Another verse treasured by the Wt is 2 Peter 1:20: "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation.."
This condemnation of personal reading and understanding is reemphasized in 3:16b: "There are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the rest of the scriptures."
These words were not written by Peter. Whatever can be known about this Peter we know he did not write this. For a brief review of the reasons why both 1 Peter and 2 Peter are not regarded as authentic go to:Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church ...
The point is simple. Why have scriptures 'inspired' and 'preserved' if the understanding of them is only possible under inspiration? Do they serve any practical purpose then? Were they 'inspired' and 'preserved' to be an intellectual trap? Of what value were they to those without ecclesiastical guidance? Did they misunderstand them and doomed to 'destruction'? More elemental questions arise. What is scripture? And who determines this?
The early Church leadership saw the vast diversity of interpretations (to say nothing about versions) of the writings about Jesus and Paul. It seems human nature to organize, but to do this consolidation of power and uniting of sects, some type of central hierchy was necessary. This is the history of all new movements. A few inspirational ideas spawn a plethera of loosly organized bodies that meet to discuss and reinterpret those ideas. I see that as happening in commercial enterprises and ideological movements as well. Sooner or later someone arises to unit the loosly affiliated into one large orthodoxy. This doesn't last long because of the opposing human nature for independant thought, but he central power will generally continue to shape the direction that idea or movement goes. Anyhow, the author of 2 Peter was attempting to do just that, he represented a blosoming orthodoxy within Christian sects and knew the key to this was establishing ecclesiastical teaching power to not only determine which works would be regarded as scripture but just how those texts were to be interpreted. Groups like the Wt have seen the cetral power of the Church dissolve gradually so that no single voice represents the whole. The Wt, like other hierchal Christian sects, seeks to be that voice, but without the unique political situation that existed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries they must resign themselves to be paper tigers as they say. They insist they are unique and appointed to sanction or condemn doing so through an interpretation of the scriptures handed to them by tradition. They assert that they never would desire to have power beyond that they now possess. This rings about as true as an extremist environmentalist saying he would never want to be able to change the government by becoming part of the government. Fringe likes to be fringe it is true but if handed the power to enforce one's views on others very few could resist. If the world was a different place today, more like that of the 2nd century, the hierchal mentality of the Wt leadership would soon evolve into that of the early Church Fathers.