Thank you and you know it was a privilege for me to write with these guys at the blog for years. I quit actually two and a half years ago. I stopped blogging and people often ask me why and do you miss it and the answer is I quit because I'd run out of opinions. There really wasn't anything that I was passionate about that I hadn't already blown off steam on and I didn't really have anything else to to give opinions on. And it's true that we always, or often, usually, 99% of the time, would take a different view from the average evangelical on whatever the trends are. That was sort of how we did the blog. We'd look at whatever the current evangelical trend was and we'd critique it. Because most of them deserve critique. But anyway, I'm thrilled to be here and especially thrilled with the subject, the sufficiency of scripture. People online have been speculating about this conference for a long time. I didn't give it the name. I didn't even choose the title. I mean, I didn't choose the topic. I love the topic, the sufficiency of scripture, and I agree that that is really the issue that virtually every conflict and every controversy we've ever written about ultimately goes back to the sufficiency and supremacy of Scripture over every other kind of truth claim. But what's interesting to me is, and maybe it's because of the name, you know, sufficient fire, kind of a reference to last year's conference at Grace Church, which was called, what was it called? Strange Fire. I knew it had to do with fire. And of course that was a critique of the charismatic movement. And so all of my charismatic friends think that this conference is going to be a critique, a further critique of the charismatic movement. Actually, nothing could be further from my mind. What I want to do is defend the principle of the sufficiency of scripture. I think it's intriguing and telling that so many charismatics think when you start to talk about the sufficiency of scripture, the authority of scripture, somehow that's an attack on them. It reminds me of my first year on the blog when I decided to do a series that was prompted in my mind by Henry Blackaby and his book experiencing God, where he was saying, basically, if you don't hear messages in your head from the Holy Spirit, then you're not really experiencing God the way you should. He was not, as far as I know, a charismatic. I suppose he's mildly charismatic. Actually, I don't know. He's a Southern Baptist, so none of the charismatic theology would come out of him, but he had this penchant for telling people that you should listen for private promptings and impulses and maybe even voices in your head from the Holy Spirit. And that greatly troubled me because back in my Bible college era, I had friends who sort of followed that. In fact, I myself experimented with the notion that what if I just did what I think God is telling me to do? What if I listen for this voice in my head to tell me you know, give a track to that guy or witness to this guy, what would be the response, what would be the result of that? And if you do that very long, I promise you, you're going to run into disaster. Spurgeon said the same thing, that to do that is to live the, he said, is to live the life of a fool. just because you're responding to whims and fancy, rather than the clear truth that's been revealed in Scripture. And so my idea was to write a series of articles on this notion that God is constantly speaking, and I wanted to talk for one thing about the sufficiency of Scripture, but I also wanted to debunk a lot of the patently false prophecies and false messages that people often claim are from the Lord. And the minute I even broached the subject, and I'm thinking about Henry Blackaby, not the Charismatics, but it seemed like the entire Charismatic world came down on my head. And they all wanted to debate, you know, continuationism versus cessationism, and I wasn't even going there. And I ultimately gave up in frustration, never did get back to that thread, but it was at the height of that sort of back and forth with the rest of the charismatic world that I decided I need somebody else to help me write this blog. I was doing it by myself up to that point. The original blog was called Pyromaniac. just singular. So I pluralized it and invited these two guys to join with me. It was the best decision I ever made and I loved doing the blog while we were doing it. It never was tedious for me or anything but I really did just run out of opinions and and plus started to gather grandchildren around me, and suddenly my grandchildren became more important to me than the blog. So that's why I'm not blogging anymore, but I am still spouting my opinions, and I want to do that this weekend on the sufficiency of Scripture. And so our text for this morning will be what I think is one of the most important and profound statements in all of Scripture about the authority and sufficiency of the Word of God. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17, and I'm going to read it from the English Standard Version. 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. Now that's a familiar passage to, I suppose, probably all of you, and it's clear, it is comprehensive, it identifies scripture as God-breathed, profitable, authoritative, and, and this is the important part, sufficient to equip us for every good work. The scriptures, Paul says, furnish us with everything we need that pertains to salvation and godliness. Now that is a plain statement of the absolute sufficiency of the Word of God, Scripture. If you've read if you read our blog during its heyday or any time since, you're probably accustomed to hearing us talk about the sufficiency of scripture, but this is a doctrine that has been sadly neglected in the church at large, and I would say, as I said earlier, I think pretty much every major problem in the evangelical movement has something to do with the movement's departure from this principle. Reformers used to refer to it as sola fide, scripture alone. It didn't mean that scripture was the only thing they would read. It meant that scripture is the only thing that has that absolute authority and sufficiency and all other truth claims are to be tested by bringing them to scripture and comparing with what scripture says. I had never heard of this doctrine, at least consciously never thought about it, don't remember hearing about it. Through all my years in Bible college and taking all these theology classes, I wasn't really conscious of the implications of the sufficiency of scripture and the principle of sola fide, or sola scriptura rather, until I began to hear John MacArthur talk about this sometime, I think it was around the end of the 1980s, the early 90s, and he preached at that point a landmark series of sermons on Psalm 19. That was one of the most important