First, one of the first things I learned about Biblical interpretation was that we are to seek to understand the Bible within the historical and cultural context in which it was written. That includes understanding words and phrases in the same way that the original writers and readers would have understood them. For example, if you were reading a book written in the 1920's, and it said that the people were having a "gay time," would you understand the author to be saying that the people were having a homosexual time? Of course not. You would understand the author to be saying that the people were having a happy and joyful time, since that is what the word "gay" meant in the historical and cultural context of the 1920's. We should do the same thing in reading the Bible. You will see below why I am saying this, and why it is important.
In the historical and cultural context of the first century Jews, the scribes and Pharisees held a religious authority which was referred to as binding and loosing. This authority included the authority to:
- make rules of conduct for the religious community,
- admit or exclude people from the religious community, and
- teach and interpret the Jewish Scriptures and Tradition for the community.
This was an authority that was passed on to Jewish rabbis in each generation. As the Jewish Encyclopedia states:
"The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees, says Josephus, 'became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.' This does not mean that, as the learned men, they merely decided what, according to the Law, was forbidden or allowed, but that they possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell of their divine authority, just as they could, by the power vested in them, pronounce and revoke an anathema upon a person. The various schools had the power 'to bind and to loose'; that is, to forbid and to permit; and they could bind any day by declaring it a fast-day. This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin, received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice."
Jesus even refers to this binding and loosing authority of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:2-3 when He says, "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They BIND heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them (i.e. LOOSE)." So even though Jesus has some very poor things to say about the Jewish religious leaders, He still recognizes and affirms their authority to bind and loose.
Now, we see in Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18 that Jesus gives to Peter and to the other Apostles the authority of binding and loosing in the Church. Jesus says to them, "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The Apostles, who were first century Jews, would have clearly understood that in using the words "bind" and "loose", Jesus was giving them the same authority in the Church that the scribes and Pharisees had in the Jewish religious community. In other words, Jesus was giving to them and their successors (since it was an authority that was passed on to others in succeeding generations, as shared above) the authority in the Church to:
- make rules of conduct for the Church,
- admit or exclude people from the Church, and
- teach and interpret the Scriptures and Tradition for the Church.
This teaching authority, which is from Christ, continues to be entrusted in the Church to the successors of the Apostles, who are the Catholic bishops in union with the pope.
This is the reason that Catholics recognize the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. It is because when we understand the terms "binding" and "loosing" within their historical and cultural context, we see that the Apostles and their successors have been entrusted by Christ with the authority to govern, lead, and teach the Church. To reject that authority is to reject Christ who gave that authority. And in accepting this authority, we are accepting the authority of Christ.