John 16:13
It is my understanding that Jesus sent His Spirit to enable us to understand His Word; it is very liberating that the individual Christian has that same Spirit dwelling within.
I would be a Mormon even if I believed that Joseph Smith was not a prophet, since they were the first Church in 1300 years to re-establish God’s relationship with Jesus Christ to Biblical Primacy over the various tortured Creeds (Nicene,Apostles,Athenasian).
God is the literal Father of Jesus Christ .... not the 1st face of a god with a three-way personality disorder!
God does not need multiple personality disorder counseling!
Jesus Christ is the literal begotten Son of our Father in Heaven!
Heresy isn't preaching falsehood, it's elevating one part of the truth to being the whole truth. In John 16, Christ is promising the Holy Spirit to guide the Church and teach Her. It is this Spirit which animated the Church to declare new doctrine in Acts 15 and to write the Epistles for conformity of faith.
You have taken a part of Scripture written for the Church collectively and applied it to every individual believer. Yet Scripture is clear Who has teaching authority...
1 Tim 3:15 but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.The Bible doesn't point to Scripture as the final authority on truth. Scripture points to the Church.
2 Peter 1:20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation.
This seems an awfully strange thing to say if we are to read and understand the Scripture individually. Of course, history teaches the wisdom of this. As the false doctrine of Sola Scriptura has promulgated, factions have beget factions.
2 Peter 3:16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.It isn't just hard to understand, wresting with Scripture arrogantly can lead to destruction. So many of the Protestant persuasion would say there can't possibly be any harm in reading Scripture alone. Scripture Itself bears a warning. If every believer is an authority on Scripture because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then the Spirit can't hold a coherent thought. How can we possibly profess one Spirit in one Faith when we fractalize the Church through private interpretation. To paraphrase "The Incredibles"... if everyone's in charge, then no one is.
HMMMmmm...
I think I've read that; somewhere....
God sent us the Holy Spirit, but there is no teaching in the bible that says the Holy spirit gives to each one of us the ability to CORRECTLY interpret the scripture. Should be a clue to you that St.Paul, in many places in his writing says “be careful re: so and so, they are not preaching the truth.”
So some are right some are wrong. And you have to ask yourself who the authority is? I would suggest taking a look at Matthew 16: 18-22.
If they Holy Spirit DID give to each one of us the power to understand the NT, then He’s doing a lousy job of it, there are thousands of protestant sects as it is. God is not the author of confusion. Catholics have ONE pope, you have hundreds of thousands. Everyone can’t be right.