"The passage does not say that only "Holy men" can interpret scripture, it says that prophecy was only given by Holy men."
Do you suppose that the Apostles wrote their works in a vacuum? Do you not suppose that various faithful would ask St. Paul: "Could you explain what you meant when you wrote _______?" What was St. Paul talking about all night when Eutychus fell asleep in the window?
Surely you don't think that St. Paul would respond, "Well, my friend, it's Scripture, so your interpretation of it is as good as mine... just read it and figure it out by refering to other Scriptures, with the Holy Spirit to guide you."??
Of course not. The Apostles were actively preaching and teaching, and the people that they preached to and taught did preaching and teaching of their own.
This is why I, like a stuck record, keep asking Protestants to show me evidence from the early centuries of the Church that there was serious controversy about the things that Protestantism says the Church invented or perverted.
So many of the things that you disagree with in what we believe have no controversy associated with them. Take for example your own belief that infant baptism is not an Apostolic practice -- where is the record of the controversy over this when infant baptism was introduced. Where is the controversy over prayers to saints, asking them to pray for us, veneration of relics, the ever-virginity of the Theotokos, etc.?
If these things were all perversions, surely the teaching of the Apostles would have had enough staying power to last at least a couple of centuries, and the "true followers of the Apostles" would have raised a holy ruckus over these things. Yet, all we hear is historical static.
Some say that this is because the Church suppressed it -- but then we would have the Church's record of *its* side of the story, telling about these heretic proto-Baptists and the crazy things they believed! :-)
Again, historical static is what we actually have.
So, I do not think at all that we can separate the holy men who wrote the Scriptures from their interpretation and explanation of those Scriptures -- in short, from their preaching.
I believe that God wrote His work through the Apostles, so there was no vacuum. Of course there was preaching and teaching all along from the Apostles. It is perfectly reasonable for an Apostle to interpret his own writings. One problem is that those interpretations can then be reinterpreted and reinterpreted ad infinitum all the way up until today. I just don't necessarily believe in those reinterpretations based on just the say so of the reinterpreter.
Surely you don't think that St. Paul would respond, "Well, my friend, it's Scripture, so your interpretation of it is as good as mine... just read it and figure it out by referring to other Scriptures, with the Holy Spirit to guide you."??
I see it as interesting that the Church is perfectly happy with Apostles interpreting what they wrote in scripture, but on the thought that God Himself might interpret His own inspired word through other scripture, this idea is wholly unacceptable. Jesus interpreted His own words within scripture in a parable. However, "God" is barred from doing the same thing by the Church.
This is why I, like a stuck record, keep asking Protestants to show me evidence from the early centuries of the Church that there was serious controversy about the things that Protestantism says the Church invented or perverted.
What do you require for controversy? Several of the early Fathers wrote things that were rejected by the majority of the Church, some of which would be accepted by today's Protestants. Since they were summarily dismissed at the time, the claim is "no controversy". Sometimes it seems that the standard is that if the Reformation was legitimate it would have happened right away. I don't agree with this.
The Church DOES indoctrinate. To my knowledge, dissenting views were not welcomed or encouraged, even to the point of not allowing people to read the Bible because of the threat it posed to the interpretation of the Church. It doesn't make sense to me that any hierarchy that is right should be so afraid of its own members reading their own defining written work. It doesn't appear to me that the early years were particularly an era of "free thinking". Conformism was and is the rule of the day, and why not? It was/is an efficient system. If there is no disagreement, there are no problems.
I think it took all that time before the pressure cooker blew. I don't believe the Reformation just "happened" overnight. It was a gradual process that reached a zenith when it did.
If these things [mainly extra-scriptural Traditional practices] were all perversions, surely the teaching of the Apostles would have had enough staying power to last at least a couple of centuries, and the "true followers of the Apostles" would have raised a holy ruckus over these things. Yet, all we hear is historical static.
That is certainly possible. I'm not sure exactly when or how these types of practices got started. And I don't know if anything could have really been done about it at the time or not. I know that the Jews executed blasphemers, and the Apostolic Church has also done the same, but I'm not sure what the practice was in the early years. (I know that Protestants have also done some unfortunate things, so I didn't mean to make it sound one way. I'm just not sure if the early Church handled such dissension the same way the Jews did.)
And that reminds me, at the time of Jesus, it appears that the then version of "God's Church" was fairly corrupt. Jesus came and righted the ship, but it does show that just being in charge does not make a hierarchy correct. All humans are still fallible.
Some say that this is because the Church suppressed it -- but then we would have the Church's record of *its* side of the story, telling about these heretic proto-Baptists and the crazy things they believed! :-)
Unless the penalty was as above. Ouch! :) Even the threat of excommunication, I would imagine, would be plenty enough to quash much dissent. I don't think it's "unfair" for the Church to want to rid itself of dissenters for the legitimate purpose of unity. But if one had been born and raised into an Apostolic faith, then I can imagine it being pretty tough to work up the moxie to publicly dissent.