The Biblical Truth… and Private Interpretation
About Heresy and Heretics
The Biblical Truth… and Private Interpretation
Heretics believe that their own personal understanding is the divine truth! Often, they create private interpretations of their own and use them as a basis to deny the doctrines of the Church. But if we search for any real foundation for these interpretations, we find none… They merely write words—just words.
For example, they deny the priestly authority of binding and loosing.
If you quote to them the Lord’s saying: “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:18), they present a strange interpretation claiming that this authority was given to the apostles to allow the eating of pork, which had previously been forbidden!
But Christ’s words make no reference to pigs, nor to impurity or cleansing, nor did He limit the authority of binding and loosing to a specific matter. Rather, He said: “Whatever you bind… whatever you loose.” Yet this interpretation is their own private thought, which they impose as though it were the divine truth! And boldly, they call it the “biblical truth,” even though their interpretation does not agree with the words of Scripture!
If you then ask them: What about another clear text, which says that the Lord breathed on His holy disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22–23)—here there is no room for interpretation, for the biblical truth is plain—
You will find them only trying to escape the biblical text in every possible way, opening many doors of discussion within the scope of private understanding, about which Scripture says: “Do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
Nevertheless, they hang up the sign of “biblical truth,” though they have not respected this biblical truth, as we saw in the two verses above, focusing instead on their private understanding!
We fully agree with the biblical truth and venerate every word in Scripture. But we do not agree with their private interpretation, nor do we consider it to be divine truth. These people must also know that all the traditions, teachings, and rites of the Church have their foundation in the Holy Bible. Every doctrine in the Church is based on the teaching of Scripture. No church in the world honors the Holy Bible as much as our traditional Churches, founded by the Apostles themselves. And we are ready to review with them every teaching in the light of the Holy Bible—not according to their private interpretation.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year 10 – Issue No. 15 – April 13, 1979
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