Is the Bible Enough? - Part 3
A Pastoral Burden I Didn’t Know I Carried
This wasn’t just theoretical for me. It was deeply personal.
I remember a time when two couples came to me, back to back, with two completely different marital crises. Both were devastated. Both were looking for direction. And both said the same thing: “We just want to know what God says.”
I gave them Scripture. I gave them theology. But it was painfully clear—I wasn’t giving them clarity. I was offering an interpretation.
And in the back of my mind, I kept thinking:
What if I’m wrong?
What if another pastor tells them something different?
What if the next church down the road says the opposite?
I felt like a spiritual referee with no rulebook.
Like I was using a compass in a forest with no map.
The more I tried to be faithful to sola scriptura, the more I realized:
I was standing on a foundation I had no way of defending.
The Magisterium: Scripture’s Servant, Not Its Rival
One of the most misunderstood elements of Catholic teaching is the Magisterium—the Church’s teaching authority.
Protestants often assume that the Magisterium adds to Scripture, or that it claims to override God’s Word. But that isn’t what the Catholic Church teaches.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God... has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone… Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but its servant.” (CCC, §85–86)¹⁴
The Church doesn’t stand above the Bible.
It serves the Bible—by preserving, guarding, and interpreting it faithfully through the centuries.
That’s not a bug. It’s a biblical feature.
In Acts 15, we saw the Magisterium in action before the New Testament was even written. In 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy to pass on what he received—not just a text, but a living tradition (2 Tim 2:2).
Even Protestants recognize that some kind of interpretive authority is necessary. The difference is that Catholics believe Christ actually gave that authority to the apostles and their successors—and that it continues to this day.
Private Judgment and the Fragmentation of Truth
One of the great ironies of Protestantism is that it seeks unity through Scripture alone, but the result has been endless division.
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are now over 30,000 distinct Christian denominations, most of them Protestant in origin.¹⁵ Every one of them claims to follow Scripture. Every one of them prays for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Every one believes the Bible is enough.
But they don’t agree.
Even within denominations, the disagreements are endless—on baptism, on marriage, on gender, on morality, on ecclesiology. And when the tension gets too strong, a new church is planted. A new split occurs. A new “Bible-believing” movement is born.
Francis Chan, reflecting on this reality in his book Letters to the Church, admitted:
“It feels like we’re creating God in our own image. We read the Bible and shape a Jesus who agrees with us. And when someone disagrees, we don’t assume we’re wrong. We start a new church.”¹⁶
This isn’t a rejection of Scripture.
It’s a warning about what happens when Scripture is divorced from the living authority Christ gave to His Church.
The Church Is Older Than the Bible
This was the idea that finally broke through to me:
The Church existed before the New Testament.
At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell and 3,000 people were baptized, there was no complete New Testament. There was no canon. There were no red letters. And yet… the Church thrived.
They had the teaching of the apostles. They had the breaking of the bread.
They had the sacraments. They had liturgy. They had bishops and elders.
The Bible came from the Church, not the other way around.
Scott Hahn writes:
“The Church did not come out of the Bible. The Bible came out of the Church. It was the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, that recognized and preserved the Word of God.”¹⁸
That doesn’t mean the Church has authority to invent doctrine.
It means the Church was given authority to safeguard what had been revealed once for all to the saints (Jude 1:3).
Scripture in the Life of the Church
When I finally attended my first Catholic Mass, what struck me wasn’t the incense, the vestments, or the statues.
It was the Bible.
The liturgy was saturated with Scripture—Old Testament readings, Psalms, epistles, Gospels. There was more Scripture in one Mass than I ever heard in a Protestant service. But it wasn’t used for proof-texting or polemics. It was proclaimed in the context of worship—surrounded by the very Tradition that had preserved it.
Peter Kreeft puts it beautifully:
“Catholicism is not a religion of the Bible alone. It is the religion of the Word of God—in the Bible, in Tradition, and in the living authority of the Church Christ founded.”¹⁹
For the first time in my life, I saw the Bible as part of a larger whole—not an isolated document, but the heart of a living, breathing Body.
Where I Stand Now
I still love the Bible.
I still read it daily.
I still believe it is the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
But I no longer believe the Bible was meant to function alone.
I no longer believe that Jesus intended for each individual to be their own final authority on what the Scriptures mean. He didn’t tell us to write a book and hand it out. He told us to go and make disciples, teaching them to obey all He commanded—not just with ink and parchment, but with lives lived in apostolic continuity.
That’s what I found in the Catholic Church:
A faith built not only on the Bible, but on the Word of God entrusted to the Church—a Church that still teaches, still shepherds, still protects the deposit of faith.
The Gift of Trust
In the end, this isn’t about rejecting personal responsibility or abandoning Bible study. It’s about trust.
Do I trust that Jesus really founded a Church?
Do I trust that He gave His apostles authority—not just temporarily, but perpetually?
Do I trust that the same Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture also guards its interpretation?
I do now.
That trust doesn’t suppress my love for the Bible. It strengthens it.
Because I don’t have to stand on my own anymore.
I don’t need to reinvent the gospel in every generation.
I don’t need to reinterpret every controversial passage.
I don’t need to become my own magisterium.
I can stand in the stream of apostolic tradition—rooted, anchored, and unafraid.
Final Thought: Is the Bible Enough?
Yes—and no.
Yes, Scripture is the written Word of God, inspired and authoritative.
Yes, it is vital for knowing Christ and growing in holiness.
Yes, it equips us for every good work.
But no, it was never meant to be alone.
It belongs in the hands of the Church that received it, protected it, and preached it long before a single verse was bound between leather covers.
And if we want to understand the Bible fully, we must understand it as the Church always has—not as a book that replaces the Church, but as a book that lives within her.
References:
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§85–86.
David B. Barrett et al., World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2001.
Francis Chan, Letters to the Church, David C. Cook, 2018.
Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology, p. 70.
Scott Hahn, Rome Sweet Home, Ignatius Press, 1993.
Peter Kreeft, Catholic Christianity, Ignatius Press, 2001.
