Sunday School | Scripture is Necessary and Sufficient

All right, you guys, welcome back, good morning. So we are in the middle of a long, long-form doctrinal survey series on bibliology, which is the study of the scriptures and the doctrine of God's word. It's probably not a mystery to you to know that I am deeply interested in knowing the scriptures and teaching the scriptures and incentivizing others to do the same. I'm absolutely convinced that God's word is filled with treasure and that you can find it.

We're going to look at this this morning coming fresh off the heels of a retreat with the fellows. We went up to Washington, D.C. for a conference that we do every year. This year, we kind of played a little bit hooky and did our own conference. I brought in a good friend of mine, a guy named Nick Noak. You may have heard me mention Nick before. Nick and I worked together when I worked in the Ivy Leagues for a couple years before coming here. Nick was our teaching fellow at Harvard.

You guys, if I had to guess who is the best Bible teacher alive in the world today, I think it's Nick. And I mean that. I know there's like 8 billion people on the planet, and I haven't heard most of them teach the scriptures. But you'd have to be pretty good to be better than Nick. We had such an absolutely marvelous time. If you're a podcast listener, check out Nick's church—he pastors a small church in Manhattan called the Neighborhood Church of Greenwich Village. His podcast is so good.

I come into this thing this morning to talk about the beauty and necessity of scripture on a Nick Noak high. I have feasted under a handful of really good Bible teachers and have an incredible wealth of dear friends that I love. But there is nobody that intersects those two worlds like Nick does. What he was able to do this weekend with fellows and Kelly and Cody and myself, it just reinvigorates for me—my goodness, I want to know this book. There's so much to be discovered in it that I think we've yet to mine. It's just so good.

So read your Bibles. You might want to listen to some of Nick's teaching, because every time I do, it drives me deeper into the scriptures. His church is the Neighborhood Church of Greenwich Village. He's unbelievable.

The Attributes of Scripture

But this is not about Nick. This is about the scriptures, God's word. As we began this series, we're looking at the Bible through its attributes. We've looked at the attributes of God the Father. Right now we're looking at the attributes of the scriptures. We've already said—do you remember the two things that we argued already? The Bible is _____ and _____. Inerrant. I love when people remember things we talk about. So that makes me happy. Inerrant—and what was last week? Do you remember? It's not just that it's errorless. It says nothing that's contrary to fact, but it's also something else. Yes, authoritative. Two for two. Good job, Lisa.

God's word is inerrant and authoritative. It's all those things. But today, I want to talk about two more—the scriptures are necessary and sufficient. The scriptures are inerrant and authoritative. They are also necessary and sufficient.

Let's talk about necessary first. But in order to do that, we've got to step back a little bit. When God reveals things to us, there are two very broad categories of revelation. Do you know what these are? Natural and special. Natural revelation is sometimes called general revelation. There are things that we can know about God because we can go outside. There are things about creation itself that reveal things to him. Special revelation is when he speaks into the void to give us the particulars.

Psalm 19 is probably the greatest depiction of both natural revelation and special revelation. Let's flip there for a second to get a little bit of categories here.

The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. They have no speech. They use no words, no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun. — Psalm 19

It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes his circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of his warmth.

Is that general revelation or special revelation? That's general, that's natural, right? But he frames it as if it's speaking, right? The heavens declare. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Their voice goes out into all of the earth. God is speaking through the created order, right? He's speaking through trees. If you take a biology class, it reveals things about him, right? We have that.

Psalm 19 continues now, though, and it pivots. It's a sharp turn. When it says this in verse seven:

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure and enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. By them, your servant is warned. In keeping them, there is great reward. — Psalm 19:7-11

And then it's going to move on to a third category:

Who can discern their errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. And I will be blameless, innocent of great transgressions. And may these words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, my Lord, my rock, my redeemer. — Psalm 19:12-14

Three Categories of Revelation

First category is natural revelation, general revelation—the skies proclaim, creation is teaching. Second category is that he's written things down. There is this word that we've been talking about, how it gets collected like a reverse head of cabbage and all these things, right? And that third category at the end is actually our words. And what are our words compared to his, right? That is really the way Psalm 19 is framed out.

Everybody in the world gets that. All of us, there is no place that that voice is not being heard. But there are lots and lots and lots of places where his special word is not being heard. Some of those places where his particular revelation, his special revelation is not being heard, has a Bible on a coffee table. It's just not being opened, right? Some places, maybe it's more difficult to access.

Everybody gets the general revelation and the general revelation, the natural revelation, is meaningful, right? Romans one is also going to talk about that. In fact, turn there for a second. Go to Romans one end of that chapter and kind of moving a little bit into chapter two. It's going to say this:

What may be known about God is plain to people because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For though they knew God, they didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. — Romans 1:19-21

What this is telling us is that there's enough information in the creation, in the natural revelation of things to condemn the world. We know right from wrong. There is not enough information in the created world to tell us how to be saved. And that is why we need the scriptures. We can gather some things about him. It's obvious that somebody made the world. There's things that we can learn. Not only are there things that are obvious to us because it's written in the stars, but there's other things that are obvious to us because it's written in our hearts.

And another part of this general revelation is that God built into you a conscience. Romans two is going to go on and say this:

When the Gentiles who do not have the law, that is to say they don't have the special revelation—they don't have the scriptures—when the Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves. Even though they don't have the law, they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. — Romans 2:14-15

That's to say that built into every person's heart is some sense of like, "Shouldn't have done that," or actually that one was okay. You have this—that is God given to. God has given us the created world that teaches us about him. We talked about this last week that everything that God made is in some degree like himself and speaks of him. The world then is word, news, right? It's an expression. And you have a conscience.

So you have those two things, but it's not enough. It is insufficient and we need more than that.

More than just what has been made, we need him to speak into this void in a particular way and show us things that are true that we would never be able to intuit from the created order and things that aren't already written into the operating system of our heart.

I'm following you and you're saying the general revelation isn't sufficient, isn't enough. Is that undercut Paul's argument in Romans 1?

Definitely not. Okay, so Marty's question is: if there's a contest between Paul and Tim, go Paul, right? No. Paul would absolutely agree that what has been revealed through nature and through conscience is enough to condemn the world. It is not enough to save the world. It's a profoundly important distinction.

The world shows us what is true and what is right, and that we're guilty. It is obvious that somebody made the world. It is intuitive that we are obligated to him. Paul is gonna basically say that you know what's wrong to steal from somebody because when somebody steals from you, you just wanna kill him, right? He's gonna argue there in Romans 2 that as soon as you condemn the other, you're condemning yourself because you who passed judgment do the same things. But nothing woven into that tells us how we might obtain his forgiveness and grace. For that, we need him to speak.

Is that satisfied? All right, great. Kelly brought up Romans 10 about the need for speaking.

How can they call on the one they have not believed, and how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? How can they preach unless they are sent? As is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. — Romans 10

Again, Romans 10, Paul is affirming that there is something we need to say. The heavens speak, right? The musculature of your forearms speaks, but not enough, right? The word of salvation needs to be brought. God has not just given us conscience, not just given us the created world, but he's also spoken and endowed with the particular things that he wants us to know. And it is necessary. We must have it.

Catherine, I have a question about Romans 1. What you're saying about intuition, that it's in us—is that Jeremiah? I never have the right word, but Jeremiah says, "I want my laws on your heart." Isn't that kind of the same thing?

Yes. Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 are these two great new covenant promises where essentially what it's gonna do is inscribe that written word in our hearts in a much more detailed way. Right now we're talking about the created world and conscience, and then we're gonna have the written word. And then Jeremiah and Ezekiel are gonna add a fourth thing. We'll get there more fully, but yes, those are the passages. If you wanna chase that down, Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 are what you're thinking of there.

