Why not just use the Bible? People from an ancient culture foreign to our own wrote the books that make up the Bible. Because of this, the untrained reader can easily misunderstand the texts. The necessity of a teacher is best illustrated in Phillip’s meeting with the Ethiopian eunuch recorded in the Book of Acts: Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him (8:27-32). Certainly the position of teacher was not meant to end with the apostolic age. In fact, the further we get from that time, the more necessary an authoritative interpreter becomes. One example of interpretation and application would be the Church’s teaching on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 21:28:37 +0000
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