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Personal Bible Study and Private Interpretation
Most homes in the Western world have a Bible. Researchers inform us that the average home in the United States has four. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time and continues to be the best-selling book every year. A 2008 Harris Interactive Poll reported that regardless of the demographic group the Bible is the all-time favorite book of American adults. Undoubtedly, many of these Bibles serve as decorations or as a convenient place to store photos and press flowers, handy also to display in a prominent place when the pastor is visiting the home. Because of the easy accessibility of Bibles, many of us have forgotten the awesome price that was paid for the privilege of possessing a Bible written in our own language that we can interpret for ourselves.
Martin Luther and Private Interpretation
Two of the great legacies of the Reformation were the principle of private interpretation and the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. The two principles go hand in hand and were accomplished only after great controversy and persecution. Scores of persons paid with their lives by being burned at the stake (particularly in England) for daring to translate the Bible into the vernacular. One of Luther’s greatest achievements was the translation of the Bible into German so that any literate person could read it.
Luther himself brought the issue of private interpretation of the Bible into sharp focus in the sixteenth century. Hidden beneath the famous response of the Reformer to the ecclesiastical and imperial authorities at the Diet of Worms (his trial for heresy) was the implicit principle of private interpretation.
When asked to recant of his writings, Luther replied, “Unless I am convinced by sacred Scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant. For my conscience is held captive by the word of God and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me.” Notice that Luther said “unless I am convinced . . .” In earlier debates, Luther had dared to presume to interpret Scripture contrary to interpretations rendered both by popes and by church councils. That he would be so presumptuous led to the repeated charge of arrogance by church officials. Luther did not take those charges lightly but agonized over them. Luther agreed that if his teachings could be shown to be in error by the Prophets and the Gospels, he would “recant any error, and . . . be the first in casting my writings into the fire.” He believed that he could be wrong but maintained that the pope and councils could also err. For him only one source of truth was free from error. He said, “The Scriptures never err.” Thus unless the leaders of the church could convince him of his error, he felt duty-bound to follow what his own conscience was convinced Scripture taught. With this controversy the principle of private interpretation was born and baptized with fire.
After Luther’s bold declaration and subsequent work of translating the Bible into German, the Roman Catholic Church did not roll over and play dead. The church mobilized its forces into a three-pronged counteroffensive known as the Counter Reformation. One of the sharpest prongs of the counterattack was the formulations against Protestantism made by the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Trent spoke to many of the issues raised by Luther and other Reformers. Among those issues was the issue of private interpretation. Trent said:
To check unbridled spirits it [the Council] decrees that no one, relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held or holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpret
