What are you supposed to do with your life? Learning the Bible better makes us infinitely better equipped to answer this question. This is not to diminish the importance of prayer (whereby we learn to submit to God), or ignore the value of counselors and Bible teachers (who guide us with wisdom gained from the Bible), but it affirms the sufficiency of the Scriptures1. The appeal for us to be “not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph 5:17) is only achieved by understanding the Word of the Lord. In the Scriptures, “we have the mind of Christ” (1Cor 2:16). The Bible is enough.
Please be clear on what this does not mean. Obviously, the Bible doesn’t tell us everything we want to know about everything. The intent of the Scriptures is not to enable you to “figure out” God, to get you a job, or tell you whether to major in chemistry or history. But the Scriptures contain everything you need to know for the knowledge of salvation and for godly living. “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2Tim 3:15-17, ESV). The Bible is enough. You need no additional revelation in order to be a faithful Christian.
You don’t need a mystical experience, a vision, a prophet – you need the Word of the Lord. You need to read it, study it, obey it, and listen to it being preached. Your need for the Scriptures will never be exhausted. Thankfully, the circumstances of your life will never exhaust the Scriptures’ relevance to you. Psalm 119:105 abides true: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
The Bible is enough because it gives you something that no blog, no university professor, and no other book could ever provide: perfect wisdom from above. When Ezra the scribe was going to Jerusalem, Artaxerxes, King of Persia, supported his mission and sent a letter with him (Ezra 7:12-26, ESV). “You are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand … Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God … And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach” (Ezra 7:14–25, ESV) Ezra could be trusted to do the will of God. Why? Because he held the wisdom of God in his hand. How? The Law of God was in his hand – he was holding the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are sufficient.