series of messages he ever preached from the pulpit of our church. It became the basis for a book called Our Sufficiency in Christ. If you've never heard of that sermon or read that book, you can download the sermon for free from the Grace To You website, or better yet, get that book and study it. I'll be talking about Psalm 19 and that same text, but I'm not going to steal any of his material in my message tomorrow. So you need to hear what he has to say about it and read that book. The book is a systematic defense of one of the most important and essential axioms of the Christian faith. It's the doctrine that scripture alone contains every truth we need, not only for our salvation, but also for our continued growth in grace and godliness. And there are many multitudes, I would say maybe most evangelicals today, people who would call themselves Christians but they don't believe in the sufficiency of scripture. They don't believe the Bible contains all the truth we need to equip us to live a godly Christian life and in fact not to pick on the Charismatics, let's go the other direction. One of the major problems with Roman Catholicism starts with the ancient church's denial that the Bible alone is the sole and sufficient source of spiritual truth. Every major problem in Roman Catholicism comes back to that as the formal issue. That is the formal error of Roman Catholicism. But lately, and in my generation, in my lifetime, this has become a major problem in the evangelical movement as well. There are multitudes who are convinced, for example, that we need psychology and psychotherapy in order to enable us to deal adequately with, you know, the really deep spiritual problems that people have. You can't just quote scripture to people. You can't just tell people what the Bible says and expect that to solve their spiritual problems. They need therapy. And that is a dominant opinion in our generation, even among evangelicals. And this is an important issue. It's a critical issue. This doctrine of biblical sufficiency was a huge issue in the Protestant Reformation. It is, as I said, the formal issue of what the Reformation was all about. All the great reformers agreed on this principle, that all truth that's necessary for our salvation and our spiritual life is either taught explicitly or given to us implicitly in Scripture. And in fact the principle of Sola Scriptura is often called the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation. The Westminster Confession of Faith has a great section on this right at the beginning of the confession and it goes like this, let me read it to you. It says, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture. unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men." So the Westminster Confession, which really summarized the Protestant position across the board, said nothing is to be added to Scripture, nothing is necessary beyond Scripture for our spiritual well-being, either from new revelations from the Spirit or from church traditions or the traditions of men, it says. Now, it is important, and I want to say this at the very start, it's important to understand what this does not mean. It's not a claim that the Bible exhaustively treats every truth it deals with. For example, no one imagines that every word Jesus or the apostles ever spoke is preserved in Scripture. And Scripture expressly says this in John 21, 25, the Apostle John ends his gospel with these words. He says, now, there are also many other things that Jesus did, were every one of them to be written, John says, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. And so the doctrine of biblical sufficiency is not a claim that every detail of Jesus' earthly life and teaching is recorded for us in Scripture. That's not what it means. Also, the principle of Sola Scriptura is not a claim that all truth of every kind is revealed to us in Scripture. The Bible won't teach you the Korean alphabet. Unless you get a Korean Bible, you might learn it from Psalm 119 there. But the Bible is not, and we're not claiming it's an exhaustive source of knowledge about rocket science or marine biology. It doesn't instruct surgeons how to do microsurgery. And it won't give you all the rules for filling out your income tax forms. These days you need a much thicker book than the Bible for that. But on those issues to which Scripture does speak, it speaks with absolute and supreme authority. It equips us with all the spiritual truth we need. There's no necessary source of truth or divine revelation for the Christian life besides Scripture, and there is no extra-biblical key that is necessary to unlock the truth of Scripture. Scripture obviously doesn't tell us everything we want to know about God, but it gives us all the truth we need to know about God in order to be saved and in order to live our lives to glorify Him. And furthermore, the Bible is the foundation of all true knowledge. It's not an exhaustive source of all true knowledge, but it is the foundation for all true knowledge because of this, Scripture stands above every other kind of truth. It's more authoritative and more certain than any other source. It is more sure, according to 2 Peter 1.19, more sure than our experience, than any kind of vivid experience. The prophetic word is more trustworthy, Peter is saying, than whatever data we gather first-hand through our own senses. And he actually, in that context, compares his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, which I gather was the pinnacle of experience for Peter, the supreme experience of his life, to see Christ in his glory on the Mount. And he says, nevertheless, we have a more sure word of prophecy. He's talking about Scripture. So scripture is the highest and the supreme authority on every matter that it speaks about, and everything that's necessary, everything that is binding on our consciences, everything that God requires of us, is given to us in scripture. So that the truth of the Bible is absolutely sufficient for all our spiritual needs. That's what Paul is saying in our text. and its authority supersedes every other kind of authority and every other truth claim. So scripture is the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth. It reveals infallibly everything we must believe in order to be saved and everything we must do in order to glorify God. And that, no more and no less, is what we mean by sola scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture. But did you realize, and you will realize if you think about it, that most people who call themselves Christians do not believe today that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority and the very word of God. We say that, even a lot of people who would formally give lip service to the principle of biblical sufficiency, they'll affirm it formally, but