What does Bible Alone actually mean? Explore Sola Scriptura, the authority of Scripture, and how we can honor tradition, church history, and teachers without treating them as equal to Scripture.
S4E5 – What Do Jerusalem, Athens & Rome Have to Do With Your Faith? – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast
- S4E5 – What Do Jerusalem, Athens & Rome Have to Do With Your Faith?
- S4E4 – You Don't Have to Agree With Them to Learn From Them: Why You Should Study Church History
- S4E3 – Bible Alone? Can We Really Just Follow the Bible?
- S4E2 – What If Questioning Your Faith Isn’t a Bad Thing?
- S4E1 – Before You Pass Down Your Faith, Ask Yourself This
What are you passing down?
Hi everyone, and welcome to A More Beautiful Life Collective. I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and I’m here to walk hand in hand with you as we grow in grace, build with purpose, and live beautifully.
This season of the podcast, we are talking about The Faith We Inherit. We are all passing down something to our children. But what are we passing down? We need to be intentional about our faith, habits, and traditions.
In the last podcast, we talked about the question that will inevitably come up as you examine your faith. What do you do when you don’t know? When you come to a question that you have about theology, do you let it destroy your faith or grow your faith?
We talked about the image of someone walking along the side of the path. We can stop and uncover deep and beautiful truths along the way — to find the gems along the way. Or we can just press on with a shallow understanding.
Did God Really Say…?
But there’s another danger that we touched on: the danger of walking off the path. When people begin deconstructing their faith, they tear it apart brick by brick until finally they get to the foundation of Scripture. Then, they start tearing that apart too until there is nothing left.
It reminds me of the first lie ever told: “Did God really say that?”
Did God really say to flee from sexual sin?
Did God really say you have to tithe?
Did God really say to put the Kingdom first — even above good things like kids, sports, and work?
The answer to these questions will ultimately put you on the straight and narrow path — or lead you down the rocky, uneven terrain of death, sin, and despair.
If our lives are not based on the Bible alone, we will reap the consequences.
The Temptation to Go Off the Trail of the Bible Alone
When I was younger at a summer camp, I loved when we would go hiking. We would find new trails with the amazing vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains before us. But, inevitably, I would look just beyond the trail and think: What would it be like to go there?
One time, we decided to walk along the side of the creek. About five minutes in, we realized this would be no easy task. Holes, briars, and large limbs to crawl over and under. About an hour later, we emerged a mile away on a road — with some scratches to show for it. We walked back on the highway, and the difference was amazing. It took us 15 minutes to get back to where we needed to be when we walked on the paved path.
Going off the trail may seem exciting, but it often leads to pain and unnecessary trouble. When we go, in an attempt to do what seems good in our eyes, we just get hurt to show for it.
(This happened again a few years later when I was not with the group, but this time, they needed someone to come rescue them! There are real consequences for going ‘off-trail.’)
Related: Importance of the Daily in Your Quiet Time with God
God’s Word is a Sure Path: Relying on the Bible Alone
The famous Psalm 119:105 reads, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalm 18:36 says, “You enlarge the path beneath me and make my steps secure, so that my feet do not slip.”
Setting our feet upon the path — upon the solid foundation of the Word — results in security.
But choosing to be on the path of God’s Word means that we must submit ourselves to His Word. We have to choose to place our feet on the path — “not turning to the right or the left” (Proverbs 4:27).
The Word becomes our boundary, and we have to reject the things we may want to do that are off the path so that we do not leave it. We have to rely on the Bible alone.
This may be an easy idea in theory, but in practice, it requires us to lay ourselves down in submission to God.
Are we cutting out pages of the Bible?
In College, one of my roommates was a Christian, but did not truly submit herself to every part of Scripture. She especially took issue with 1 Timothy 2:12, which says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.”
When we were talking about that verse, she showed me her Bible, where she had literally taken scissors and cut out that passage from her Bible so she wouldn’t have to look at it. She said she was a Christian, but when it came to submission to the Word, she went off the path.