The Necessity of God's Word

When we say that it is necessary, what I am suggesting is that there's more than nature and conscience that you need in order to know how you are to live. We cannot—we're not capable of living the full life that God intends us to apart from his word. We need it. We really can't make it to the world to come, to the life that lasts forever, without his word.

His word contains things that we need to know, but that we would never figure out on our own. Socrates probably got as close as any human being to thinking this through, but even the great Socrates couldn't figure it out.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. — Deuteronomy 29:29

He is revealing to us the things that we wouldn't figure out. He reveals sometimes in great detail what it is that he expects from us.

Assemble the people—men, women, and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. — Deuteronomy 31

Their children who do not know this law must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

Do you guys know what Deuteronomy is itself? Like what its function is in the scripture, how it came to be? Is this familiar? It is a law. It's the second law. Here's what that means: you hear "duet" in Deuteronomy—that second part. "Nomos" means law. Antinomianism is to be oppositional to the law. Antinomians don't like the law. Deuteronomy is the second law.

What it actually is: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers are the narrative portion of the Pentateuch. They show us what happened, what happened—it's a story, just walking us through what happened. At the end of that story, they get to the edge of the river and it's time to cross the Jordan and possess the land, and they're not ready for it. So Moses has everybody sit down, get comfy, let's recap. He gives this big long speech that is essentially a review of what has happened from Genesis through Numbers—more on Exodus and Numbers, but reaching back. He retells the story before they go into the land. He doesn't get to go, but they're gonna go into the land. So Deuteronomy is the second law. It's the retelling of the Exodus and how we get here.

In this great speech, he knows he doesn't get to go. He's sending them on ahead, and it's in that he's basically imploring them. He said everybody sit down and let's remind them what the Lord wants them to know, what it is that they must do. He says, "Our children who do not know this law must hear it and learn to fear the Lord our God."

This law doesn't just tell us how to live—which, by the way, we can't do. It not only reveals a standard that's not possible to meet, but this word is going to reveal to us and actually enable us to be born again.

Flip forward to First Peter chapter one, verse 23. Listen to this:

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word that was preached to you. — 1 Peter 1:23-25

What Peter is saying is the thing that actually produces new birth in our heart is the word of God.

Now, I'm curious if our series in John's gospel might make that feel at odds with anything to you. Do you remember how we are born again, according to John 3?

The spirit—right? This is a peculiar feature here. You're gonna find, if you're just looking for these, you're gonna find repeatedly that the Bible will describe something as being caused by, produced by the Spirit of God. And then in another place, it'll show that it is caused or produced by the word of God. The word of God and the Spirit of God are like two wings of an airplane.

We are born again by the Spirit of God in John 3. We are born again by the word of God in First Peter. This is a recurring feature. You will see it over and over again. If you did a quick comparison, if you look through Ephesians 5, it's gonna say "be filled with the Spirit." Ephesians has a parallel book that follows like thought-for-thought. Do you guys know what the parallel book for Ephesians is?

Colossians—exactly right. If you read through Ephesians, you read through Colossians, you can be like, "Okay, I see idea, idea, idea, idea, idea." If you go back and find that section where Paul is saying "be filled with the Spirit," you jump over to Colossians in that exact same spot and he's gonna say that the word of God dwell in you richly.

We are filled with the word. We are filled with the Spirit. We are born by the word. We are born by the Spirit. All these things. And of course, then in Ephesians it all kind of ties together where Paul says, "Pick up the sword of the Spirit." And what is the sword of the Spirit?

The word of God—because the Spirit wrote this thing. He illumines this thing. There is this inseparable reality between word and Spirit, right? And we need them both.

I just want to observe that if you've got the Spirit of God working inside of you and you've got the word of God coming in from the written word on the outside, you're covered.

That's it. As Joe says, if you've got the word of God and the Spirit of God, you're covered. And what you're kind of doing, Joe, is we're moving from "we need this, right? The scriptures are necessary" to "they are sufficient."

