In Protestant churches, who is the authority in interpreting the Bible? I need a better understanding of Protestant teaching on who has the authority to interpret Sacred Scripture.
Protestants believe in the Priesthood of all Believers, which is to say that protestants believe that all Christians have a direct connection with God--there is no need to go through a Priest.  That's not to say that they don't have Priests or Pastors or other figures of leadership, but they don't fulfill the role of mediator between man and God, that they do in the Catholic tradition.
As such, every protestant believer is essentially expected to read scripture directly--not simply listen to teachings from scripture, presented by priests (as I know many Catholics choose to do).
This leads to two distinct phenomenon:

Some protestants try for a sort of &quot;Lone Ranger Christian&quot; approach, interpreting scripture on their own, sometimes cherry-picking the interpretations they like, discarding others.
This phenomenon is a point of great criticism from Catholics, but I believe is much more spoken about than actually experienced in practice.

The more common and practical experience is that by encouraging all protestants to do their own Bible study and interpretation, the end result is that all protestants interpret scripture.  As the as Proverbs says, iron sharpen iron.  When protestants examine scripture individually, and in groups, and discuss their views and opinions, it allows the group as a whole ownership over the interpretation, which can be a big benefit.


Of course, there can be drawbacks, and all methods of scriptural interpretation can be abused.