I have no problem understanding God’s word and I don’t need the pope to think for me.
Scripture says: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” John 16:13.
“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:19-20.
Thank you for the good and true answer.
Good for you.
Our problem though is like this: Even WITH the Pope doing our thinking for us (If that's what you want to think, you go right ahead, I can work with it) there are plenty of disagreements and grey areas and such. Even among Catholics who think they are being loyal to the Magisterium and all that, there can be some pretty exciting disagreements. In a group I am involved with, for example, there is a disagreement about whether a politician's being pro-choice automatically makes him ineligible for a Catholic's vote.
WITHOUT some court of final doctrinal appeal, what it looks like to us is: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Mennonites, D of C, Christian Missionary Alliance-ites, Quakers (of various stripes and inclinations), Holiness churches, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Moonies, Congregationalists, Unitarians, Christian Scientists (forsooth!) -- ALL telling us they have no problem understanding God's word and they don't need a pope to do their thinking for them.
John 16:13 is Jesus talking, NOT before a crowd as in the Sermon on the Mount, but in a room with the Apostles. The text by itself does not necessarily or conclusively demonstrate that The Spirit will lead us one by one without the ministry and Spiritual gifts attendant upon the ecclesia as MORE than one person alone.
Clearly there has to be some, as it were, personal attention, some individual guidance. And over the centuries God has raised up some pretty amazing individuals, clerical, "religious", AND lay.
I take you to be offering Matthew 18:19-20 in support of some spiritual gifts or graces, important ones, which are present in any small group of our Lord's followers. But I say again that the remark requires a group and some togetherness. AND our Lord's presence in that group gathered in His name is not clearly His presence as teacher.
And there's I Cor 12. I mean no offense, but sometimes the argument of some Protestants seems to be like the foot saying, "I AM an eye. I am the entire organism, I myself have all needed functions." Or maybe it's more on the order of a group of toes saying, "We need no eye or stomach, we ourselves can do all that must be done for a body to be a body."
Is it nor true that by far the majority of groups calling themselves Christian Churches "set apart" people for ministries, including for preaching and teaching ministries? What shall we make of this is everything we need can be found in a random assembly of two or three gathered in His Name?
I think the interesting part of your post is that it started by quoting a "slam" (whether right or wrong is not important) on "modern day Protestants" and you responded with a statement about yourself individually and your personal or individual ability to understand God's Word. That right there, the relationship of the individual, the assembly, and God, is where I think the interesting questions are to be found.