And we'll get to that before, hopefully, before we run out of time here. You know, here's one more from Deuteronomy. I probably should have stayed in this thing since you already made me move around. But go back to Deuteronomy, listen to this. We were in Deuteronomy 29 and then Deuteronomy 31. Here's Deuteronomy 32:

They are not just idle words for you. They are your life. By them, you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. — Deuteronomy 32

We need it, we need it, we need it. Peter, I'm going to keep making you play ping pong between Peter and Deuteronomy. Peter's going to say what? Do you know what he says? And he's talking to grown-ups, by the way. What should be your orientation to the Bible? Do you remember what he says? As adults, you should be like what?

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. — 1 Peter 2:2

Any of you ever nursed a newborn baby? How much do they like the milk? How much do they pitch a fit when they don't get it? How difficult would it be to wean them off it? Peter is saying you should be like that. It should not be like, "Ah, I need to spend time with the Bible today." It should be like, "How dare you take away from me this thing that I love and need and want to have." We should be like newborn babies who crave it—gotta have it—because we know that we need it.

So other passages of scripture, maybe there's others that you would say, "Why didn't you say this one?" The necessity—we need this thing, gotta have it. Are there other texts that you would add into the mix on that before I jump into the sufficiency of it?

Michael: Now Jesus in response to the devil and temptation. He said, "I live by bread alone, by every word."

Excellent. Excellent, okay, this is good. And there's kind of layers of this. So when Jesus is in the wilderness, when he's in the temptation and Satan's coming after him, a couple of things you see there. Number one is that his response every time—to go after Satan as he's being attacked—is to cite scripture, to quote scripture. So he has it ready. He knows life is hard. He knows life is difficult. He knows he's about to undergo a great test. And so what he is doing to nourish himself, the calories that he is consuming to have the strength to endure this test, is scripture. And one of the things that he cites back is:

We don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. — Matthew 4:4

He is saying that we need it. This is insane because Jesus, who needs nothing, is saying, "I need it." As a human being, he requires it. He's gotta have it. He's going to have it memorized. He's going to know it. He's going to be able to cite it back. He's going to be able to access it. So fantastic, right? We don't just live on bread alone. We need other forms of nourishment in our lives.

Catherine: A transition on what you were saying about being like craving the pure milk of the word—there's a song, one of the songs of ascent. God used that scripture to wean me off the honeymoon period when I got saved. It was about like a weaned child: "I am content to sit beside my mother, on my mother's lap." And he used that scripture powerfully for me because I kind of fought it tooth and nail. I wanted it to still be, "Oh God, you're doing everything for me. You're showing me everything. You're so wonderful." And he's saying, "You know what? You got to mature a little bit."

And there is, I think, an image there in that song of like a weaned child—while something is being taken from us, we fight, right? But a weaned child learns a contentment. And I don't think that we are being weaned off the scriptures, but we are being weaned off all sorts of other things that we generally tend to demand as a condition of our own happiness, right? And everyone in this room has things that you demand as a condition of your own happiness. But there's a maturity as we become like a weaned child, which is a more content child, right?

Sue: I'm just verbally processing. Okay, so you were talking about the word on the scene and the spirit, and so I'm thinking, the word by itself—having it memorized—unless through the direction of the Holy Spirit you have an application to that before you were on life, that's what drives it into your heart. It's meaningless to just memorize. If you're memorizing words but they're not given life by the power of the Holy Spirit to come into your heart and effect a change in you, you're just reading stories about people in the past. But when I read the Old Testament, to me it's the telling of how to live, but it's also a reminder of what he's already done for me.

Like he was reminding Israel, "This is how you live, but this is what I have done for you. Remember this, that it will keep you humble. Go into your promise."

Yeah, let me try to recap this. So Sue is saying the idea that the word of God and the Spirit of God work together—they really work in conjunction. And when we're memorizing Scripture, what we're really doing is making a resource available for the Spirit to bring to mind at the right moment. We're making a resource available for the Spirit to use.

