Sola Scriptura Requires More than Scripture

The title of this post sounds nonsensical, but I hope the brief words that follow prove it true. This post continues some thoughts on The Democratization of American Christianity.

In an elders' meeting a couple of years ago we were wrestling with several theological issues and there application in our church. I thought it appropriate to recommend we look to church history for assistance, but the senior pastor felt otherwise. He remarked that the problem with creeds, confessions, and the like, is that you don't know which ones to use because they're not infallible. In effect, you have to read the Bible as if it just dropped from the sky and you're the first person in the world to pick it up. To him this is what Sola Scriptura means.

The problem with this approach, which is all too common today, is that we can't escape coming to the Scripture with our own set of prejudices and ideas. We do not possess a "clean slate" for the Bible to write upon.

This problem is not unique to us. The authors of creeds and confessions had the same problem, but since they lived in a different time and culture, their prejudices were in different areas than ours. So here is one reason why creeds and confessions can help us with Scripture interpretation; their blind spots are different than ours.

So for us to approach our faith Sola Scriptura, we must overcome our prejudices. Our fathers in the faith can serve us in that regard. And since the Bible has been honored, interpreted, and applied faithfully by our fathers in the faith, we would be foolish not to take their reflections into account.