Truth of Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura literally means "scripture alone".

This is the idea that scripture is all you need for the truth of God's Word.


There is a lot of dispute in the world of religion and theology about this practice. Some for it but most against it. Some of the religions that are against it is, Calvanism, Jehovahs Witnesses, Roman and Orthodox Catholic, and many more. They all share the common belief that you need the divine guidence of God to understand and interpret the bible or the guidence of the churches orginization. And added to that, there is the belief that the leaders are infallible and the church in itself is infallible. While this may sound good in theory, it is incorrect in practice. Let us look at some of the reasons why.

Lets start with the fact that Jesus Christ Himself, made over 100 references to scripture. He also asked consistently what the peoples reading of the law was and how they understood it(Luke 10:26-27). Now what is the importance of this quote? The importance is the fact that Christ asked a common man what his interpretation of the law was. This would also suggest that Christ was going by and using teachings that were already in scripture. If this were not true, why did He reference it?

There is also support of this in Matthew 11 where Christ is being tempted by Satan during His fasting. Christ told Satan numerous times, "For it is written". This is an important fact to notice, to see that Christ is using scripture as His source. If it was the way of Christ, is it not good enough for us to do?


There is a few quotes from a website that I would like to use,


# Strongly believe God was smart enough that He could write the Bible in such a way, so as to be understood when read.
# We believe that, who God created man, wrote the Bible in such a way, so that man would be able to understand the Bible unaided. It is ridiculous to for Catholic traditionalists, to write a book to prove we cannot understand the divinely authored Bible ourselves, while expecting us to understand their humanly authored book itself.
# We believe it is insulting to God to think that Catholic and Orthodox defenders can write a book and be understood by the common man unaided, but God cannot write the Bible and be understood unaided.
# We believe it is insulting to God to think that "personal illumination" defenders can write a book and be understood by the common man unaided by the Holy Spirit, but God cannot write the Bible and be understood unaided.
# We utterly reject the idea that only the church organization (which is nothing more than a few fallible men at the top) can understand the Bible.


There is a lot of truth in these statements. Where is the logic in the fact that an orginization of sinners can understand the bible (and claim authority over the bible) but no one else can? Wouldn't God have wanted all to read and understand His word?

1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 "20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good."

So are we to test all thing and hold what is good if we cannot understand what the scriptures teach? The answer is, we cannot. There is numerous scriptures that tell us to read the scriptures, not let a group of fallible sinners tell you what is true and what the bible is saying.



1. "that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" Ephesians 3:3-5

2. "For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end" 2 Corinthians 1:13

3. "from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 3:15

Here are only a few of the references that Christ made to scripture:

# "Have you not read" Matthew 12:3
# "have you not read in the Law" Matthew 12:5
# "Did you never read in the Scriptures" Matthew 21:42
# "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" (Luke 10:26)
# Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? (Mark 12:24)
# But Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)
# "The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him" There were any oral traditions as to who the messiah was. All were wrong! Some thought he was merely a king, some merely a prophet, some merely a priest! (Matthew 26:24)
# "What then is this that is written: 'The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone'? (Luke 20:17)
# "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me (John 5:39)
# "How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?" (Matthew 26:54)


Here are some examples of Scripture alone is all-sufficient for complete hope, joy and assurance of salvation without any oral tradition:

# For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)
# These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.1 John 1:4
# These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13



At this time, I will close with a few more questions.

Since when is oral traditon over scripture or written tradition? If there is an oral tradition that is not founded in scripture, or even the idea of it, one example is infant baptism, then it is not biblcal and exceeds scripture and is a tradition of men, We are told not to follow the traditions of men.

Mark 7:7-9 " 7 And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men[b]—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition."


Is there any reason why someone would purposely go against the Word of God and the teachings of Christ?