And if all we have is just raw data—like my hard drive, my iPad has the Scriptures memorized—it's not doing any good though. It's just sitting there in the drawer of its hard drive. You know what I mean? And so when we're bringing Scripture, what we want to do is bring it into our lives in a way that it's available for the Spirit to use, that we're yielded to the Spirit. "Lord, bring to mind and let me obey what you reveal."

I think there's something here: when we are responsible with what is entrusted to us, when we obey it, it's much more likely—and much more confident—that he's going to reveal more, right? If I'm just disregarding him, if all I think this is is a big Bible trivia quiz game, then what's the point of that, right? It's worthless. This should be taken and available so that it should console me when I'm not that weaned child and I'm throwing a tantrum about something that I want, that I demand as a cause of my happiness. Can I in that moment stop and yield and trust him again?

Ellen was drawn to what Sue was talking about. It's in John 5:39, what Jesus says to the Pharisees:

"You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life; but these testimonies..." — John 5:39

Yeah, for sure, exactly right. I love that passage.

This feature we're describing here—am I letting this thing land in me?—it happened just this weekend. Kelly and I were talking, we're processing through stuff that Nick was teaching. He had been teaching on Exodus 34:6 and 7, which we've talked about in this room. It's "the Lord, the Lord, the gracious, compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." This primary depiction of who God is—it's the most quoted passage in the Old Testament. He shows up over and over and over again because it is this depiction of him.

Nick had made the observation that God says this after he says:

"I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you" — Exodus 34:6

Nick was essentially arguing this is by definition goodness. God is definitionally what is good. But the problem is that your functioning definition of good is that which aligns with whatever you happen to want at any given moment.

And I thought, "Oh gosh, that is so spot on, right?" Good things are the things that give me what I want, and bad things are the things that don't give me what I want. Something had happened this weekend and I was grousing about it and lamenting it and worrying about it. And then this image of the goodness of God came into my mind and I realized, "Oh, good grief. It's literally happening in real time right now because my functional definition of good is that which aligns with whatever I happen to want at any given moment."

And in that moment, to have previously—an hour earlier—been in the Scriptures with a new definition of goodness confronting my definition of goodness, I needed that. I had needed that. I needed to be taught that because if I hadn't been, I still would have just kept griping about the world not conforming itself to my every whim.

This is how it works. The knowledge that we find from the Scriptures comes to bear in the real life of sinful people who have their own definitions of good. That should be happening. It is happening. It should be happening all the time.

The Sufficiency of Scripture

Okay, we gotta keep moving. The word of God is necessary—you need it. Good grief, do you need it, right? But here's the good news: it's also sufficient. Meaning it's all that you need.

Probably my favorite passage on the sufficiency of the Scriptures is 2 Peter. Go to 2 Peter chapter 1. I'm going to put this in context. Listen to this passage—this is money. Starting on verse 3:

"God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." — 2 Peter 1:3

That's what sufficient means. Everything we need for life and godliness. Knowledge is incredibly important in Peter's writings, incredibly.

We get everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these—meaning through his glory, through his goodness—he has given us his very great and precious promises, right?

What he's stacking up: what do we find in the scriptures? We find knowledge. What do we find in the scriptures? We find promises, right? He's given us his very great and precious promises. So that through them, through his promises, we might participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

What he's painting a picture of is that by our nature, we are apart from the life of God. We are not participants in the divine nature. To a certain extent you should think, "Well, of course we're not participants in the divine nature. Who would presume to have such a thing?" But apparently we can enter into that. There's something about this love relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as they adore one another, revolve around one another, choose one another. There's something about that love that has been going on from the beginning of time that we can participate in. You don't just get to come to the show to watch the dance, but you get to enter the stage and participate in the dance.

