BIBLE, TRADITION AND MAGISTERIUM

Catholic Church Teachings:

The Catholic Church was given by Christ the

sole authority to teach and interpret the divine
revelation that were written in the Bible and the
Apostolic Tradition or the unwritten divine
revelation which were transmitted by preaching
through the mouth. The Catholic Church did not
acquire its absolute truth from the Bible alone
but from its two fountains that includes the Bible
and Tradition. Bible and Tradition must be given
equal attention as depository of the Word of
God. The infallibility to teach on matters about
the salvation of man was not given to every
reader of the Bible but to the living authority of
the Holy Church which is called the
“magisterium” which includes the Pope and all
the bishops in union with the Holy Pope.

SUPPLEMENTAL EXPLANATION:

It is good that we will learn the example

given by the people of God in the Old
Testament. No nation ever had a greater
veneration for the Bible than the Jewish people.
The Holy Scripture was their pride and their
glory. It was their national song in time of
peace; it was their meditation and solace in time
of tribulation and exile. And yet the Jews never
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dreamed of settling their religious controversies
by a private appeal to the Word of God. God
chose priests who are going to teach them:

Deuteronomy 17:9 - “Go to the levitical

priests or to the judge who is in office at that
time. They shall investigate the case and then
announce to you the decision.”

Nehemiah 8:8 - “Ezra read clearly from the

book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all
could understand what was read.”

Malachi 2:7 - “For a priest’s lips preserve

knowledge, and instruction is to be sought from
his mouth, because he is the messenger of the
LORD of hosts.”

In the New Testament, Jesus led the new

people of God which is the Church:

Matthew 16:18 - “And so I say to you, you

are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of the netherworld shall
not prevail against it.”

In the midst of His people, Jesus choose

twelve (12) whom He called apostles:

Luke 6:13 - “When day came, he called his

disciples to himself, and from them he chose
Twelve, whom he also named apostles:”
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 And they were sent to all the nations to
continue His mission of teaching, governing and
sanctifying His people:

Matthew 28:19-20 - “Go, therefore, and

make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that
I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
you always, until the end of the age.”

On the other hand, Jesus warned for a heavy

punishment for those who will deny them:

Matthew 10:14-15 - “Whoever will not

receive you or listen to your words—go outside
that house or town and shake the dust from
your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
on the day of judgment than for that town.”

And the Apostles who knew the power which

was given to them by the Lord used said
authority to teach and admonish wrong
doctrines:

Galatians 1:8 - “But even if we or an angel

from heaven should preach [to you] a gospel
other than the one that we preached to you, let
that one be accursed!”

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 In the First Council of the Church in
Jerusalem, the apostles and the authorities of
the Church together with Peter as Supreme
Leader settled the confusion regarding their
teachings (Acts 15:1-11).

The first Christian recognized the infallible

authority of the apostles who were sent by
Christ:

1 Thessalonians 2:13 - “in receiving the

word of God from hearing us, you received not a
human word but, as it truly is, the word of God,
which is now at work in you who believe.”

We saw that for the first Christians, the living

authority to teach were exercised by the
apostles and the authorities of the Church under
Peter as the Supreme Leader. This is the
situation in that time where there was no single
line written yet in the Bible!

Now we are going to prove that the Bible

alone is not enough guide for salvation:

First: The Bible is not accessible by

everyone at all period of time.

A complete guide of salvation must be within

the reach of every inquirer after truth; for, God
"wishes all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of the truth;" (1 Timothy 2:4) and
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therefore He must have placed within the reach
of everyone the means of arriving at the truth.
Now, it is clear that the Scriptures could not at
any period have been accessible to everyone.

They could not have been accessible to the

primitive Christians, because they were not all
written for a long time after the establishment
of Christianity. The Christian religion was
founded in the year 33. St. Matthew's Gospel,
the first part of the New Testament ever written,
did not appear till eight years after. The Church
was established about twenty years when St.
Luke wrote his Gospel. And St. John's Gospel did
not come to light till toward the end of the first
century. For many years after the Gospels and
Epistles were written the knowledge of them
was confined to the churches to which they
were addressed. It was not till the close of the
fourth century that the Church framed her
Canon of Scripture and declared the Bible, as we
now possess it, to be the genuine Word of God.
And this was the golden age of Christianity! The
most perfect Christians lived and died and went
to heaven before the most important parts of
the Scripture were written. And what would
have become of them if the Bible alone had
been their guide?

