Acts 8:
30) And when Philip had run up, he heard
him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are
reading?”
31) And he [the Ethiopian eunuch] said,
“Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up
and sit with him.
This is the story of God
using Philip, who was sent by an angel to a lonely desert area to
providentially share the gospel with an Ethiopian man (Acts 8:26-40).
Catholics will often use this
passage to try to prove that we need an “infallible magisterium” in order to
understand Scripture. They don’t believe
that Scripture, by iself, is sufficient as a Rule of Faith because there is not
enough perspicuity in the Bible (i.e., it is not always clear enough), and
they’ll point to Protestants and their divisions as “proof” that Sola Scriptura
(Scripture alone) “doesn’t work.” According
to Catholics, it takes more to understand the Bible than just reading it. It demands an “independent visible teaching
authority that is guided by the Holy Spirit.”
In other words, the Catholic Magisterium.
The Catholic View
An official Catholic document
presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II (April 23,
1993), The Interpretation of the Bible in
the Church, uses this same Bible passage in an attempt to point out the
difficulty of Scripture interpretation:
“According to the Acts of the
Apostles, an Ethiopian of the first century found himself in the same situation
with respect to a passage from the Book of Isaiah (Is. 53:7-8) and
recognized that he had need of an interpreter (Acts 8:30-35).”
But not just any
interpreter. This document goes on to
say that “responsibility for authentically interpreting the word of God… has
been entrusted solely to the living magisterium of the church…”
And there are many Catholic
apologists who use this passage in the same way.
Speaking Like a Pope
Now, every Scripture passage
has a purpose for being there. And it
almost seems that Catholics believe that this particular passage mentioned
above (Acts 8:26-40) exists solely to demonstrate a “need” for an
infallible magisterium and no other reason.
One would think that the eunuch’s question, “How could I, unless someone
guides me?” was some sort of infallible “ex-cathedra” papal
pronouncement, seeing the way Catholics tend to interpret this!
Pope Philip?
But first of all, is Philip
even considered part of the magisterium?
According to the Catholic Church, the infallible magisterium is confined
to the popes and / or bishops of the Church, to which Philip
did not belong. Philip wasn’t an apostle
or bishop and therefore not part of the “apostolic succession of bishops.” He was simply a deacon (Acts 6:5). So what was Philip doing interpreting
Scripture for the eunuch? Apparently, it
didn’t take the magisterium to interpret here.
So this passage has nothing to do with a magisterium.
Again, in this story, the
eunuch didn’t appeal to a magisterium, and Philip never told him that one was
needed, nor did the author of the book of Acts suggest that he needed an
“official interpreter.” Yet Catholics
tend to focus more on, and give more weight to, the eunuch’s question rather than Philip’s message of the gospel.
The purpose of this passage
was certainly not to prove that we need an “infallible magisterium” with
special authority to decode the Bible for us.
That is simply reading a Catholic idea back into the text.
“But It’s Hard!”
At this point, the Catholic
may say, “Well, maybe so, but it still shows that Scripture is hard to
understand.”
No, the eunuch was simply
asking about the person to whom Isaiah was referring, that’s all (v.
34). The eunuch’s question came
up, not because the text itself was hard
to understand, but because he simply was not yet aware of the fulfillment
of the prophecy he was reading. He had
not yet been fully presented with the facts of the crucifixion and resurrection
of Jesus, the Messiah. Anyone who was
not from this region (like the eunuch) had no idea yet of Isaiah’s recently
fulfilled prophecy (Isaiah 53:7-8). So of
course, unfulfilled prophecy that focuses on a particular person can sometimes
be an issue, but this doesn’t demand an infallible
interpreter, because even an infallible interpreter could not have identified the Messiah until He actually arrived. It is also like the antichrist – we can
understand many of the prophecies about him, but no one will know his actual
identity until he arrives.
Limited Access
Furthermore, what the eunuch
had available to him was limited. The
book of Isaiah may have been the only Bible book he had in his possession. He didn’t have the luxury of the gospels and
epistles of the New Testament which we have today. So, this Catholic argument stressing the
Ethiopian eunuch’s question cannot be used against the clarity / perspicuity of
the Scriptures as a whole.
We agree that some passages
are harder to understand than others. We
all need help sometimes in Bible interpretation. We don’t deny that. But what about the difficult passages? Do we just give up our study of them because
it’s easier to rely on a supposed infallible magisterium? Of course not. We continue studying, because the Bible never
speaks of an infallible, independent, human teaching authority in the
post-apostolic church. It just doesn’t
exist.
Is It Even a Good Idea?
