Why is sola scriptura important?

Throughout centuries of church history, there have been four methods of obtaining truth: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Clearly, in Jesus' time, experience would have been a big method of obtaining truth. Because the twelve disciples literally walked with the Lord of the universe, they had the benefit of experiencing Jesus teaching through all five senses. However, they still very much relied on the written scriptures that actually vetted that Jesus was who He said He was. After Jesus ascended and as time went on, tradition became a huge source of truth. After all, those closest to Jesus understandably knew quite a bit, and so future disciples would rightly wish to imitate them as much as possible. Unfortunately, with the expansion of the church and introduction of geopolitical power, the sinful flesh distorted truth and instead “tradition” easily became what the current pope decided it would be, even divorced from Scripture. By the time of the reformation in the 1500's, “tradition” devolved into mere traditions of men that deviated largely from the scriptural foundations, which produced a massive split in the church.

Reason is also a source of truth, given by God to help us understand and work through information. Unfortunately, some have underestimated that God's ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9), and so reasoned things like the resurrection of Christ right out of their theology. As mentioned earlier, experience is another method of obtaining truth, although it looks a bit different than it did in the days of the disciples walking with Jesus. The Holy Spirit now lives in each one of us and we can operate in signs, wonders and miracles (John 14:12), experiencing the joy of the Lord, angelic encounters and a whole host of other supernatural experiences, which can be doorways into the revelation of God. Unfortunately, many have taken these “doorways” without heeding scriptures, thus opening themselves up to following angels more than God. Thankfully, we are still able to utilize tradition, reason and experience, as these are gifts of God useful to bring us deeper into knowledge of Him. However, these forms of revelation must always be subservient to the written Scriptures, the primary means that God has given us to judge truth claims that we obtain through other methods.