The art of printing was not invented till the

fifteenth century (1440). How utterly impossible
it was to supply everyone with a copy of the
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Scriptures from the fourth to the fifteenth
century! During that long period Bibles had to
be copied with the pen. There were but a few
hundreds of them in the Christian world, and
these were in the hands of the clergy and the
learned.

But even if the Bible were at all times

accessible to everyone, how many millions exist
in every age and country, not excepting our own
age of boasted enlightenment, who are not
accessible to the Bible because they are
incapable of reading the Word of God! Hence,
the doctrine of private interpretation would
render many men's salvation not only difficult,
but impossible.

Second: Not all the teachings of Jesus Christ

were written in the Bible.

A rule of faith, or a competent guide to

heaven, must be able to instruct in all the
truths necessary for salvation. Now the
Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths
which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do
they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he
is obliged to practice. St. John said:

John 21:25 - “There are also many other

things that Jesus did, but if these were to be
described individually, I do not think the whole

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world would contain the books that would be
written.”

St. Paul added:

2 Thessalonians 2:15 - “Therefore,

brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the
traditions that you were taught, either by an
oral statement or by a letter of ours.”

We all know that in the beginning the

apostles preached through the mouth but as
time goes by, there was a necessity to make an
authoritative and trusted narration of the life of
Christ from the eyewitnesses or from those who
has firsthand knowledge about Jesus since the
apostles were slowly dying but above all, to
counter the numerous writings that were not
accurate or false that were spread to malign the
humanity and works of our Savior. These are the
reasons why St. Luke and the other evangelists
wrote the gospel. Moreover, the Epistles were
written to answer the various needs of every
church relative to teachings, governance,
rituals, or discipline and were written to
encourage, admonish and reminders against
false preachers and also to defend the apostles
on the accusations against them. But nobody
among the holy writers attempted to write a
complete tabulation of the Christian doctrines or
gather their writings into a single book to serve
as the basis of their faith apart from the
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authority of the living teacher left by Christ
which is the Holy Church!

Third: The Bible is not clear and intelligible

to all.

A competent religious guide must be clear

and intelligible to all, so that everyone may fully
understand the true meaning of the instructions
it contains. Is the Bible a book intelligible to all?
Far from it; it is full of obscurities and difficulties
not only for the illiterate, but even for the
learned. St. Peter himself informs us that in the
Epistles of St. Paul there are:

2 Peter 3:16 - “speaking of these things as

he does in all his letters. In them there are some
things hard to understand that the ignorant and
unstable distort to their own destruction, just as
they do the other scriptures.”

St. Peter even added:

1 Peter 1:20 - “Know this first of all, that

there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter
of personal interpretation.”

The emergence of numerous group of beliefs

who use the Scripture as their sole basis of
teaching however possesses contrasting
interpretation is a clear proof that the Scripture
is difficult to interpret.
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 There are three (3) important inquiries
which we cannot answer if we will depend
on the Bible alone.

First: How can we assure the exact numbers

(canon) of the books in the Bible? Before the
writings of the New Testament were gathered
many Christian writings were already
disseminated. Who introduced to us the 27
books in the New Testament as inspired? There
is no other except the Catholic Church in the
Council of Carthage in year 397 AD who, after
the approval of the Holy Pope authoritatively
handed down for all generation the books that
were included in the Bible and those that were
not. The first writings were all have been gone.
What we have now is just a copy of the copy of
the original. Who will guarantee that the text is
accurate and faithful copy? The Catholic Church
in accordance to ancient Tradition, in Her
Teachings and liturgy knew what is the accurate
text and what is inaccurate.

Second: How can we determine the correct

translation as the Bible we are using now were
just translated from the Hebrew, Greek and
Aramaic? To ascertain the exact translation, we
need to study the original language and who
among us who can perform this difficult task?
Once again, we need to lean on the authority of
the Catholic Church.
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 Third: How can we assure that the
interpretation of what we are reading is correct?
Every pastor who founded a new group will
always admit that their interpretation is correct
but they never agree on what does the letter of
the scriptures meant. For Catholics, the infallible
authority of the true Church founded by Christ
will give Her the assurance that what She
received is the pure words of God without any
mixture of error from a human interpretation.