But perhaps we should question whether a single human authority
/ institution / magisterium to answer all questions is even a healthy idea to
start with. Not only is it not
scriptural, but it is a bad idea, in
general. Why? Because knowing the nature of man and the
propensity for such a group to become proud and corrupt when given such
absolute power over all questions, it may not be such a great idea, after all. Compounding that problem would be the tendency
of those asking the questions to idolize
the “magisterium,” practically guaranteeing the latter’s corruption. Furthermore, the dependence of “the laity” on
this magisterium would certainly cause the laity to be less responsible in
their studies, with far too much dependence on the magisterium. That’s just the nature of man.
So, it is better to have some divisions within the church of
Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 11:19) than to have a corrupt “magisterium” with
a weak and dependent “laity.”
In Time
So, how do we handle hard Bible passages?
Remember, a necessary component of Scripture reading and understanding
is our relationship with our
spiritual Father. Growth in this
relationship is usually gradual and the child must be ever learning. But it is indeed a growth process. He won’t learn everything overnight – not
even the most important lessons. It
takes time to piece it all together. God
does not demand that we know the answers to all the hard questions immediately.
Scripture Interprets Scripture
Interestingly, those claiming
that Scripture is hard to understand are actually relying on the clarity of certain Scriptures (like Acts
8) to try and prove their point.
But why not use this same principle in a positive way, i.e., use the
simpler and clearer teachings of the Bible as a foundation, as a basis to help
us understand the more difficult passages.
Surely, God’s Word is consistent with itself, so if studied diligently,
it will eventually lead to an understanding of the whole.
And just as in an earthly
parent-child relationship, the parent teaches the child by building on basics,
from the simpler things to the more complex, to learn and grow in the principles of life, and then to learn to
apply those to the harder things in life.
In the same way, hard-to-understand Bible passages are interpreted in
the light of the more easily understood passages on the same topic. In this way, God gradually helps us to see
how the Bible message unfolds. Remember,
Scripture is called divine revelation
(Romans
16:25-26) for a reason: because it is something that is intended to be revealed. Even if it sometimes seems hidden, it is meant to be understood.
Insufficient?
Catholics claim the Bible is
an “insufficient” source because some of it is misunderstood, but why is it
that no one jumps to the same conclusion when people didn’t understand the
things that Jesus Christ, Himself, sometimes spoke when He
was here? Would anyone dare to say that
He, too, is an insufficient source?
This is a subtle attack on
the role of Scripture as a sufficiently clear Rule of Faith. It is also an attack on the ability of God to
make His will known to men of all walks of life. Sure, teachers in the church have their
place, but the Protestant position has never been (or at least, should never
be) that we don’t need teachers in the church.
It is that we don’t need a single infallible magisterium to answer all
questions.
The Bottom Line for Catholics
After reading this wonderful
story of God’s love and providence (Acts 8:26-40), where He sends a
willing vessel (Philip) out of his way to miraculously meet and share the
gospel with a hungry soul (the Ethiopian eunuch), opens his heart to prophecy,
and gets him saved and baptized, and then sends the eunuch off rejoicing to
share this same gospel message with his own people in his own land – and this
message is further verified by a miracle
that transports Philip away to another city called Azotus (Ashdod), some thirty
miles away… and yet, after reading all of this, many Catholics can only seem to
summarize this passage with the idea that Scripture is not sufficient.
Really? Does any sane person think that THAT’S what
this story is all about? This is exactly
the type of thing that the scribes and Pharisees (Jesus’ enemies) would have
done. Instead of rejoicing when the man
with the withered hand was healed, they got angry that Jesus worked on the
Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11).
They worried about the ritual washing of hands, pots and pans, but
rejected the commandments of God (Matthew 15:1-6; Mark 7:1-9). They would strain out a gnat, yet swallow a
camel (Matthew 23:24). They
neglected the important things while
focusing on the trivial. Catholics are doing the same thing with the Ethiopian eunuch story. Like the Pharisees, Catholics miss the point
of the passage in order to focus on something that the passage is not even teaching. This is twisting the Scriptures.
Although this may not apply
to all Catholics, but many of them seem to be more excited about weakening the authority
of Scripture than they are about the eternal salvation of the eunuch, or the
spread of the gospel to his people. It’s
almost as if they feel like they have an obligation
to weaken the role of God-inspired Sacred Scripture at every turn.
There is something seriously
wrong with this picture. It is an abuse
of the simple and encouraging story of an Ethiopian eunuch, and it is an attack
on Scripture, itself.
See these links for more
information on Scripture and its interpretation:
