1. How do we check our understanding of scripture?
2. Where does it say in scripture that our pastor's opinion is worth a grain of salt?
1. I will answer this for me. I check myself my comparing my interpretations with (a) other scripture, (b) other interpretations. If my interpretation is seriously different, then I need some clear and compelling reason for disagreeing.
2. This is the easier question. One is supposed to show respect for one's pastor. Elders are to be held in esteem. That's not to say they are infallible.....they certainly are still human. However, everything defaults to scripture.
SD
Also, you say I check myself my comparing my interpretations with (a) other scripture, (b) other interpretations. If my interpretation is seriously different, then I need some clear and compelling reason for disagreeing. It sounds simple enough of a method, but it is in fact seriously deficient for the following reasons:
1.) You are fallible.
2.) You are limited in your intellectual capacities.
3.) You are sinful, as am I, with a tendency to rationalize.
4.) You need to have your mind continuously renewed by grace
5.) You need to constantly develop your own thinking
6.) You are confronted with a text that has the following properties
a. Written in a foreign language
b. In a foreign culture,
c. with foreign presuppositions
d. with foreign narrative habits
e. with foreign interpretative habits
f. having prima facie internal inconsistencies
g. Susceptible to multiple, conflicting interpretations
h. Having disputed canons, translations, and original wording
i. Proposing mysteries that surpass perfect comprehension
j. About the things most difficult of all to understand clearly
k. That has been thought about continuously by millions of people
l. Each of whom has had personally nuanced readings
7.) You have limited time for study and prayer over the texts.
8.) It is impossible for you to read every argument, counterargument, objection and reply that has ever been offered in interpretative conflicts.
9.) It is impossible for you to read MOST of what has been written about the Scriptures. You could hardly read all of Augustine, nonetheless Chrysostom, Leo, Gregory, etc. We have not even begun to talk about modern commentaries.
10.) It is impossible for you to master all the relevant theology and philosophy.
Given facts 1 – 10, how much confidence should anyone have in the method by way of which you arrive at your understanding of what Scripture means? And how in the world do you ever expect to secure unity of doctrine among Christians with such a method?
Furthermore,how would you answer a fellow Protestant minister who aregued this way: Either your understanding of Scripture is normative for other Christians or it is not normative for other Christians. If it is, then you are setting yourself up as an authority over the text. You are attributing to yourself the same authority that the Catholic Church attributes to herself. But if your understanding of Scripture is not normative for other Christians, then why should I consider myself beholden to your judgment that I am putting forward a non-Scriptural or anti-Scriptural teaching. It is not as if your understanding of Scripture, or anyone else's is NORMATIVE FOR ME. So why shouldn't I go on proposing my interpretation of Scripture as the true one, despite the fact that you think it is heretical?