they don't affirm it in the way they think and talk and make decisions and form their theology. This is true. In certain segments of the charismatic movement, for example, the Bible is sometimes you'll hear it treated almost with scorn as something dead and irrelevant, like outdated prophecy that belongs to an ancient time. You sometimes hear charismatics, especially the wild-eyed charismatics, talking about fresh words of prophecy that they claim to receive from the Holy Spirit, and they will look down on anyone who believes the Bible alone is the Word of God. The Roman Catholic Church also formally denies the sufficiency of Scripture. Catholic doctrine, the Catechism of the Catholic Church expressly states that the Word of God consists of both Scripture and Church tradition, and in practice, tradition then becomes the ultimate rule of faith, because where there is a conflict between a statement in Scripture and tradition, Church tradition stands in judgment over the Bible, not it never works the other way around. In fact, the Catholic Church's rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture is explicit and it's binding on all Roman Catholics. I said the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the latest sort of comprehensive collection of formal Catholic dogma, It says this, I'll quote directly from it, both scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence, unquote. And it goes on to say, that the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the word of God, this is again quoting directly, whether in its written form or in the form of tradition, the task of giving an authentic interpretation has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the church alone. This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with a successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, that's the Pope, unquote. Actually I should have said unquote before I said that's the Pope. I don't want to get some of these Catholic apologists nitpickers on me, but in fact according to the Catholic Catechism, again quote, sacred scripture is written principally in the church's heart rather than in documents and records. For the church carries in her tradition the living memorial of God's word." So in effect, church tradition is not only made equal to scripture, but it becomes the true scripture, written not in documents, but written mystically within the church herself. And when they keep changing popes, it gets pretty hard to follow that, doesn't it? Because the tradition seems to change from pope to pope. But that's what they say, and that is the inevitable result of the Catholic Church's denial of biblical sufficiency. Modern Catholic apologists, they see this issue. They understand that the principle of biblical sufficiency is really one of the two central principle issues, the other being justification by faith. Biblical sufficiency is so important to them that they have focused on this issue and modern Catholic apologists have tried to attack the principle of biblical sufficiency by claiming that this principle, sola scriptura, is itself unbiblical. One famous Catholic site on the World Wide Web says this, quote, The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority, sola scriptura, is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that scripture is useful, though air quotes are in the text too, by the way, but neither he, Paul, nor anyone else in the early church taught sola scriptura. And in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation, unquote. And modern Catholic apologists have frequently tried to use that same argument. One famous Roman Catholic apologist in a debate with my friend James White said this, quote, he said, Sola Scriptura itself must be proved from Scripture alone. And if it can't be done, Sola Scriptura is a self-refuting proposition. and therefore it is false." That was the claim he made, that was the challenge he threw down. And so that's what I want to do in this hour is examine that claim. And I have chosen this text for this hour today, not only because it introduces the subject, but also because this is the answer to that Catholic apologist's challenge. Here is conclusive proof that the written Word of God is absolutely authoritative and that it supersedes any other truth claim. 2 Timothy 3.16, that's the text this apologist was referring to. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. He's right, that verse says only that it's profitable, but here's the proof that the Word of God is absolutely sufficient. Verse 17, that the man of God might be competent, equipped for every good work, unquote. Now the text, our text, is a complete and thorough summary of all the vital truths we have to know and affirm about the scriptures. And so this morning I want to consider with you four crucial principles, doctrinal principles, about the Bible that are taught right here in this passage. Four of them. If you're a note taker, good for you. And I'll try to make it easy for you. There's four points here. The first is about the canon of scripture, the canon of scripture. Look at the first two words of our text, all scripture. And here Paul is talking about the whole canon, both Old and New Testaments. All of it is inspired by God, he says, and therefore it is the very word of God. You'll often hear people say, no, no, this is only talking about the Old Testament because that's all Paul had. That's not all Paul had, and he realized that what he was writing fell into the category of scripture. Now I've used the word canon, canon, sorry about that, And I want to explain what that means. The canon of scripture is that group of writings that are collectively and universally recognized as divinely inspired. Universally meaning in all branches of Christendom, in the Christian church. The word canon itself comes from a Greek word that means measuring rod or standard. When we speak of the canon, we're speaking of the anthology of books that we recognize as Holy Scripture. This is the rule or the standard, the canon, by which all other truth claims are measured. And Catholic apologists are very fond of claiming that their church gave us the canon. They'll say that all the time. You often hear them quip that the table of contents in your Bible is not part of the inspired text. the church, they say, had the authority to decide what should be included in the canon and what should be excluded. So let's talk about that. What about that? That's a fairly modern Roman Catholic claim. It's been really popular for the last 30 years or so, and it falls apart when you look at the facts of history. The first Catholic church council that officially published the supposedly authoritative list of inspired books that they go by today was the Council of Trent in the 16th century. And that was the