The Bible is sufficient for salvation and obedience. There is no other revelation or book that we need, the God given, God-breathed Scriptures are enough for us to be obedient Disciples of Christ. Again, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church caused a dependency upon things other than the Word of God. To them the word was not sufficient enough by itself, there had to be a mediator. To the reformer the mediator was the Holy Spirit and Scripture was sufficient enough to meet every need of the believer without any other source of revelation.
“The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.” - Wayne Grudem
What is revealed to us in the Bible is enough for us. The Bible is sufficent for salvation and for us to obey God perfectly. There is no other book that the believer needs to know the special revelation of God. This means that we should emphasize what God has told us through His Word, and we should also be content with what was given to us. God teaches us what to do and provides us with sufficient knowledge of Himself.
Whatever we find in Scripture should be written on our hearts and minds as the very Words of God, authoritative in its commands, clear in its meaning, necessary for all believers, inerrant in all of its message, and sufficent for every need.
hey
i just had a question about your posts. somebody has been asking questions of me on this that i may be a little fuzzy on. his question is on the authority of who wrote the bible. he keeps using the phrase “sacro sanct” word of God, meaning God basically dictated it to the writers like a boss would dictate a memo to a secretary. he also uses the example (and please don’t get sidetracked here) of homosexuality, saying “what if that was a writer in the old testament who just didn’t like homosexuals” and the third subject that keeps coming up is in the translation. what we have as the bible can’t be the “sacrosanct” word of God because of how many versions there are. NIV, KJ, NKJ, NAS, along with many others, his question is how can the bible be authoriative if there isn’t an exact translation.
It also has to do with which tradition and era you belong to. If you belong to the Catholic tradition or Eastern Orthodox (and other traditions) for instance, you will find that your Bible includes more books than Protestant Bibles (7 or 14+ additional books). These books were rejected by Protestant reformers as modern day Protestant religion evolved.
While these and other additional books of the Bible may or may not contradict the more standard set of books, there are certainly differences among the many different traditions of the meaning of the books and how relevant they should be to society.
For instance regarding Homosexuality - certain Lutherans, Methodists, and various other churches don’t regard Homosexual behavior as sinful at all. They will provide various passages of the Bible on how God loves his people and how God really is against that immoral behavior that is defined by doing things to people that physically harm them (like allowing starvation, killing, cruel behavior, etc.) or psychologically harms their soul [which may lead to physical harm later] (like allowing Racism, Poverty, etc.)
Also regarding capital punishment and cruel punishment, well beyond the majority of Christians reject much of the Bible that has to do with cruel and unusual punishment (like stoning people to death that commit various crimes like Adultery). Today in a Christian church you can easily get a divorce or counseling and no one will be stoned to death.
All in all I would say the beliefs and behavior of the people have more to do with their commitment to moral behavior than finding exact meaning in texts.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible for more information about the Bible.
Add A Comment