In Acts 8:26-40, we read of the Ethiopian eunuch who requested assistance from the apostle Philip to interpret the Fourth Servant Hymn (Isa 52:13-53:12) he had just read. This is often, correctly, taken as evidence against Sola Scriptura. One Catholic apologist offered the following response to a possible “counter” to a critic of Sola Scriptura appealing to this text:
One could argue, “The eunuch could not understand because he had not yet been given the Holy Spirit. Christians, however, have been given the Holy Spirit to provide this guidance! As it says in First John, ‘you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all know . . . you have no need that any one should teach you; as his anointing teaches you about everything’” (1 Jn 2:20, 27).
If so, then why so much confusion, contradiction, even conflict among Christians? If one were to argue that only those Christians who have been anointed with the Holy Spirit interpret Scripture correctly, this only raises the “chicken and egg” question: Does having, what one considers, the correct interpretation prove the anointing of the Spirit, or does having, what one considers, the anointing of the Holy Spirit prove the correct interpretation?
And the very quote from First John disclaims this argument, because if what St. John wrote was literally true for the spirit-filled Christians to whom he was writing, why then did he need to write it? Shouldn’t they have already know this through their anointing.
No, just as the encounter between the Apostle Philip and the eunuch so clearly reveals, Jesus sent forth His hand-chosen and anointed apostolic band to make disciples and teach the whole world (Mt 28:19-20) about who He was and about salvation. (Marcus Grodi, The Bible Alone? Is the Bible Alone Sufficient? [Zanesville, Ohio: CHResources, 2016], iv)
For a book-length treatment of this issue, see my volume:
Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura (an online version can be found here)