council that was called specifically to respond to the Protestant Reformation. And one of the things they did in order to try to assert their ecclesiastical authority was they published what was supposed to be the authoritative list of canonical works, but they added the apocrypha to the official canon of the Catholic Church, which is to say they got it wrong. They added books that had never been recognized as scripture by the consensus of God's people. And so the claim that the Roman Catholic Church gave us our canon is patently false. If you want to see it, all you have to do is look at the table of contents in a Catholic Bible and you'll see it's different. If anyone has ever told you that a group of men somewhere met in a council or a holy conclave and decided which books would be included in the scriptures, that's not true. The church is the product of God's word, not the parent of it. The church is subordinate to the scriptures, not vice versa. And the Old Testament prophets, of course, were fully conscious that their message was from God, that their writings were authoritative, and they said so in their prophecies. They knew they were writing divine revelation meant to be obeyed and revered and meditated on and recorded forever and treated as the very word of God. Here's what God told Isaiah in Isaiah 51 verse 16. I have put my words in your mouth." Jeremiah told his scribe, Baruch, go, he said, and on a day of fasting and the hearing of all the people in the Lord's house, you shall read the words of the Lord from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. That's Jeremiah 36.6. And the opening verse of Malachi identifies Malachi's prophecy as the oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. And I could cite, of course, dozens and dozens of other examples from the Old Testament prophets because the Old Testament is filled with claims like those. There's a sort of standard textbook that helps with this issue that I would recommend to some of you. I don't recommend many of Norm Geisler's books. But his book, A General Introduction to the Bible, by Norm Geisler and Bill Nix, demonstrates that every single book in the Old Testament claims, either explicitly or implicitly, to be the very Word of God. But it was Jesus himself who settled the issue of the Old Testament canon for us. You know, just before the resurrection, Jesus, on the road to Emmaus, opened his disciples' understanding about the scriptures, and at that point, Luke 24, verse 44 says, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." And in that one statement, Jesus was affirming the canonicity of the Old Testament as it was universally recognized in Judaism. Actually, the Old Testament canon had been recognized by the Jewish nation from the time the books were written, and they had a well-established canon consisting of the very same books that are in your Old Testament today. And notice the classic threefold division that Jesus spells out. He gives three parts, the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms. That was a typical Jewish expression that included the entire Old Testament. He was affirming that the Old Testament books that were recognized by all of Judaism, the same set of books you still have in your Bible today, those are canonical. So there's no question about the Old Testament canon, and the Roman Catholic Church had nothing to do with the formation of that canon. It was well established by Jesus' time. And incidentally, virtually every Old Testament book is directly quoted as authoritative in the New Testament. That same book by Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, includes a complete list of places where the New Testament authors quote from the Old Testament, and they cover virtually every book in the Old Testament. When Paul speaks of all scripture, he certainly includes the Old Testament canon. No question about that. And he meant the Old Testament canon exactly as you have it in your Bible today. But the tough part is the New Testament. What about the New Testament? How do we know that the New Testament is also the inspired Word of God? How do we know that we have the right books? And how do we know that we have all of the right books? Because those are issues that have been, unfortunately, brought up as if they were new questions for new debate just in the past decade or so. How do we know? Well, the New Testament authors also knew that what they were writing was scripture, and they therefore often claimed authority for what they wrote. In 2 Peter 3 verses 15 and 16, for example, Peter writes this, Our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks of them in these matters there are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. So Peter equated the Pauline epistles with scripture. That verse alone proves that a substantial portion of the New Testament had already been compiled and was recognized as Scripture by the earliest Christians before the death of Peter. And let me give you one more example. Turn back just a few pages to 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 18. 1 Timothy 5. Here Paul is talking about paying ministers for what they do and he says this, The scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. So he quotes two statements and he calls them both scripture. What are these passages? Well, the first one is easy. It's Deuteronomy 25 verse four, you shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. And it's interesting, isn't it? Peter is using deduction there. That verse doesn't say how you should pay your pastors, but Peter points out that the principle it gives certainly has a bearing on that. So he's saying not only is that text inspired, but the principle it teaches is one we should apply across the board, not just with your ox, but it's just as true with your, I don't know, your donkey and your pastor, assuming those are different. But he quotes two passages, one is Deuteronomy 25.4. What is this second phrase, the laborer deserves his wages? If you do a search in your concordance, you will find that statement appears in only one other place in your Bible. it's Luke 10 verse 7, the laborer deserves his wages. He's quoting that text from the gospel of Luke and Matthew 10 10 is a parallel passage with a slightly different word it says the laborer deserves his food. but you won't find any parallel or even a close parallel for that statement anywhere in the Old Testament. Paul, I think clearly, is referring to Luke's gospel, Luke 10 verse 7, he refers to it as scripture. And Geisler and Nix say this, if the writings of Luke, who was not an apostle, are quoted as scripture by Paul, and Peter, who incidentally was rebuked by Paul, as recorded in Galatians 2.11, he considered Paul's writings to be scripture, then Geisler and Nix say it's not difficult to conceive