We may not take scissors to our Bibles to cut out pages of the things we don’t like, but we still may effectually be cutting out parts that don’t fit with our presuppositions. We bring our own understandings to the Bible and try to make it fit what we already believe rather than submitting to it and letting the Word change our hearts.
When Scripture is our authority, we:
- Go to Scripture Daily as our Daily Bread (Sustenance)
- Submit our Desires to Scripture
- Allow the Laws and Commands of Scripture to Guide Our Lives
- Treat Scripture as the Very Word of God
If the Bible is the Word of God, it is infallible — because God does not lie. The Bible alone is sufficient. This means we can trust in it, and we have to place ourselves under its authority.
Related: What is Bibliology?: The Bible as Your Home Base for Studying Theology
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Do Not Add To Scripture: Why the Bible Alone is Sufficient
We are not at liberty to take away from Scripture. It is sufficient to guide us in our Daily Walk.
- Deuteronomy 4:2 says, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”
- Revelation 22:18–19 says, “18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.”
The passage in Revelation is specifically talking about prophecy, but many take it to apply to all of Scripture. We do not want to add to the Word. We can expound on Scripture, but we do not hold anything else to the same authority as Scripture.
So, if Scripture is our authority, where does that leave everything else? We still have 2,000 years of Church history and thought that adds to our understanding. Unlike the Talmud of the Jewish Faith or the Sharia or Fiqh laws of the Muslim Faith, Christians don’t have a similar set of divine texts that they ascribe to beyond the Bible.
Instead, the Christian faith emphasizes discernment. We don’t turn to earthly teachers to tell us the Word of God. (In fact, Jesus tells us not to call people our spiritual fathers on earth — meaning that we don’t look to early leaders over our heavenly father (Matthew 23:9).)
Over and over again, Paul tells the early believers that they need to have discernment.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:21–22 — “Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”
- Philippians 1:9–10 — Paul prays that their love will abound “with knowledge and all discernment,” so that they may “approve what is excellent.”
- Romans 12:2 — “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.”
- 1 Corinthians 14:29 — “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:15 — “I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.”
- Galatians 1:8–9 — Paul says that even if he himself or an angel preached a different gospel, it should be rejected.
What does this mean in practice? Every teaching we receive has to be taken back to Scripture and — with the help of the Spirit — weighed against what Scripture says.
We do not hold anything else of the same authority as the Bible alone.
Sola Scriptura? What does Bible Alone mean?
This spirit of discernment is how we interpret Scripture. During the Reformation, when the Church was living out this ‘testing of everything’, the Reformation leaders called this practice Sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone. This meant that the Bible alone was held as the highest authority — over Church leaders and traditions.
No one leader could add to Scripture. No one leader could take away from Scripture. No council could change what Scripture meant.
Martin Luther, in An Assertion of All the Articles (1520), said, “I do not want to throw out all those more learned than I, but Scripture alone to reign, and not to interpret it by my own spirit or the spirit of any man, but I want to understand it by itself and its spirit.”
And Calvin says something remarkably similar in the Institutes, when he argues that Scripture’s authority does not depend upon the church’s approval: “Scripture is of importance only in so far as conceded to it by the suffrage of the Church; as if the eternal and inviolable truth of God could depend on the will of men.”
Bible Alone? What about Tradition?
The Bible is our authority, and it is held higher than any other traditions or teachings of men. So, then what about tradition? What about all of the teachings that have been written since John finished his Revelation in the last part of the 1st century A.D?
Can Scripture be our final authority without pretending we’re the first people who ever read it?
There are really three approaches to how Scripture intersects with the Bible.
#1 – Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Instinct: Scripture belongs within the Church’s received tradition
The Church (before the Schism between RC and Eastern Orthodox Churches) developed the canon of Scripture. Because of this, many Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches say, ‘The Church received, preserved, recognized, interpreted, and transmitted the Scriptures within the life of the Church.’ This means that Scripture is of the same authority as the Apostolic Tradition and the Church Tradition.
