Sufficient and Profitable (31)

Our passage and its subsequent verses (3:16-4:5) show that Timothy's task is very much a ministry of the word of God. One of the main ways that God reaches the world through his ministers is by preaching, and in our passage, preaching is evidently the primary solution to be applied against all the problems and people that Paul has just described. The question, then, is whether the Bible supplies the necessary materials that a minister needs in his ministry of preaching.

To this, Paul writes that "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful…so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (v. 16) The verse hints at no exception, and the unmistakable assertion is that the Bible is sufficient for whatever the minister needs to accomplish. That is, whatever is the minister's duty to do, he can take the Bible and apply it to the need, and it would be an adequate solution.

It follows that extra-biblical materials are unnecessary. In his ministry, it is never necessary for the minister to have studied the disciplines of psychology, sociology, physics, biology, astronomy, or even secular history and contemporary culture. At this point, we are not saying anything about whether these can be helpful to the ministry, but we echo Paul's triple emphasis that the Bible is sufficient for the minister, so that he may be complete, and thoroughly equipped for every good work. And this means that no supplemental knowledge is necessary. To assert otherwise is to deny the sufficiency of the equipment that divine inspiration insists to be sufficient.

(to be continued)