how the New Testament as a whole would be considered scripture. There wasn't debate about this in the early church. These writings were collected and passed around, and in fact, we don't need to stop there. The whole New Testament is itself filled with claims of authority that are equal to that of the rest of scripture. The apostles who wrote the New Testament books flatly claimed that their teaching was authoritative for the church. Paul told the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 14, 37, if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge the things I am writing are a command of the Lord. And a few verses later, at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul again asserts the divine source of his doctrine, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received." Verse 3, he's claiming that the source of his teaching was God. And the epistles in the New Testament contained the substance of apostolic doctrine and their teaching. And these books were meant to be collected and studied and read and taught to people as infallibly true. And that's emphasized again and again in the New Testament. I'll just give you some examples. 2 Thessalonians 3.14, Paul writes, if anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. 2 Peter 3.2, you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. And there Peter equates his own words and the teaching of the other apostles with the Old Testament prophets. And the only record we have, the only reliable record we have of the apostolic teaching is what's preserved for us in scripture. John likewise wrote John chapter 21 verse 24. This is the disciple, he's ending his gospel and finally revealing a bit about himself. This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things and we know that his testimony is true. So he asserts it as true and because of the nature of what he's writing, it's clear. He means it's infallibly true, you can trust it. He said, I wrote these things so that you might believe. So he's not just saying, I think these are true, or I think this is reliable testimony. He's not giving the sort of sworn in court testimony. He's saying this is infallibly true and you need to believe it. And the New Testament epistles were circulated through the churches and read aloud as authoritative revelation, Colossians 4.16. When this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. Now we don't know what that letter from Laodicea was. It wasn't an epistle of Paul to Laodicea. It was another one of his epistles that was making the rounds. And they were to get it from Laodicea and read it in the church because it was authoritative scripture. 1 Thessalonians 5.27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers." Titus 2.15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you. And there are many other passages of the New Testament scriptures that attest to the absolute authority of New Testament truth. And notice for example that in just beyond our text here, 2 Timothy 4 verse 2, Paul instructs Timothy, preach the word, in season and out of season. That commandment in 2 Timothy 4, which defines what church preaching ministry ought to be, preach the word, he's saying preach the word of God, the scriptures, that cannot be at odds with what Paul already told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.11, where he's giving him a bunch of commands in that epistle, and then he says to him, command and teach these things. meaning these things that I am telling you in this epistle, he is in effect claiming that what he wrote is the word of God worthy of being preached. And you'll find both implicit and explicit claims of authority like those throughout the New Testament, just scattered throughout. So when the Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration, it's talking about all the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament canon, the full canon. Now, the assembly of the New Testament canon began really almost as soon as it was written. It's folly to think that the early church created the canon. What they did was recognize it. The church is the discoverer, not the determiner of the canon. The church is the child, not the mother of the canon. The church is a witness to the canon, not a judge of it. The church is the servant of the canon, not a master of it. You may want to read further about the formation of the canon. There are several excellent books that deal with the subject. I already mentioned Geisler and Nix, because that's probably the simplest, most succinct treatment of it. But if you want something even more in-depth, some excellent resources are Laird Harris, The Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, kind of an authoritative work there, and B.B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, and there's a There's a whole section of books in our bookstore, in our church, dealing with the Bible, and many of them deal with this question of how the canon came to us. Don't be confused by the popular lore that's out there, especially in the wake of these books like the Da Vinci Code and all that imply that there are books out there that mistakenly or by surreptitious politics got excluded from the canon. That's not an honest way to look at how the canon of the Bible was received and recognized by the church. And I'll just summarize all of that by saying that the 66 books of our Bible are the only books that have historically and universally been recognized by the people of God over the centuries as canonical. And there are many compelling reasons to reject, say, the Apocrypha as fraudulent, and certainly all the Gnostic Gospels that have sort of been dug up in recent years. Take the Apocrypha. If you just read it, for example, you will see that the Apocrypha is of an entirely different character from the inspired scriptures. Some of the Apocrypha is filled with mythological and fanciful overtones. And at key points, the Apocrypha flatly contradicts certain biblical teachings. That's why we sometimes even use the word Apocryphal as a synonym for fictitious. Now, people sometimes ask, how can we be sure that none of the inspired books of scripture have been lost or overlooked? And my answer to that is, I think we can be confident that we have the correct canon of scripture because God promised to protect and preserve his word. Jesus said, Luke 21, 33, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Isaiah 40, verse eight, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Psalm 12, verses six and seven, the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in the furnace of the ground, purified seven times, and then it says, you, O Lord, will protect them. So you can be confident that the Bible you have today is the all-sufficient Word of God, because God has sovereignly and providentially protected