Sufficient and Profitable (35)
Then, Scripture is useful "for rebuking." Several English versions favor "for reproof." This translation can be misleading, and at best it conveys only part of what the word means. The original has the sense of prosecuting a case against error, so that Jay Adams translates it as "conviction."33 This is to be taken first in the objective sense, as in to convict someone in a court of law.34 Only in a secondary sense or as a byproduct of the objective conviction does the word refer to a subjective feeling of guilt or admission of wrongdoing.
Here the word mainly refers to the minister's opposition against false teachers and their doctrines instead of the people's sinful behavior (which is taken up by the next item). Paul is saying that, besides offering a constructive system of truth, the Bible is also sufficient for "the conviction of false doctrine."35 Therefore, Lenski suggests the word "refutation" instead.36
Just as the Bible is both sufficient and profitable for teaching, it is also sufficient and profitable for refuting error. Lattimore even offers the translation, "useful…for argument." Keeping in mind that Paul considers it "useful" to the extent of being "complete," he is saying that Scripture supplies all that is necessary to perform such a task, so that the minister requires no extra-biblical materials.
Also, since he bases the Scripture's usefulness and sufficiency to refute error on the fact that Scripture is "God-breathed," this means that once a position has been refuted by Scripture, it has been declared false by God. Nothing else can add to God's authority, and thus nothing else can strengthen the refutation. Any belief that has been rejected by Scripture is a dead position. Possessing an infinitely inferior authority, or none at all, human philosophy and the natural sciences cannot resuscitate any position that has been refuted by the Bible, nor can they make it any more false or absurd. God's word is true and final, and thus Scripture is sufficient and profitable for refutation, for doctrinal combat.
Notes
33 Jay E. Adams, The Christian Counselor's New Testament and Proverbs (Timeless Texts, 2000).
34 Jay E. Adams, How to Help People Change (Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), p. 113-115.
35 Mounce, p. 570. Also, Fee, p. 280, and Donald Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles, Revised Edition (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), p. 176.
36 R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus, and to Philemon (Hendrickson Publishers, 2001), p. 846.
(to be continued)