Is Scripture all we need to live life well?

In an earlier episode of Simply Put, we talked about the inspiration of Scripture,

which is something the Apostle Paul describes in 2 Timothy.

He says all Scripture is breathed out by God.

But then he goes further.

Scripture, he says, is profitable for teaching, for reproof,

for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for

every good work. The completeness, Paul describes here, the fact that scripture is able to

completely equip a believer for every good work is what theologians call the sufficiency of

scripture. Paul is saying that the Bible is sufficient in itself to tell us everything we must believe in order to be saved and what we must do in order to please God.

Now, of course, we need to do a little work in terms of understanding what Scripture says and then applying that truth to our lives.

But the sufficiency of Scripture tells us that we need no other

kind of special revelation in order to live the Christian life well. As we've already seen,

the Bible doesn't speak exhaustively on every subject. You will look in vain, I'm afraid,

for verses that tell you how to prepare an omelette, treat a blister,

or produce a podcast. That's obviously not what Paul means when he says that scripture

equips us for every good work. What he means is that scripture gives us sufficient guidance

so that we can live lives that are pleasing to the Lord in every way.

So even if there are no specific instructions relating to omelets,

scripture does contain what we need to know in order to make that omelette to the glory of God.

The sufficiency of scripture also means that scripture itself is sufficient to interpret scripture. That was a very big deal during the Reformation. The reformers talked about solar scriptura, a Latin phrase meaning scripture alone.

Their point was that, in contrast to the church's teaching, we do not need an infallible church in order

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