His Word across the years of human history, despite all the corruption that comes and goes in the Church. The people of God have consistently and universally recognized the canon we have as the only canon of truly inspired Scripture. Look at the next phrase in 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is breathed out by God. Here's a second truth we need to consider. It's the inspiration of scripture. The inspiration of scripture. Let me give you a technical definition of divine inspiration and you don't need to try to take this down because it's long. But here's my definition. Inspiration is the influence of the Holy Spirit over the writers of Scripture, the human writers, by which he guided those men using their own personality and abilities and mind and vocabulary and all their human faculties to pen the books of Scripture. And yet the Spirit superintended the process so that the finished product in the original manuscripts was fully and inherently the very word of God, word for word as God would have it. The words themselves are the words God chose. Now, there are several elements in that long definition. Notice that I said that inspiration is the work of the Holy Spirit. And yet, at the same time, it acknowledges the role of the human authors and the use of their personalities, their abilities, their vocabularies, their manner of writing. It reflects the human aspect of the process of inspiration. I don't want to take anything away from that. In fact, I would say this doctrine, more clearly than anything else, shows us the perfect blend of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. And I'll show you that in just a minute. But notice that the definition I've given you also underscores the inerrancy of scripture in the original manuscripts. It's the original manuscripts and not any translation or printed edition that is inspired and inerrant. So don't let your faith be shaken if you find a bad translation or a typographical error in your Bible. One of the very first editions of the King James Bible had a pretty glaring typo where it said he instead of she. It's called the He Bible. John MacArthur owns a copy of that first edition. It's a fascinating thing. It's sort of a very embarrassing typo. You occasionally find that in Scripture, although in my experience, publishers thankfully tend to proofread their editions of the Bible more carefully than anything else they publish. So it is rare even to find a typo in Scripture, but that's not because that's what God is promising. He's promised to preserve His Word, meaning so that what we have, we can be confident in. It doesn't mean every translation is perfect. It doesn't mean any translation is perfect. means the original word as it was recorded by the authors was perfect in the sense that it's inerrant. And my definition also makes the point, deliberately, that inspiration is verbal. It extends to the words themselves, not just the ideas or the abstract message, but it's the words of scripture that are inspired and that guarantees that the original manuscripts accurately convey the very word of God verbatim. word-for-word and all those elements are crucial to a biblical definition of inspiration people always want to fudge on one or more of those principles and when you see somebody doing that you know it's somebody who's tinkering with theology in the way he shouldn't because he's trying to overcome something that's authoritative in scripture But all of those elements are crucial to a biblical definition of inspiration. It is the words of the original authors that are inspired, not only the ideas or the doctrines. And this word-for-word perfection was sovereignly accomplished through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and yet without doing any violence to the wills of the human authors, without putting them into a trance or a coma, without mechanically dictating what they should write, the Holy Spirit simply providentially oversaw the process so that they would produce God's Word through their own pens so perfectly that the result is as if it were breathed out by God himself. That's what Paul is saying here. In fact, look closely at our passage again. The King James Version says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And the ESV, I think, gives a more literal translation of what the Greek expression is saying. All scripture is breathed out by God. Theonoustos is the Greek word, literally means God breathed. It isn't saying that God breathed his authority or something else into the words of scripture. It's saying that scripture itself is the very breath of God. God breathed out the words of scripture. He didn't breathe something into them. And that is as strong an affirmation of the sovereignty of God as I know. Even the most determined Arminian, if he's truly evangelical, has to affirm this doctrine of inspiration. You cannot deny that God is absolutely sovereign in the process. In some mysterious fashion, God superintended the thoughts and the minds and the hands of those who penned the books of the Bible so that what they produced were precisely and perfectly the words God chose. And yet, he did that without violating the choice or the will of the human authors. Paul says, in a very real sense, God himself breathed out those words, and yet it is nevertheless clear that the inspired words of Scripture also reveal to us the personality, the vocabulary, the temperament, the writing style of its various human authors. And there, by the way, you have a perfect picture in that process of how divine sovereignty and human responsibility perfectly coexist. One doesn't nullify or contradict the other. Peter, who knew firsthand what it was to be used by God in a way like that, describes the process for us. 2 Peter 1 verses 20 and 21. No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That's how Peter says it. In other words, the Holy Spirit sovereignly moved the writers of Scripture so that what they produced would be the perfect inerrant Word of God, right down to the jot and tittle detail, so that the words of Scripture are in one sense the words of the human authors, But the authority of scripture derives from the fact that these are also the very words God chose. God inspired, breathed them out. All scripture, the full canon, is inspired in that way. The very words are the precise words of God. Is that not a tremendous thought? And do you see why scripture has such inherent authority and power to affect our lives? Let me just give you one other text. that underscores all of this. Jesus said in Matthew 5.18, truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. He's claiming inspiration and authority for the Word of God in the tiniest meticulous details. The iota is the smallest letter and the dot is the point on top of it or next to it and he's saying even those tiny meticulous details, the tiny strokes that form the letters are authorized, inspired by God. Paul says all scripture has this property. It's God-breathed and that claim is an inherent claim that the scriptures carry the very authority of God himself. You can't escape that and in fact that brings us to our third point if you're trying to take notes. We've talked about the canon of Scripture and the inspiration of Scripture. Now notice what our passage says about the authority of Scripture. The authority of Scripture. I think it was, what's his name, Brian McLaren, who famously said, well this text doesn't say the Bible's authoritative, it just says it's useful. Listen to the verse again, verse 16. