Is God's Word Enough?

Recently, I read the following lines in a Christian best-seller:

"The following year, I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God. I had been writing in prayer journals for years, but that was one-way communication: I did all the talking. I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more." 

The last line was what got me thinking. Hmm. This author was yearning for more than the Bible?  Now I have no doubt that this writer would affirm the inspiration (that the words of the human authors of the Bible are indeed God's), inerrancy (that the Bible as originally given was totally without error) and infallibility (the Bible is true) of Scripture. But when one "yearns for more" than the Bible ... that person is denying the sufficiency of the Bible. A number of years ago, James Montgomery Boice, prolific author and former pastor of Tenth Church in Philadelphia foretold that in our days the real battle would not be over the innerancy or the infallibility of the Bible but rather its sufficiency - are we going to rely on the revelation of Scripture or are we going to look for additional revelation.

I encourage all who are reading this posting to be careful in going down this path. When I read the Bible (Psalm 119 for example) - I don't see any author of Scripture telling us to look for "something more" than the Bible. I do repeatedly see commands to meditate on the Scripture. Paul summed up the sufficiency of Scripture when he wrote these words to Timothy:

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work"  (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  

For a more thorough explanation of this doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, click here. 

Thanks for stopping by . . . 

pj

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