“There’s not one indicator that the reason for not owning Scripture was out of concern for it’s safe keeping or it’s rarity.”
No indicator from whom, the sources you are reading? Do you know it would sometimes take a monk 30 years to write a Bible with the beautiful artistic script for its use in churches? Do you know monks often only completed 1 or 2 Bibles by hand in a lifetime? How can the reality of the world before about 1500 and the invention of the printing press be ignored?
Whatever councils said about the ownership of Bibles, few had Bibles because they were so exceedingly rare.
I’ve sometimes heard said that we don’t and didn’t need a church because the Holy Spirit would lead believers to truth without the Church. This ignores how difficult discernment is. The world, our own flesh, the devil, who often acts as an angel of light, are all competing with the voice of the Spirit.
The following is a true exchange witnessed by a third party:
Believer 1:”The Spirit told me He wants you to give me your (large) boat for ministry purposes.”
Believer 2:”Well, when He tells me the same thing, I’ll give it to you.”
But to hand copy Scripture for more common use would not have taken 30 years.
Catholics love to appeal to illiteracy and the scarcity of paper, the expense, etc, whatever, to justify keeping copies of Scripture out of the hands of the laity, but the RCC's reaction when the printing press made copying Scripture feasible shows that the Catholic church's concern was not benevolent. You don't burn people at the stake for making copies of Scripture if your concern is safeguarding the few copies that existed.
We don't need a top down organization because believers ARE the church. And we don't need to go to church to attain salvation.
Believers need each other, it is true. Even for Adam, it was not good for him to be alone.
However, the Holy Spirit is up to the task of enlightening people as to what Scripture means when it needs interpretation.
Most of Scripture is pretty clear. Certainly enough of it that it doesn't need to be *interpreted* but simply read and applied.
Yes, all those voices are competing for our attention, but we can discern which voice is the Holy Spirit by whether what He's telling us lines up with Scripture or not, usually simply by reading it.
Avoid sexual immorality is not hard.
Let the thief steal no more but work honestly with his own hands.
Not a biggie that needs interpretation.
Your true exchange has nothing to do with interpretation of Scripture and is not a valid argument against it or in favor of a committee interpreting it for them.
All it sounds like is that believer 2 had the sense to realize what’s going on.
How about the REALITY of how SLOW Catholics were in getting the WORD out; that GOD allowed invention of the MOVEABLE type press?