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. In other words, Scripture teaches us, it reproves us, it corrects us, it instructs us in righteousness, and you cannot reasonably think that through and not realize there is an inherent claim of authority in all of that. You can't teach legitimately without authority. Scripture couldn't rebuke and reprove me unless it had authority over my heart. It couldn't instruct me in righteousness unless it had the authority to do so. And since Paul has already stated that Scripture is God-breathed, the clear and inescapable meaning of this passage is that Scripture speaks with the full authority of God himself. Now, I think that would be obvious to any reader, but it's a truth that has been under attack, really, ever since Satan asked Eve, yea, hath God said? Did God actually say that? And today, there's a horde of teachers who echo the voice of Satan. Now, you may think that's a harsh statement, but I mentioned Brian McClure. Let me give you a quote from him. This one is from his book titled, Another Kind of Christian. And by the way, this is a book that won the award of merit from Christianity Today magazine a few years ago. So here's another reason to regard Christianity Today as totally apostate. This is a terrible book. I mean, I don't want to mince words with this. One of the reasons I got into blogging in the first place was to be able to speak about things like this. This is a terrible book. I read this book and I thought, what a horrible thing to be promoting for, it was really aimed at college students. It's a fictionalized attack on the authority of Scripture. And McLaren is proposing a new kind of post-modernized Christianity. He wants to take the name and the credibility of historic Christianity while he rejects everything that's distinctive about biblical Christianity. And on page 52 of that book, McLaren has the hero of his fictional story say this, quote, that oft quoted passage in 2 Timothy doesn't say all scripture is inspired by God and is authoritative. It says that all scripture is inspired and useful. And then he goes on to say that the Bible tells a story. And the story has, in his exact words, quote, incredible spiritual value, unquote. But he says, it's not supposed to be viewed as an authoritative answer book to all of our spiritual questions and needs. So let's examine this. Does the Bible claim to be authoritative or does it not? I've already pointed out that When Paul says scripture is inspired, God-breathed, there is an inherent claim of authority in that. This passage taken as a whole clearly is not saying, Paul is not telling Timothy that the Bible is useful in some kind of nondescript sense. He's saying that every word of scripture is God-breathed and for that reason it's profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. He's saying that scripture reproves us, it teaches us, it corrects us with the authority of God himself. That's Paul's point. And there is no other source of doctrine or correction, including especially the books of Brian McLaren, that could ever make a claim like that. This is the very highest possible claim of authority. Scripture is God-breathed. And in 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13, Paul says this, We thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of man, but as what it really is, the word of God. And think about that. If Scripture is God-breathed, it is in truth the Word of God, and its authority lies in that fact. This really was the theme of our blog. It's where the name of the blog came from. Jeremiah 23, 29. Is not my word like a fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? If it's truly the word of God, if it's God's very breath, then it is authoritative because of that alone. furthermore from cover to cover scripture speaks with authority it demands that we obey its commands and it demands that we live by its precepts it demands that we obey its commands be doers of the word and not hearers only James 1 22 Luke 11 28 Jesus said blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it and And so scripture speaks with authority, with God's own authority, and it demands our obedience on that ground alone. To disobey scripture is to disobey the authority of God, and scripture says that throughout. The King James Version translates Psalm 138 verse 2 this way, thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. The New American Standard Bible translates that verse like this, Thou hast magnified thy word according to all thy name. The ESV says, You have exalted above all things your name and your word. So the verse itself, the proper translation is a little bit ambiguous, but anyway you read it, in all three of those versions, The truth is the same. It's saying that God's word is in no way and in no sense inferior to his personal authority, his name. Rather, the word of God is the expression of God's personal authority. In other words, scripture is equal in weight and in authority, equal in its holy perfection to God's own reputation. That's what it means, your name. The scriptures are definitive as a verbal expression of God's mind, his will, and his truth to us. And so the Bible speaks with God's personal authority. There's no way around this. When the Bible commands us, we better obey. When it rebukes us, we have no option but to reform. When it instructs us, we are obliged to yield to its truth and embrace it. When it warns us, We better take heed, and when it speaks to us, it is our bounden duty to submit and to listen. The absolute authority of Scripture is also established by one other claim Scripture makes for itself. And here's the key point we really need to acknowledge about the written word of God. It's very simple. It's true. It's true. 2 Timothy 2.15 calls Scripture the word of truth. In John 17, 17, Jesus praying to the Father says, thy word is truth. Second, or rather John chapter 10, verse 35, scripture cannot be broken. And Hebrews 4.12 says, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Every phrase of that verse, Hebrews 4.12, affirms the absolute authority of God's