As we see here in Luke 13, Jesus often mixed it up with Pharisees and teachers of the law, who loved to pull the religion card in their futile attempts to prove Jesus wrong. Here they accuse the Lord of the Sabbath of violating the Sabbath! These men posed as keepers of the word and the Law of God, yet they bitterly criticized …God! This was authority turned upside down, a blatant manifestation of religious arrogance.
Throughout history many religious men have pompously presumed to be the keepers of God. No sooner had the Church been established in the first century than imposters began arriving to “straighten out” its faith, practice and theology. Despite repeated attempts by the Church to turn back heresies, false teachers continued to deny the deity, humanity, and authority of Christ along with the truth and authority of Scripture.
Over a period of several centuries, the Church came to believe that the Bible derived its authority from the Church, rather than the reverse. Large segments of Christiandom have persisted in just such an attitude. According to the current Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, "The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. 1997, pt. 1, sect. 1, ch. 2, art. 2, III [#100])
What a statement! The claim is that no other church - and no part of the Church outside the leadership hierarchy of Roman Catholicism - has any legitimate right to claim “authentic” interpretation of the word of God.
The main idea is that only certain religious leaders will tell ordinary believers how to understand Scripture, and there is therefore no logical reason for laypeople to dig into the Word of God in order to discover its meaning and wonder. Largely due to such arrogance and false authority, the Protestant Reformation took place in the 16th century. With the Reformation, God’s supreme authority was reaffirmed and Biblical authority was, for the most part, restored to its rightful place, at least for awhile.
At the time of the Reformation, the reformer Martin Luther was warned in sternest terms by established (Roman) religious leadership that his views would result in millions of the faithful reading and interpreting Scripture for themselves, a warning the literal truth of which Luther acknowledged. The warning was that the Bible would be wrongly subjected to “private interpretation,” bypassing the claim of authority solely for Roman church authorities.
In response, the Reformers during the 16th and 17th centuries produced great creeds, cateshisms and confessions which stand in use to this day as Scriptural guides, secondary to actual Scripture but useful in training believers in the truths of God as revealed in the Bible.
Where do we stand today on the issue of Biblical authority? Although large segments of the visible Church now deny parts or all of the following truths, historic, orthodox Christianity holds that:
God is the Author of all truth and the ultimate source and breath of the word of God. The Church and the Scriptures derive their authority from God, and the Church receives its direction and its voice from Christ through the authority of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Scriptures. The Church’s proper role under the authority of God’s word is “ministerial” (serving) not “magisterial” (ruling). That is to say the Church, along with its doctrines and practices, is to be informed and measured by the word, not vice versa.
When we read or study the Scriptures, we remember they do not derive authority or meaning from us, nor from what they might happen to mean to us. Rather, under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit operating through our God-given abilities to pray, read, listen, reason, discern, and apply, we discover the meaning and significance of the word of God – we don’t supply it.
In discovering the meaning of God’s word, we pay very close attention to the knowledge, wisdom and interpretations supplied by Church leaders, scholars and teachers who preceded us. Where they may disagree on some points of doctrine, we study and pursue all the harder until we arrive at the truth, or the differing yet viable interpretations of a particular biblical point. Tremendous resources are available to us in these endeavors, including historic creeds, confessions and catechisms as well as many commentaries.
There are at least two ways to deny the authority of Holy Scripture as the revelation of God to His Church. The first, as we have seen in history, is to presume the authority of the Church and its leaders to be equal to or above Scripture. This is a set-up for religious error and pomposity. The second, which seems quite prevalent today within large swaths of Protestantism, is to adopt a passive, nonchalant, casual, underinvested attitude towards the Bible.
This modern passivity when it comes to Scripture appears outwardly in various forms. We see it in empty hands of millions who attend church without Bibles; we see it in declining numbers of those attending serious Bible studies on Sundays and during the week; and we see it in the relative absence and non-use of biblical creeds, confessions and catechisms. We hear it in everyday expressions of Biblical illiteracy. We hear it in the ubiquitous use of scripture verses and passages ripped out of context. We hear it whenever someone repeats (often to approving nods) such things as, “You can prove anything with the Bible,” or “Bible study only produces head knowledge - what is important is what is in our hearts.”
We who proclaim the presence and power of the Holy Spirit do so in reliance upon the word of God, not in reliance upon ourselves. We need to respect the authority of Holy Scripture. God, the ultimate and only supreme authority, has given us His word to guide and inform us of Him, of His plan of redemption, and of His eternal Kingdom. He leads believers in ways consistent with His own written word, because God does not lie, misinterpret or misrepresent Himself.
The first century Pharisees and teachers of the law turned authority and practice upside down, and in so doing rejected the Lord of Glory. Many of us turn authority and practice upside down by leaving our Bibles behind and presuming to be so spiritual “in our hearts” that we have little need for the authority and truth of Scripture - as though our minds and hearts are two distinct and opposed faculties.
May we take a high and solemn view of the word of God and of its authority as the revelation of Christ the Living Word, who was with God in the beginning, who spoke all creation into being, and who is the ultimate Author of Holy Scripture. May we approach the Scriptures with a feeling of deep awe and reverence along with a commitment to seriously and diligently pursue the knowledge of God as revealed in Scripture.
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