What in the world is that? We can participate in the divine nature and we can also escape corruption in the world caused by evil desires. It's not only that this thing is going on that's so fantastic, but there's also this thing that is going on in me where my own desires have this corrupting influence. You've probably been alive long enough to notice this, right? Left to yourself, if you were suddenly a sultan and you were sovereign in all regards, how long would it take until your life completely spun into madness? It would not be very long, right? Our desires are evil. They bring corruption. And if there's going to be any hope that I could escape from me and enter into that dance of affection, I would like that. That would be good. How do I do it?

Well, through these very great and precious promises, through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and goodness, because he has given us everything we need to make this transfer. That's what he's saying. It's in the book. It's written down. Now, it requires diligent study, but it rewards diligent study and everything you need is there, right?

Paul's going to say the same thing, a similar thing. In 2 Timothy, you guys probably know this one.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation. — 2 Timothy 3:14-15

So that's great news, right? Timothy grows up with a mother and a grandmother who loved Jesus—probably not his dad. His dad probably wasn't a believer; his mom and his grandmother were. And these women train him in the Scriptures, little one, from his infancy. From a little kid, they're reading God's Word over him. From infancy, he's known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation. That's such a great line, right? Reading this book or having this book read to you made Timothy wise for salvation.

I think with that—what do you think that means? That it made him wise for salvation. What would that mechanics of that be?

[Audience member]: The knowledge that he needed to be drawn into and accept.

Yeah, exactly right. So Joe said it gives him the knowledge that he needs to be drawn into and accept. What do you think it means? You raised your hand, Ethan?

[Ethan]: I don't know, I just think if you look at just the beginning of Proverbs, "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." Having read the Bible, you come to understand God.

So the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, right? So probably, I think if the Bible makes you wise for salvation, one of the things it's going to have to do is let you know: this is the standard, this is what he expects, this is what God wants of you. It's going to have to produce in you a sense of, "There's no way I can do that. Not today and not tomorrow, right?" To become wise for salvation is to be humbled, is to recognize that I need a Savior. It is to realize his holiness is so great and I am not. It's also to help you realize that maybe there's another way to do this, right?

If my obedience will never be sufficient, is there an alternative? Is there some way? How would grace work? How would forgiveness work? And you'd never, ever, ever, ever take it for granted. Here's an idea—maybe just throw this out there. Maybe what God will do is become a human being, come to the earth, live and die, live a perfect life, suffer for me, and then be willing to give me credit for his perfect life and take the blame for everything I ever did.

Maybe he'll do that, right? Like it would never occur to you. Never in a billion years would you have dreamt up the gospel. But the Scriptures actually reveal that this is the plan.

They're able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And then all Scripture is God breathed, that means exhaled by, right? Speaking is a function of breathing. All Scripture is spoken by God and is useful for teaching, rebuke, correcting, and training in righteousness. — 2 Timothy 3:15-16

The Bible teaches us, it rebukes us, it corrects us, and it trains us to a particular end.

So that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:17

Which is to say, once again, that it is sufficient. It's sufficient. We need it, we've gotta have it. The very words of it are life, and apart from it, we'd never figure this out. But he has given us everything we need for life and godliness in this.

There are knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through them, we can, we really can. You can escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. You can become a participant in the divine nature. — 2 Peter 1:3-4

And this is why it is crucial that we be developing habits to be routinely in this book—to be picking certain passages, memorizing them. Target Scripture memory. This is what's going on in my life. These are the lies that I'm believing. These are the strongholds that I'm too weak to break. I wanna memorize Scripture.

It's why we wanna spend time in a community with others that are also reading this book and talking about this book. It's why it was helpful for me this weekend to sit under another teacher who could say things to me that were helpful.

All of these things—you guys, you just need a constant diet of this book because it really does contain everything we need. But it doesn't do us any good if we're not imbibing it, meditating on it, talking about it, even debating it and pulling it apart, seeking to understand it. Where would we be if he hadn't given it to us? It would be super, super bad, right?

It is necessary. It is sufficient. It's also authoritative and inherent. And we are out of time. Good enough for now?