A popular image in modern Christianity is that of the individual believer alone with their Bible, confident that this is all one needs to follow Christ. No bishops, no tradition, no ecclesial authority—just me and the Word of God. This image, while appealing in its simplicity, is deeply flawed. It is not only theologically unsound but fundamentally impossible.

Without the Catholic Church, there would be no Bible.

It is a historical fact that the Church did not emerge from the Bible. Rather, the Bible emerged from the Church. For nearly four centuries after the Resurrection, Christians lived and died for the faith without a formally defined New Testament canon. While many inspired texts circulated—gospels, letters, apocalypses—there was no universally accepted list. It was the Catholic Church, through the discernment of bishops in apostolic succession and in communion with the Bishop of Rome, that prayerfully and authoritatively discerned which books belonged to the canon. The Councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), and Carthage (397) did not invent Scripture but confirmed, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what had already been received and proclaimed by the Church.

The same Church that canonised Scripture preserved it through centuries of copying by hand, taught it in its liturgies, defended it in times of heresy, and translated it into the languages of the people. It is not possible to claim the fruit while rejecting the tree. To take the Bible and reject the authority of the Church is to cut oneself off from the very body that received and transmitted the Word of God to the world.

It is often claimed that the Catholic Church is not biblical. Yet it is the only Church that preserves the fullness of what the Bible teaches. It proclaims with clarity and continuity the truths handed down from the apostles: that Christ gave real, visible authority to Peter; that baptism is not merely symbolic but regenerative; that the Eucharist is not a metaphor but the true Body and Blood of Christ; that faith without works is dead; that the forgiveness of sins is conferred through the ministry of the Church. These are not later inventions. They are deeply embedded in Scripture and confirmed by the practice of the early Church.

The central question, then, is how we come to know the truth. If the answer is personal Bible study alone, we are left with a thousand interpretations and no certain guide. Throughout history, sincere men and women have read the same Bible and reached radically different conclusions. Without a visible authority established by Christ, the Christian faith becomes fragmented, and each individual becomes their own pope. That is not the model Christ gave us.

Jesus did not command the apostles to write a book. He commanded them to make disciples, to teach all He had commanded, and to baptise in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He established a Church, not a publishing house. He entrusted authority to His apostles and, above all, to Peter. He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church and that the Holy Spirit would lead her into all truth. It is this Church—one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—that has carried the Gospel through the ages.

The Church is the Body of Christ, and as Scripture itself says, it is the pillar and foundation of truth. Christianity is not a religion of the book alone. It is a religion of the Word made flesh, a Word entrusted to the Church, which safeguards and interprets it faithfully through Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterial teaching. The Bible belongs within the living context of that Church. Detached from it, the Bible becomes a closed text—susceptible to distortion, contradiction, and misuse.

Of course, every Christian should read the Bible. Every believer should love and meditate on the Word of God. But that Word cannot be rightly understood apart from the Church that received it from the apostles and continues to proclaim it today.

To attempt to follow Christ with “just me and my Bible” is not only theologically insufficient—it is historically incoherent. The Bible cannot stand apart from the Church. And the Church that gave us the Bible still teaches with authority today.

The question is not whether we need the Church or the Bible. The answer is that we need both—because that is how Jesus Himself ordained it.