MAKING THE CASE FOR STUDYING IN COMMUNITY--across time and space

What Still Keeps Us Apart by Michael Horton: "granting the infallibility of Scripture, how on earth could an infallible Word be understood and interpreted correctly without an infallible teacher? In answering this understandable objection, the Reformers simply followed many of their fellow Catholic humanists in pointing to the contradictory claims of popes and councils in the Middle Ages. History simply proved that the church was not infallible, so long as the law of noncontradiction applied. The best way to guard a true interpretation of Scripture, the Reformers insisted, was neither to naively embrace the infallibility of tradition, nor the infallibility of the individual, but to recognize the communal interpretation of Scripture. The best way to ensure faithfulness to the text is to read it together, not only with the churches of our own time and place, but with the wider 'communion of saints' down through the ages. The community may err, but 'there is much wisdom in many counselors,' and we are most likely to be faithful to the text when we recognize that it is infallible but we are not." (emphasis mine)

ht: Justin Taylor