Word. It's alive. It's powerful. It discerns and judges the secret motives of our hearts. Only an inexcusable and sinful arrogance would pretend to acknowledge the inspiration of Scripture and yet question its absolute authority. But there are a lot of people out there who do that. They'll give lip service to the doctrine of inspiration but then question the authority of Scripture. So are you following with me? These are the truths we've considered from this passage, the canon of scripture, the inspiration of scripture, the authority of scripture. And now, if you're taking notes, here's point four, and it brings us back to the issue we began with, the one we're really focused on this weekend, the sufficiency of scripture. And verse 17 is the key verse here, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. The word translated competent, the Greek word artios, And it means adequate, complete. It's in the sense of fully furnished. That's the idea. It's translated perfect in the King James Version and it denotes full sufficiency. It's saying that there is no spiritual need you have. There is no good work that you are required to do that scripture cannot equip you for. Look back at verse 15. Paul actually begins this point by reminding Timothy of his spiritual heritage. Timothy had grown up from childhood, Paul says, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, we already know that Timothy had a godly grandmother and a godly mother. Paul refers to them in chapter one, verse five. He says, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, the faith that dwelt at first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure that same faith dwells in you as well. So Timothy had been taught and trained from childhood. in the true faith, literally from birth. He had wonderful encouragement from at least two godly examples who oversaw him. But it was the word of God, the scriptures, that made him wise unto salvation, and only the scriptures that would be able to bring him to full spiritual maturity. That's what Paul's telling him. This passage is a clear and straightforward affirmation of the absolute sufficiency of Scripture. That's Paul's point here. How dare anybody say this principle isn't taught in Scripture? His whole point here is about the sufficiency of Scripture and the inspired and authoritative Word of God. It's all you need, Paul is saying, to bring you to complete maturity, to equip you. Paul was about to to move on, to die, and he's assuring Timothy that, look, Timothy, you have everything you need to disciple you the rest of the way, just as you've had everything you need to bring you to this point in the scriptures, not in your grandmother, great for good examples, not in your mother, not in the apostle Paul, all those great examples were an encouragement to Timothy, but what equipped him and brought him to salvation, Paul says, is the word of God. If you're looking for spiritual help, or instruction, or correction, or rebuke, or sound doctrine, you don't really need to look any further than the Bible you have in your hands. Now I know there are a lot of people who would instantly dismiss that as a naive and shallow statement, but there's nothing shallow about it, because we're talking about the God-breathed Word, the only authoritative source of spiritual help. This is a pretty clear affirmation of the superiority and the sufficiency of the Bible over every other kind of authority. It demolishes the Catholic claim that the Bible isn't enough, the incredibly arrogant claim that, you know, you can't know the truth of God without the teaching of authority of some Roman Catholic bishop. And in fact, this passage takes every other book and every other source that claims to be necessary to unlock the true meaning of Scripture, and it makes them all superfluous, doesn't it? If Scripture is sufficient, In and of itself, you don't need Mary Baker Eddy to unlock it for you. No man, no church, no religious authority has any right to add to the inspired Word of God any kind of additional doctrines or interpretations or traditions. To do that, in effect, is to invalidate the Word of God and to replace it with another authority. Well, that's what the Pharisees did, isn't it? That's what Jesus scolded them for the most. Matthew 15 6, Jesus rebuked him, saying, for the sake of your tradition, you've made void the Word of God. He said that for them to add their tradition to the Word of God was to transgress the commandment of God, and he addressed them as arrogant hypocrites. He cursed them, basically. That's how Jesus himself affirmed the absolute sufficiency of Scripture. Listen to Psalm 19, and we'll look at this in detail in a session tomorrow, but Psalm 19 verses 7 through 9, this is the text I mentioned earlier that John MacArthur unpacked in that famous series of messages he preached on biblical sufficiency. Here's what that text says, I'll just read it. perfect. Bear in mind, this is all talking about Scripture, the written Word of God, because that Psalm, as you'll see tomorrow, contrasts the Word of God, the written Word of God, with the revelation of God we see in nature, and says Scripture is better, stronger, more authoritative, perfect. And he starts out that way. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb." So he says God's word is perfect, sure, right, clean, and righteous altogether. It will equip you with all the spiritual truth you need to rejoice your heart and convert your soul and all that he says there. We'll look at it tomorrow. But this is a truth taught in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, that scripture, what God has given us in writing, is sufficient for what we need at any given point in time or history. And if your perspective on scripture is any different, if you imagine any other truth is necessary, or if you question the authority or the truth of scripture in any degree, then you need to have your whole worldview overhauled. The Word of God itself can do that for you. It is living and it's powerful and it's capable of judging the thoughts and intentions of our heart. It's able to make us wise unto salvation and then after that able to equip us for every good work. And my prayer for you is that you will submit to its authority in your life. And as we look at this doctrine this weekend, it will have a radical impact on your worldview. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful that you have given us sufficient revelation in written form where it's there for us to study and learn from and be rebuked by and be taught and brought to maturity. And we pray, Lord, that you would Use even what we hear this weekend to mature us and to strengthen our faith and to motivate us to order our lives by your word in all its sufficient power, we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.