There are two anchors to consider when it comes to Christian Faith & if either of these anchors are not solidly planted into the ground of a person’s relationship with Christ, then it is quite possible that the "Jesus" that the person is following is not the Jesus of the Bible.

Christians, especially Christians of Protestant heritage often speak of a concept called “Sola Scriptura” – this is a Latin term coined during the 14-16^th century advent of Reformed Christianity. It’s English translation it typically presented as “Bible Alone”.  Here is the first anchor of a healthy Christian faith.

When the Reformers uttered this phrase, what they meant by it is that the Bible has prime authority for the doctrine & precepts of Christianity.  It should be the source & starting point to determine those doctrines & precepts – not our favorite dead guy theologian, not our favorite confession or creed.

However, something that will be admitted by most every Christian is that Christians disagree what specific Bible verses mean (This should be no new revelation to anyone).  What happens in these cases?

I have seen the solution range from just “agreeing to disagree” which merely breeds fracturing denomination after denomination & a watering down of the authority of Scripture into mere personal interpretation where every individual can make up his own meaning & hold it as well as the next.  Who then should blame non-Christians for just striking out on their own when it comes to moral issues or issues of life practices?  I mean, if ultimately it’s just a matter of opinion then anyone’s is as good as the next right?  The range of solutions continue from anything such as who is more pious than the other to who has more degrees, to who has more sources, to who has a more “logical” presentation.  The outcome is typically the same, fractious division.

What then is the solution?  The solution can be found in the second anchor of the Christian Faith – the interpretation of the historic Church.

But Protestants (like myself) have been conditioned to have an almost inherent aversion to the interpretation of the historic Church – we somehow think this is negating the first anchor or that it is being too “Roman Catholic” to appeal to the interpretation of the historic Church.  Next, we reveal the real source of our aversion when we question, “What is the historic Church?”  We pretend that the historic Church can’t be defined, that we must get back to the “first-century Church” before it was somehow “corrupted”.  This concept reveals that we don’t think there really was a historic Church…that it immediately fell into an apostate condition & if it continued to exist it only did so through small, almost untraceable groups.  And many Protestants are comfortable with this version of events & thus they don’t really have that second anchor of Christian Faith.

The Bible itself makes it clear that the interpretation of Scripture isn’t a mere “private interpretation” but the interpretation/revelation of the meaning of those very Scriptures have been passed down via the TRADITIONS of the apostles. (2 Pet 1:19-21 & 2 Thess 2:15).  It is because many Christians have unmoored themselves from this crucial second anchor that when it comes to Scripture interpretation, they have gone from “Sola Scriptura” to SOLO Scriptura where they find themselves without any confirming second anchor.

So, the next time you are in a discussion with another Christian & there is a disagreement on a major aspect of Faith (say eschatology for example), perhaps consider how the historic Christian Church has interpreted the matter.  If you find yourself too far a field of that interpretation, it is probably you who have come to a wrong conclusion.  For if God has not preserved His Church in history then we are only left with private interpretation which is no better than mere opinion.

If you find yourself without the anchor of Scripture or without the anchor of the interpretation of the historic Church – you are prime to believe in a Jesus, in a Christianity “radically different” than that presented in the Bible.