“The Bible is our sole authority for faith and practice.” I bet you have never heard that line before. Oh wait, if you are Baptist, you probably have.

Sadly, while many affirm this in principle, in practice they deny it. Tradition or culture often dictate a particular application of Bible principle. In the end, this application becomes Bible teaching and dogma. Alcohol, movies, pants on women, specific styles of music, specific translations of the Bible — the list of topics on which Scripture is “steered by tradition” could go on and on.

To compound this, doctrinal positions, where the Bible seems to allow for competing yet Biblically faithful interpretations, again morph into “its just plain Bible”. So if one doesn’t agree with a pre-trib rapture position, for example, he is rejecting the Bible; yet the facts of the matter stand differently. The one who denies a pre-trib rapture, only denies it on the basis of another Biblical position with various strong proof texts of its own. Of course only one end-times doctrine can be absolutely correct, but is it a sin to be wrong? And are we to be as dogmatic of our correctness on lesser points such as eschatology, as with major points like the Trinity and the Gospel?

All this comes from thinking about a fascinating look at church creeds by the always thought-provoking Carl Trueman. In an article called “A Good Creed Seldom Goes Unpunished” from the March 2007 issue of Reformation 21, Carl has the following insights into the “Bible only, we don’t need creeds” view.

On the issue of creeds, the evangelical world often seems absolutely divided into two broad camps: There are those who are so passionately committed to a particularly narrow view of scripture’s sufficiency that they not only deny the need for creeds and confessions but regard them as actually wrong, an illegitimate attempt to supplement scripture or to narrow the Christian faith in doctrinal or cultural ways beyond the limits set by scripture itself. Then there are those whose view of creeds and confessions is so high that any other theological statement, and sometimes even the Bible itself, seems to be of secondary importance. Neither group, I believe, really does the creeds justice.

I am very suspicious of both approaches. While I share the concern of the first group to safeguard the uniqueness of scripture and to avoid imposing my own cultural preferences and tastes on someone else under the guise of gospel truth, I have a sneaking suspicion that the cry of `No creed but the Bible!’ has often meant rather `I have my creed, but I’m not going to tell you what it is so that you can’t know what it is and thus cannot criticize it or me for holding it.’ Such is often the case with those evangelicals who reject creeds but have very definite views on the legitimacy of the consumption of alcohol and the nature of the end-times, for example. In practice, they effectively allow for no hypothetical distinction between what the Bible says and their own, or their church’s, interpretation of the same. Thus, they render themselves immune to any criticism. Further, as soon as they use words such as `Trinity’ or even consult a commentary, they reveal that what they say about their relationship to tradition and what they actually do in practice with tradition are in conflict. (HT: The Journeymen)

As I have stated above, I think Trueman hits the nail on the head with this issue. (Be sure to read the entire article.) We need to be careful to recognize our tendency to bring culture, and preconceptions to the Biblical text. Let us be silent where Scripture is silent, and cautious when the issues are truly complex. Let’s respect God’s Word and not presume to speak for It.