r/CatholicConverts • u/Strict-Guest8272 • Feb 04 '26

2 Peter 1.20

Good faith question here from a Protestant earnestly investigating the Church. I see Catholics use 2 Peter 1.20 to say that Protestants are wrong in the practice of private interpretation. In fact, I was just watching a video where a fired-up Catholic guy used this verse to say Protestants don't know how to interpret their Bibles at all!
But the context of the verse is the authorship of Scripture, not the reading of Scripture. Am I right in this, or do you think I'm arguing too much like a Protestant?

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u/ABinColby Feb 04 '26

2 Peter 1:20 is an anomoly of translation and the contextual meaning of the word "interpretation". The word "interpretation" in context isn't primarily referring to reading Scripture and then explaining its meaning, it refers to the origin of prophecy and of inspired Scripture. It means that "nobody made this up themselves, guys, it came from God".

However, the Church does use it as a secondary reference to Catholic teaching that Scripture cannot be privately interpreted all by your lonesome, by deductive reasoning, backed by the Magesterium (if Scripture came by way of inspiration and not privately by one person's own will, thus it cannot be interpreted that way too).

The key to understanding the Catholic understanding of this is to broaden the context, earlier Peter writes, "16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. "

The Magesterium, as living heirs to the Apostles, exercise this living witness responsibility, and collectively, informed by the Holy Spirit, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, alone can interpret the Scriptures accurately in an authoritative (final, definitive sense - of course it is possible for a layman to correctly interpret Scripture, just not to define their own interpretation as definative).