If God’s Word Is Clear, Then Why So Many Denominations?

from Borrowed Light by Mike Leake – LEAVE A COMMENT

One of the hallmarks of a Protestant view of the Bible is that God’s Word is clear. We readily acknowledge that there are some places in Scripture which are more clear than others—

…yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (WCF 1.7)

This doctrine is what drove William Tyndale to labor to get the Bible in the native of tongue of every person. We do not believe we need a magisterium to lay down the authentic teaching of the Church. We believe the Scripture is clear enough to be interpreted by even the unlearned.

But the legion of Protestant denominations doesn’t bode well for the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture. If God’s Word is clear then why are there so many different denominations?

A common, though in my opinion unsatisfactory, answer is to say that there are so many different denominations because everyone except my particular church or denomination is wrong. In this view, if people would simply believe the way that I do then we wouldn’t have all these denominations.

While I believe there is truth in this, I don’t believe it is the whole truth. Yes, there are certain denominations that I would never be part of because I believe they are fundamentally mistaken in their interpretation of Scripture. But there is another reason why we disagree; namely, we are “seeking to make affirmations where Scripture itself is silent” (Grudem, 109)

In other words, we’ve drawn lines in the sand where Scripture hasn’t. Some of these lines might be necessary for practical reasons. Others are foolish.

Continue: http://www.mikeleake.net/2015/03/if-gods-word-is-clear-then-why-so-many-denominations.html