If Sola Scriptura is right and supposedly given by God why are there so many different interpretations?
There is nothing wrong with relying upon the Word for final truth. The error lies in the following:
1) people like to practice eisegesis and read into the text things that are not there.
2) texts are taken out of context due to #1 to accommodate a particular point of view or substantiate a belief
3) lack of knowledge/use of the original languages
4) lack of knowledge of the background of the OT/NT era
But there is the issue of simple unbelief. The sad reality is that many who claim to be Christians have never repented of sin and come to Christ for the salvation He alone offers. The pews are filled with unbelievers who have come into the church for their own reasons and who have never experienced a true change of heart. Many who teach the Bible do not believe it themselves. They claim to speak for God but do not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them and, without His illumination, .....they come to wrong conclusions and false interpretations of Scripture.
The Lord tells us...”The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” ....(1 Corinthians 2:14). Also Peter reminds us that the letters of the apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament epistles, "have some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures"... 2 Peter 3:16.
So When the "ignorant and unstable" attempt to interpret Scripture without using accepted methods of exegesis, error often results. Paul told Timothy to "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2:15.
Additionally...Taking verses and passages out of their context has resulted in more incorrect interpretations than any other single factor.....and a lack of understanding of the entire Word of God....which many people don't read let alone study.....Failure to adequately compare Scripture with Scripture and preach "the whole counsel of God" as Acts 20:27 instructs has led many groups to promote falsehood and error.
And yet further those who teach God's Word, whether from the pulpit, in Bible classes, or on blogs or websites, must be 'mature in the faith' and well-studied in the Scriptures. Sadly, this is often not the case, which results in a plethora of opinions and false interpretations of Scripture.
Finally, incorrect interpretations of Scripture occur because of an emphasis on tradition. Some churches claim to believe the Bible, but their interpretation is always filtered through the established traditions of the church or interpreted in light of the church's other publications or edicts. When equal weight is give to tradition and the teachings of the Bible, tradition is often given precedence. This directly contradicts the doctrines of the sufficiency and supremacy of the Word of God and leads to falsehood.
....No church tradition, papal edict, or writings of man can be placed on a par with the inspired Word of God which is declare to be all we need to be "complete, equipped for every good work".... 2 Timothy 3:17.
Let me take a stab at that, and see if it makes sense. While many have different thoughts on many different issues, like pre trib, post trib, mid trib, speaking in tongues, not speaking in tongues, the only thing that matters in all creation, is Heaven and Hell, and how to go to the first, and avoid the second. Nothing else really matters. God is so intelligent, He never left anyone with the option of misinterpreting the plan of salvation. There IS only one correct interpretation of the plan of salvation. It is so easy, a child can figure it out. My son understood it perfectly at 5 years of age. Again, we are not discussing the theory of relativity here.
I hope that helps with the most important issue that faces mankind: Heaven or Hell.
“If Sola Scriptura is right and supposedly given by God why are there so many different interpretations?”
Where there are imperfect people, there are differing life experience and views people bring to the Scriptures. This doesn’t mean every view is correct in every case.
Your argument though falls short by confusing the authority of God’s Holy Spirit inspired Word with what men teach and believe when they read it. These are two vastly different things.
Apart from this, much of the areas of disagreement are lesser issues - similar to your understanding of Rites. For example, there are vast areas of the Scriptures that don’t influence whether someone has eternal life or not. They aren’t worth disagreeing about.
Do you really want to be in conflict with fellow believers in Christ over *everything*? I do not. Even the Scripture itself gives latitude for believers to hold different days as holy (for example) and encourages us to get along with respect.
If you look at the Great Creeds that all Christendom agrees on, they are the core beliefs of Christianity and do not cover the great sweep of Scripture in every detail.
In addition, God has given teachers and pastors as gifts to the Church. He has given the indwelling Spirit to lead us into all truth. His process takes time, as history demonstrates.
Blessings.
Because.....
SPIRITUAL TRUTHS ARE SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED
1 Corinthians 1:18-31 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 2:1-16 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
God's Truth is His Truth and stands alone as authoritative by its very nature as God's truth, regardless of man's ability or inability to correctly discern it.
Man's inability to correctly discern God's Word does not invalidate it nor mean that relying on it alone is not valid.
If relying on God's word alone is invalidated because sinful men are incapable of correctly discerning it, then *sacred tradition* is likewise invalidated because men are no more capable of correctly discerning that than Scripture.
The fault is not with the source, the Word, it's with the men interpreting it.
Whatever arguments are used against sola Scriptura, can be used against any teaching of Catholicism, thus, buy rejecting sS, you are forced into a position of rejecting your own church's teachings.
If Peter was the rock upon which the Only True Church was established; I guess it explains why the angel told John to write about the ERRORs so many of them in Asia were involved in.