That is complete nonsense. We are told who "authoritative interpretation" was given to and who it is that does teaching.
1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1 John 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
When on truly longs for God's truth and studies scripture the Holy Spirit will reveal what it means. Studying in context with all of scripture taken into account with ernest prayer will cause the Holy Spirit to reveal what scripture means. The Catholic Church injecting itself between God and those who would know God's truth is Satanic.
>>How many times does it need pointing out to you the text of John 21:25<<
How many times do you need to be told that simply because not all that Jesus did or said was included we should feel free to surmise other things He did or said? >>Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes,<<
I have no idea why you think that by identifying someone as a "Protestant" that it means something to me or probably any one else here for that matter. IT DOES NOT. The Catholic obsession with "group identity" is carnal adolescence. It's positively lemming like.
>>The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . .<<
Anyone who thinks a story stays the same through generations of story telling is naive at best and certainly not to be trusted for truth of history.
>>The Church is the repository of this oral tradition, customs and rituals.<<
Sure it is Steelfish. Because the Holy Spirit couldn't do His job adequately right? God told Moses to write down what He told him because the Catholic Church wasn't around yet right?
>>Go spend some serious time on reading the works of some of the pre-eminent Lutheran scholars, like the late Rev. Richard Neuhaus who converted to Catholicism<<
There you go with that lemming thing again.
>>Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical,<<
ROFL!!! LEMMING
This is where your analysis self-destructs:
“When one longs for God’s truth and studies scripture the Holy Spirit will reveal what it means.”
Go tell that to the Moonies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, David Koreshs’, Jim Jones; and all those mainline Protestant denominations who “long for God’s truth” and who now can justify gay and lesbian ordinations of their pastors.
The Holy Spirit was sent down to Peter and his successors establishing a single Church to “go forth and teach” and this is the teaching of ONE truth with an infallible authority. By your analysis every person can crack open the pages of the Bible, pray to the Holy Spirit, and God’s message is self-revealing even if it reveals multiple “truths” to each of a variety of readers.
It has been said that if you put 100 Bible Christians in a room and provide them each with pencil and notepad and have them interpret a section of scripture, you will have 100 different explanations for their answers. Sorry, this is not what the Holy Spirit does.