Do you really want to go down that rabbit hole? Remember, protestantism is built upon the doctrine of private interpretation of Scripture.
Simply put: being as you are protestant of some sort, you by definition hold beliefs which contradict Scripture. Who says so? If nothing else, I say so ... and you have no grounds to contradict me. Private interpretation, remember? It's a two edged sword.
One just needs reading comprehension.
That's hilarious. Does your reading comprehension trump mine? Or does my reading comprehension trump yours?
Yeah ... I know ... what comes next is "I suggest that you (re)read 'Passage X'" ... as though I haven't done so already. That argument has gotten very old and stale.
So ... The author of the OP grasped at authority he doesn't have, and wrecked his entire article. His first mistake (IMO) was calling out other Christian groups. As another poster noted upthread, he turned his argument largely into an attack on a strawman. His second mistake (IMO) was presuming to speak with authority he doesn't have instead of humbly promoting his own beliefs.
You probably disagree with all of the above. You may have the last word if you like.
That “private interpretation” argument is a strawman Catholics use to dismiss and discredit any interpretation THEY don’t agree with.
Most of Scripture is clear enough that it does not need to be “interpreted” for someone to understand. The only reason someone would have to”interpret” it is to make it mean something it does not say.
Simply reading it and taking the plain, clear meaning is enough to get the truth out of it.
Nor are there gazillions of interpretations of Scripture. Any one verse picked at random will not have as many interpretations as there are people on this planet.
Not only that, the way Catholics pick and choose what they want to believe and how they want to interpret both Scripture and the Catechism, makes that charge against non-Catholics ludicrous. Condemning someone else for things you all do yourself is called “hypocrisy”.
And I was raised Catholic and grew up in a very heavily Catholic community, and know how fast and loose Catholics can play with their interpretations to allow themselves all kinds of liberties.
While Catholicism...
 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
Asinine.
The need for Protestantism is based on the RCC's criminal misuse of Scripture, God's Guiding Truth, The Word Personified in God-Incarnate Jesus, Messiah and Lord.
One of the great flaws has beeen the marketing of "Indulgences," which the RCC still does in kind. And you and they continue to abuse it, even through mis-translations which Desiderius Erasmus--the true Father of the Reformation--attempted to correct through supplying a faithful copy of the genuine NT apographs for translation into the common language of any other culture, and interpreted there through a literal, historical, grammatical, and culturally faithful hermeneutic by learned Bible scholars.
I think that you might want to shush for a while and learn enough to be properly taught and admonished by spiritually discerning regenerated servants and Friends of the Messiah according to His commission to them, to hear the doctrine of the Apostles which they were ordered to broadcast, not a single hieratic priest among them in the Jerusalem prototype church, nor anywhere else in the commended churches of the New Testament Age.
For your information, please be aware that there have been since the beginning of the Church of the Firstborn a great congregation of non-RCC Christ-professing independent autonomous Bible-preaching assemblies that are not now and never were "Protestants." Please do not include commenters such as myself as one of the "Prods." These have been and always will be thew backbone of The Savior's works on Earth, which the RCC is not, IMHO.