Bible, and sola scriptura is all we need to understand it.
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)
as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16)
(Watch out for the next article, which will deal with what sola scriptura does not mean. This is an often misunderstood idea, and it’s important for us to briefly examine ways we can fall into error with this understanding of the Bible)