Objections:

Objection 1. So we should not receive

matters that were not written in the [Link].
Paul said;

1 Corinthians 4:6 - “do not to go beyond

what is written”
Answer 1. What is not to be received are
those ‘excess’ teachings that were against the
Scripture;

1 Corinthians 14:37-38 - “ If anyone thinks

that he is a prophet or a spiritual person, he
should recognize that what I am writing to you is
a commandment of the Lord. If anyone does not
acknowledge this, he is not acknowledged”.

Objection 2. Jesus condemned traditions;

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 Matthew 15:6 - “You have nullified the
word of God for the sake of your tradition.”
Answer 2. The Bible mentioned three types
of traditions:

First: Patriarchal tradition.

Isaiah 59:21 - “This is my covenant with

them, which I myself have made, says the
LORD: My spirit which is upon you and my words
that I have put in your mouth, Shall not depart
from your mouth, nor from the mouths of your
children, Nor the mouths of your children’s
children from this time forth and forever, says
the LORD.”

Second: Apostolic tradition.

St. Paul encouraged:

2 Thessalonians 2:15 - “Therefore,
brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the
traditions that you were taught, either by an
oral statement or by a letter of ours”.

He also reminded:

2 Thessalonians 3:6 - “We instruct you,

brothers, in the name of [our] Lord Jesus Christ,
to shun any brother who conducts himself in a
disorderly way and not according to the
tradition they received from us”.

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 Third: Judaical tradition which was criticized
by Christ in Matthew 15:2-6 because they
taught that if a person has the opportunity to
help his parents but instead they would say that
‘it is for God’ then there is no need to help his
parents.

Objection 3. The Bible is enough to bring us

to eternal life. Jesus declares;

John 5:39 - “You search the scriptures,

because you think you have eternal life through
them”

Answer 3. Jesus told those words in John

5:39 to the Pharisees who did not believe in
Him, and the continuation for this is: “even they
testify on my behalf”. What Jesus meant is that
those prophecies that were fulfilled in Him
proved His being a Messiah but Jesus mentioned
not only the Scripture as a witness for Him
(John 5:33-39).

Objection 4. St. John wrote;

John 20:31 - “But these are written that you

may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
the Son of God, and that through this belief you
may have life in his name”

Answer 4. John 20:31 mean that the

intention of St. John in writing is that through his
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writings the people may acquire faith in Jesus.
But faith cannot only be acquired through
reading the Bible but also through listening to
the preaching.
Romans 10:14-15 – “But how can they call
on him if they have not come to believe in him?
And how can they believe in someone about
whom they have never heard? And how can
they hear without someone to preach to them?
And how will there be people to preach if they
are not sent?

The first Christians acquired their faith in

Christ not through reading the Scriptures but
through listening to the preaching of St. Peter
(Acts 2:37-41).

Furthermore, it’s not by reading the Bible

that will give us life but our faith in Jesus.

Objection 5. The Bible is enough guide for

salvation because St. Paul states;
2 Timothy 3:16-17 - “All scripture is
inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for
refutation, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, so that one who belongs to God
may be competent, equipped for every good
work”.

Answer 5. When it was said that the

Scripture is ‘useful’ for teaching does not mean
that it is enough guide for salvation, that said
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Scripture is the only tool for preaching and the
Scripture that St. Paul is mentioning is the Old
Testament which he studied since childhood. If
this passage according to the understanding of
the Protestants is a proof of they called “sola
scriptura”, it would come out that the writings in
the New Testament is not anymore necessary
for salvation.
We need a living teacher who would make us
understand those difficult texts in the Bible and
it is imperative that said teacher is infallible in
Her teachings so that we can attain assurance.

2 Peter 3:16 – “In them, there are some

things that are difficult to understand, which the
ignorant and the unstable distort in the same
way that they distort the other Scriptures, to
their own destruction.”

A eunuch was reading the Scripture but he

failed to understand so the Holy Spirit brought
Philip to teach said person.

Acts 8:29-31 – “Then the Spirit said to

Philip, “Go up and join that chariot.” When Philip
ran up, he heard him reading from the prophet
Isaiah, and he asked, “Do you understand what
you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless
I have someone to instruct me?” Then he invited
Philip to get in and sit beside him.”

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Lesson:

We must be grateful to the Lord for giving us

His words through the bible and Tradition. We
need to read the Bible, live to its teachings and
share it to others. In studying the Bible, we must
always observe the mind of the Holy Church
when it comes to matters that are difficult to
understand and we must be prepared to submit
to the authority of the Holy Church.

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