Theological Term of the Week

 

sufficiency of scripture

The principle that the words of scripture contain everything we need to know from God in order for us to be saved and to be perfectly obedient to him.

• From scripture:

  …from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. ( 2 Timothy 3:15-17 ESV)

• From The London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section 6:

  The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture, to which nothing is to be added at any time, either by new revelation of the Spirit, or by the traditions of men.

•  From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

  The sufficiency of Scripture also tells us that nothing is required of us by God that is not commanded in Scripture either explicitly or by implication. This reminds us that the focus of our search for God’s will ought to be on Scripture, rather than on seeking guidance through prayer for changed circumstances or altered feelings or direct guidance from the Holy Spirit apart from Scripture….
  
  The discovery of this great truth could bring tremendous joy and peace to the lives of thousands of Christians who, spending countless hours seeking God’s will outside of Scripture, are often uncertain about whether they have found it. In fact, many Christians today have very little confidence in their ability to discover God’s will with any degree of certainty. Thus there is little striving to do God’s will (for who can know it?) and little growth in holiness before God.
  
  The opposite ought to be true. Christians who are convinced of the sufficiency of Scripture should begin eagerly to seek and find God’s will in Scripture. They should be eagerly and regularly growing in obedience to God, knowing great freedom and peace in the Christian life.

 Learn more

1. GotQuestions.org: “What is the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture? What does it mean that the Bible is sufficient?”
2. Scott McClare: The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture 
3. Tim Challies: The Bible’s Sufficiency
4. Mark Thompson: The Sufficiency of Scripture
5. David G. Peterson: The Sufficiency of Scripture
6. Mark Dever: “God Told Me” and the Sufficiency of Scripture
7. John MacArthur: The Sufficiency of Scripture, Part 1 (mp3); The Sufficiency of Scripture, Part 2 (mp3)

Related terms:

• authority of scripture
• canon of scripture
• inerrancy of scripture
• infallibility of scripture
• inspiration of scripture
• perspicuity of scripture
• sola scriptura

Filed under Scripture. 

Have you come across a theological term that you don’t understand and you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Theological Term of the Week

 

authority of scripture

This is the principle that the individual believer and the church are subject to the rule of scripture because the words of Scripture come from God, so obedience to Scripture is obedience to God himself.

• From scripture:

  …from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17 ESV)

• From The London Baptist Confession 1689,  chapter 1, section 4:

The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God.

•  From Herman Ridderbos in The Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture:

  The authority of the Scriptures is the great presupposition of the whole of the biblical preaching and doctrine. This appears most clearly in the way the New Testament speaks about the Old Testament. That which appears in the Old Testament is cited in the New Testament with formulas like “God says,” “the Holy Spirit says,” and so on (cf., for instance, Acts 3:24, 25; 2 Cor. 6:16; Acts 1:16). What “the Scripture says” and what “God says” is the same thing….And this naturally implies authority. “It is written” (Greek, gegraptai) in the New Testament puts an end to all contradiction.

Learn more

1. Paul Cook: The Authority of Scripture
2. B. B. Warfield: “It Says:” “Scripture Says:” “God Says”
3. J. I. Packer: Hermeneutics and Biblical Authority
4. William Webster: The Authority of Scripture
5. Wayne Grudem: The Authority of Scripture, Part 1, Part 2 (mp3) 
6. Phil Johnson: The Authority of Scripture (mp3 download)
7. Mark Dever: The Authority of Scripture (mp3 download)

Related terms:

• canon of scripture
• inerrancy of scripture
• infallibility of scripture
• inspiration of scripture 
• sola scriptura
• sufficiency of scripture

Filed under Scripture.

Have you come across a theological term that you don’t understand and you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Theological Term of the Week

analogy of faith (or analogy of scripture)

The principle of Biblical interpretation that presumes that God is the ultimate source of all scripture, so we can view scripture as a unified whole, and thus no passage of Scripture can rightly be interpreted in a way that contradicts the rest of scripture, and clearer passages can be used in interpreting more obscure ones.

• From the London Baptist Confession 1689, chapter 1, section 9:

  The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

• From The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, III C:
  

  Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer’s mind.

Learn more:

1. Monergism.com: What does the term “analogy of faith” mean?
2. Theopedia: Analogy of Faith
3. Bob Burridge: The Interpretation of Scripture
4. J. I. Packer: The Interpretation of Scripture
5. Thomas A Howe: The Analogy of Faith

Related terms:

• inerrancy of scripture
• inspiration of scripture
• perspicuity of scripture

Filed under Scripture.

This week’s theological term was suggested by Kim of Hiraeth. Do you have a suggestion for a theological term of the week? Email me your idea and I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.