“Show me where that is in the Bible.”

If you are Catholic, you have probably heard that.

Maybe about Mary.

Maybe about purgatory.

Maybe about the pope.

It is a fair question.

But it hides an assumption that is worth looking at.

Wait… Does Everything Have to Be in the Bible?

A lot of Christians believe:

“If it is not in the Bible, Christians should not believe it. Scripture alone is the only authority.”

And at first that sounds right.

The Bible is the inspired Word of God.

Catholics believe that too.

Nothing the Church teaches can contradict it.

But then you ask one simple question, and you have to stop for a second.

Where does the Bible say that?

The Verse That Isn’t There

Search all 73 books of the Bible.

You will not find a verse that says Scripture alone is the only authority for Christians.

The verse people usually point to is this one:

“All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice,”
— 2 Timothy 3:16

Catholics love that verse.

Scripture is profitable.

Inspired.

Essential.

But “profitable” is not the same as “the only thing.”

And when Paul wrote this, the “scripture” Timothy had known from childhood was the Old Testament (2 Timothy 3:15).

Much of the New Testament had not been written yet.

The Bible Points Beyond Itself

The Bible actually points to other sources of authority.

Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold the traditions they learned “whether by word, or by our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

He tells Timothy to pass on what he heard (2 Timothy 2:2).

He calls the Church, not the Bible, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

And Jesus told His Apostles, “He that heareth you, heareth me” (Luke 10:16).

(We explain more in Why Catholics Believe in Sacred Tradition.)

The Bible Needs Interpreters

Then there is this moment in Acts.

An Ethiopian official is reading Isaias in his chariot.

Philip runs up and asks if he understands it.

“And he said: Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?”
— Acts 8:30

“Who said: And how can I, unless some man shew me?”
— Acts 8:31

Wait.

He had the Bible.

He was reading it.

And he still needed someone to explain it.

St. Peter says the same thing about Paul’s letters:

“in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.”
— 2 Peter 3:16

If the Bible were always clear on its own, Peter would not need to warn us.

Thousands of Readings

Here is the practical problem.

Christians who all believe in the Bible alone disagree about baptism.

About Communion.

About whether you can lose your salvation.

About divorce.

About the Lord’s Day.

Each group says: “We just follow the Bible.”

They all have the same book.

They do not have the same answers.

The question is never just “What does the Bible say?”

It is “Who has the authority to say what the Bible means?”

The Table of Contents Problem

And there is an even bigger question.

How do you know which books belong in the Bible?

There is no inspired table of contents.

No verse lists the 27 books of the New Testament.

Christians argued for centuries about books like Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation.

The list was settled by the Church, in councils at the end of the 300s.

So even someone who believes in the Bible alone is trusting the Church on which books are in the Bible.

(More in How the Catholic Church Gave Us the Bible.)

Is Catholic Teaching Against the Bible?

Now, what about Catholic beliefs that are not spelled out word for word in Scripture?

Catholics believe every teaching of the Church is in harmony with Scripture.

Some are stated directly.

Some are seeds in Scripture that grew over time, the way the doctrine of the Trinity did.

Some come through the Tradition of the Apostles.

None of them contradict the Bible.

In fact, most of the articles in this series show the Scripture behind a Catholic belief, verse by verse.

Then You Read the First Christians

The early Christians loved Scripture.

They quoted it constantly.

But when heretics twisted Scripture, they did not say, “Let’s each read the Bible for ourselves.”

Around A.D. 200, Tertullian said that arguing Scripture with heretics was pointless, because they twisted it. The real question was who had received the faith from the Apostles.

St. Irenaeus said the same: look to the churches the Apostles founded, and the bishops they appointed.

Scripture was read inside the Church, not against it.

So What Is the Catholic Claim?

Here it is in simple terms.

The Bible is the inspired Word of God, and nothing Catholics believe contradicts it.

But the Bible never claims to be the only authority.

It points to Tradition and to the Church.

It warns that it can be twisted.

And it does not tell us which books belong in it.

Catholics believe God gave us Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching Church together, like a three-legged stool (CCC 95).

So the real question is not:

“Where is that in the Bible?”

The better question is:

“Where does the Bible say everything must be in the Bible?”

Because once you notice that verse is missing, the whole conversation changes.

Keep reading: How the Catholic Church Gave Us the Bible, or browse more questions in Catholicism Explained.

If this helped you, consider supporting Christian Catholic Media so we can keep creating content.

Catholic Sources

Scripture (Douay-Rheims): Luke 10:16; Acts 8:26–35; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:2; 2 Timothy 3:14–17; 2 Peter 1:20; 2 Peter 3:16.

Catechism of the Catholic Church: CCC 80–82 (Scripture and Tradition); CCC 85–87 (interpreting the Word of God); CCC 95; CCC 120 (the canon).

Early Christian writers: St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3–4 (c. A.D. 180); Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics 19–21 (c. A.D. 200).

Church documents: Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum 9–10.

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