Next subheading: "Just the Plain Bible." Sadly to say, Protestants are no closer today to Sola Scriptura than were their 16th-century ancestors. Protestants today are purchasing interpretive study Bibles by the tens of thousands. By the term "interpretive study Bibles," I'm not referring to Bibles that merely provide cross-references, maps, and a concordance, such as the Personal Reference Bible, NASB Study Bible, Discovery Bible, and the Thompson Chain Reference Bible.
I have no problem with Bibles like these, but most study Bibles go far beyond adding cross-references; they add human interpretations alongside Scripture. Some of these interpretive study Bibles are: Ryrie Study Bible, Scofield Reference Bible, Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Salem Kirban Reference Bible, NIV Study Bible, Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, Harper's Study Bible, and more recently, MacArthur's Study Bible.
What I find so objectional about these study Bibles is that they print human interpretations and biases on the very same pages where God's Word appears. What incredible audacity! That gives man's words equal weight with God's. For example, in the Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, underneath Paul's discussion of the head covering in 1 Corinthians 11, the commentator writes, "Paul is writing here to the Corinthian Christians who, living in Greece, customarily complied with Greek traditions.
Men had their heads uncovered and the women covered their heads, which, however, was contrary to the Jewish tradition. Even to this day, Jewish men cover their heads at worship, but not the women." The question which faced the Corinthians was what to do with the existing custom of their day. Paul's advice is to examine the symbolism of the custom: if it has nothing in it that is contrary to God's Word or order and creation, accept it.
Do not allow contentions to arise regarding customs which symbolize something that is proper. Oh, so Paul is merely giving advice to follow human Greek customs. But did Paul say anything about Greek customs versus Jewish customs? No. Rather, he began his discussion by commending the Corinthians for holding firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. That was 1 Corinthians 11:2. It was Paul who delivered the tradition of the head covering to the Corinthian Christians, not the pagan Greeks.
The commentator is expressly contradicting what Paul said. Furthermore, there is nothing written in any of the historic early Christian writings that would even remotely substantiate those comments. They are sheer human speculation. Yet the commentator places them alongside Scripture, where they will influence the average Bible reader as much as Scripture. In reality, study Bibles usually have the effect of giving man's words more weight than God's.
I have sat in enough Bible studies to know that invariably people will take the commentator's opinions over the literal language of Scripture. I'm not singling out the Hebrew-Greek Key Reference Bible for criticism. Similar examples can be pulled from all of the interpretive study Bibles listed above. If all we need is the Bible as we publicly proclaim, why do we use such interpretive study Bibles? Next subheading: "Other Additions to Scripture." But I don't use study Bibles, you may be saying. That's commendable.
Yet I would venture to say that you still don't use just the Bible alone. For instance, do you make use of Bible commentaries and Bible dictionaries? Do you read Christian literature? How about listening to sermons? If you make use of any of those things, then you are not using just the Bible. If we truly believed that all we needed was just the Bible, then we wouldn't be using all of these other aids.
A church that used nothing but the Bible would be a church that simply read from Scripture every Sunday, without any comment or sermon. I don't know of any church like that. Do you? Nor am I advocating that our church meetings be like that. Rather, the point is that we all use something in addition to Scripture. The only issue is what we should use. Will we rely on the historical witness of the early Christians to shed light on Scripture?
Or will we rely on the modern witness of our pastors, Christian writers, and theologians? That's the issue. Next subheading: "What We Add to Scripture and Take Away." Many churches today brag that they use only the Bible. They claim that they don't add anything to it, nor take anything away from it. Typically, such churches have no use for the early Christian writings. Perhaps you belong to such a church.
Of course, as we have already seen, such churches do use something besides Scripture, since they read Christian literature and listen to sermons. If nothing else, they add rationalizations of why we do not have to literally obey what's taught in Scripture. What's more, usually members of those churches cannot even express what they believe without using language that is not in Scripture. I'm talking about such terms as Revival, Legalism, Trinity, Incarnation, Missionary, Altar Call, and Born Again Experience.
Even the term "Bible" is not a Scriptural term. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with these terms. Some of them, like "Trinity," we have borrowed from the early church. The point I'm making is that we have all added so much to Scripture that most of us can't even talk about what we believe without using language that is not in Scripture. If someone asked you what your church teaches, would you be able to simply hand them the New Testament and tell them to read it?
If you believe that all we need is Scripture, you should be able to do that. If our churches truly believe in Scripture alone, and truly use the Bible as their sole guide, why do they erase and rescind so many things in Scripture? But my church doesn't, you may reply. Well, let's see. We have been focusing on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Does your church believe and practice all of the things taught there?
I'm speaking of things such as: men praying with their heads uncovered and women praying with their heads covered (1 Corinthians 11:3-16); disassociating members who are immoral, covetous, idolaters, revilers, drunkards, or swindlers (1 Corinthians 5:11); not taking a brother to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-7); properly using spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12); women keeping silent in the church (1 Corinthians 14:34); greeting one another with a holy kiss (1 Corinthians 16:20).
Does your church believe and practice the instructions Paul gave in his other letters, such as: appointing elders and deacons based upon the qualifications set forth by Paul in 1 Timothy 3; women adorning themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments (1 Timothy 2:9); men lifting up holy hands in prayer (1 Timothy 2:8); maintaining a list of widows 60 years or over who meet the qualifications given in 1 Timothy 5:9-10?
Does your church believe and practice the instructions Jesus gave to his followers, such as: do not resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also (Matthew 5:39); if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also (Matthew 5:40); do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth (Matthew 6:19); make no oath at all, either by heaven or by the earth (Matthew 5:34-35); everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her
commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery (Matthew 5:32).
I could go on, but these should be sufficient to illustrate my point. And my point is that, to my knowledge, no church teaches today and practices all of these things taught in the Scriptures. Yet if our churches truly used just the Bible, leaving nothing out and adding nothing to it, then all churches would be obedient in all these matters. In contrast, the church of the 2nd century practiced all of these things listed above, along with all of the other New Testament teachings.
Yet for the sake of argument, let's suppose for a moment that we did obey all of those teachings. Let's suppose that we truly do not add anything to Scripture. In other words, suppose that our Christianity was derived solely from what was written on the pages of Scripture. Even if that were the case, we would still need the early Christian writings in order to be obedient to Scripture. That's because there's a catch.