I have a question that has been bothering me because I don’t know the answer.
I may have the wrong idea of what protestants believe, but it was my understanding that everyone was supposed to read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will guide them to the correct intepretation.
If protestants believe in Sola Scriptura, why do they have churches where they go and listen to a preacher tell them about what the scripture says? Why don’t they just read the bible and let the Holy Spirit guide them to the right interpretation?
There are Protestants (mostly American) who believe this, or at least say they do. Baptists are particularly famous for this attitude. However, as you note, even they obviously think that going to church is valuable. The preacher is supposed to help them know how Scripture fits together, and they are supposed to have their Bibles handy and check to see that what the preacher is saying is true. In other words, they still think that guidance is useful.
This is a more radical version of the view held by older, more historic versions of Protestantism (Lutheran, Reformed, etc.), which would say that yes the Holy Spirit does guide individuals, but that normally speaking the Holy Spirit uses certain means to do so, and the preaching of the Word is one of the principal such means.
In other words, you’re setting up an either/or that doesn’t really work. It’s not that the Spirit guides independently of preaching (though as I said the more radical Protestants can sound like they believe this), but that the Spirit guides the individual through an abundance of means, of which preaching is one of the chief.
The basic difference with Catholicism is that for all Protestants it is possible for a layperson to be guided by the Spirit to a truth that contradicts not just what the local pastor says (something that Catholics obviously believe as well) but what is officially taught by the organized church body to which the person belongs. All church structures or organizations can err. That doesn’t mean they are useless, simply that one can’t assume that the Bible teaches X because the Church teaches X, or even necessarily because the Church has historically taught X (though to some extent most Protestants–and some Protestants to a very great extent–would say that the more ancient and universal a teaching of the historic Church, the less likely it is that the teaching is wrong; even some Baptists will say this).
Edwin
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