Because the Church received Scripture and developed it, the authority of Scripture is derived from within the larger Church tradition. What follows is that the rest of Church tradition is also of the same authority as Scripture (and you must submit yourself to it like you do Scripture).
This brings up a real question: If the Church preserved and transmitted the Scriptures, can we really pretend the Church has nothing to contribute to understanding them?
But the response to this could be: Preserving Scripture isn’t the same thing as possessing authority to redefine Scripture.
In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church, they believe that because they first gathered and preserved Scripture, everything in their tradition is just as worthy as Scripture. God, though, can work through a people to preserve Scripture without everything the people teaching being truth — Which is exactly what happened with the Jewish tradition and the Pharisees in Jesus’ time.
#2 – The Protestant instinct: Scripture is the final authority, but we’re not the first readers.
In the Protestant tradition, there’s an important distinction between Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) and Solo Scripture (Only Me and My Bible). Sola Scriptura means that Scripture is the final, infallible authority by which every other authority is judged.
We have to test and discern what is good from each thing we receive. If it stands up against Scripture, we can use it for our encouragement and edification. If it does not, we reject it. Pastors, teachers, commentaries, and theologians are helpful on our journey — and can provide so much rich insight — but they are not infallible the way that Scripture is.
You can think of it this way: Scripture is the map. Tradition is the collection of notes from people who have traveled the road before you. Creeds are mile markers saying, “Christians historically understood this particular stretch of road this way.” Confessions are more detailed maps of how a particular tradition has understood the terrain. Teachers are guides. But none of those things become the road itself. And importantly, you shouldn’t throw away the travel journals just because you have the map.
We can learn from all these guides on the side, but the Bible alone has the most authority.
#3 – Biblical Unitarian Temptation: “It’s Just Me and My Bible”
I mentioned in the last episode that I grew up in a Biblical Unitarian domination. There is very much a temptation in the BU world as well as broader evangelical Christianity to say, “It’s just Me and My Bible.”
We say, “I don’t need creeds. I don’t need theologians. I don’t need church history. I don’t need somebody else’s interpretation. I just read the Bible and the Holy Spirit tells me what it means.”
But the problem with this tendency is that you are still interpreting Scripture.
You haven’t eliminated tradition or interpretation. You’ve simply made your own interpretation the final authority.
Sola Scriptura says, “Scripture is the final and uniquely authoritative standard by which all Christian teaching is judged.” Solo Scriptura says, “I don’t need the historic Church, teachers, or Christian tradition. I can determine the meaning of Scripture by myself.”
We can hold the Bible alone as the highest authority while still learning from those who have come before us. We don’t have to pretend that we exist in a vacuum with only the Bible.
We come with our own set of circumstances and presuppositions to the text every time we read. When we read in the vacuum of our own interpretation, we can end up pretty far off the path. We can miss important points. We can overlook central themes.
We should read the Bible for ourselves. But we should never imagine that we are reading it by ourselves. Because you’re reading a text that was written thousands of years ago, in ancient languages, within particular historical circumstances, by people who lived within a particular religious world, and was read, copied, taught, debated, and defended by Christians for roughly 2,000 years.
That doesn’t mean tradition gets to override Scripture. But it should make us humble about our own interpretations.
Teachers Are Given For Our Good
Ephesians 4:11-14 says, “11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.”
Teachers are given for our good, to equip people and help us to become mature. It’s not just us and our interpretation. We don’t want to become so suspicious of others’ views that we don’t allow them to help us in our pursuit of God. We just have to make sure that we are placing the teaching we receive in its proper place. That teaching is not the final authority. The Bible alone is.
We Gather Together
In Acts 15, the early Church faces a massive theological disagreement. So, what was the response? It was not that everybody studied out the Scriptures in isolation to come to a conclusion. It was that they gathered together and searched out the answers together.
How do we approach new understandings concerning Scripture and Tradition? We practice communal discernment.
This is not Church authority without Scripture.
This is also not Individual interpretation without the Church.
But instead, it is the people of God wrestling together with Scripture under the authority of God.
What about the Creeds and Catechisms?
So if Scripture is our final authority, how do we approach creeds and catechisms?
A creed isn’t Scripture.
A confession isn’t Scripture.
A catechism isn’t Scripture.
And Christians shouldn’t treat them as if they are.
But they can serve as guardrails — historically tested summaries of how Christians have understood Scripture.
Related: What You Need to Know about the Christian Creeds
Related: What you need to know about Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, and Liturgies
Importantly, guardrails aren’t the road. A guardrail doesn’t tell you where the road ultimately came from. It doesn’t replace the road. It keeps you from driving over the edge.
And sometimes a creed is saying: “Hey, Christians have wrestled with this question before, and here’s where the Church historically landed.”
But you are still allowed to go back to Scripture and ask: “Is this actually what Scripture teaches?”
We still need to wrestle with these questions and discern the truth.
Discerning the Truth on Our Walk
Scripture is our final authority. But Scripture isn’t our only source of wisdom.
We don’t need to choose between Scripture and tradition. We need to put tradition in its proper place.
Tradition can be a teacher without becoming a master.
Creeds can be guardrails without becoming Scripture.
Teachers can help us read without becoming our final authority.
The Church can preserve and proclaim the faith without possessing authority over the Word of God.
And individual Bible study is essential without making the individual the final interpreter of everything.
Because here’s the uncomfortable part: we are all inheriting interpretations.
Even the person who says, “I don’t follow tradition; I just follow the Bible,” has inherited a tradition — assumptions about baptism, salvation, worship, gender, the Trinity, the church, the Sabbath, communion, biblical interpretation, and even which books belong in the Bible.
None of us approaches Scripture from nowhere.
The question isn’t whether we have inherited a tradition.
The question is whether we are willing to examine the tradition we’ve inherited in light of Scripture.
We have to discern if our interpretations are best when held up against the light of Scripture with the help of the Spirit.
How do we do this?
#1 – First, we need to gather a list of beliefs, traditions, and habits that we’ve inherited from our family or local church.
#2 – Then, we need to go to Scripture and see what it says about that belief, tradition, or habit.
#3 – Finally, we decide what we want to do about this belief. We can either:
- Keep: Hold fast to this faith and pass it on to our kids
- Reform: Keep the belief, but align it more to the truth of Scripture
- Release: Let go of this belief and choose to consciously not pass it down.
I’d love to hear what you think about the authority of Scripture and how it intersects with Church Traditions. Comment below and let me know what you think!
If you’d like to walk through the process of examining your beliefs, you can get the Family Faith Inventory. This free guide will help you begin to document what you’ve inherited. You can also go deeper with the Faith We Inherit Workbook, which will help you continue on through the process of making a Family Faith Statement and a Rule of Life to help your children hold fast to their faith.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe. You can also share it with a family member or friend to continue the conversation, and leave a rating and review to let us know what you think.
Next time, we’ll talk more specifically about how we should approach Church history — and what specifically we should be teaching our kids about the Christians that came before us.
Until next time, keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God. I’m Cayce Fletcher, and I’ll see you next week.
The Faith We Inherit | Family Faith Inventory & Formation Workbook
What faith are you handing down?
The Faith We Inherit is a 66-page Family Faith Inventory & Formation Workbook designed to help parents examine the beliefs, traditions, practices, and values they’ve inherited—and thoughtfully consider what they want to pass on to the next generation.
Through guided reflection, Scripture study, theological questions, and practical family formation exercises, you’ll move from what you inherited to what you believe to how you want to live.
Includes the Keep Growing: 12-Month Family Theology Plan as a bonus download.
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