The Believer’s Certainty that the Scriptures Are the Final Authority for Belief and Behavior (Part 1)

Paul declares that all Scripture is “profitable” or “useful” (ὠφέλιμος; 2 Tim 3:16) in the sense of yielding a practical benefit (1 Tim 4:8; Titus 3:8). This benefit is delineated in four phrases.¹ These phrases are arranged in two pairs, each with a negative and positive aspect. The first pair of words deals with belief (creed) and the second pair with behavior (conduct). The Scriptures are for teaching the truth and refuting error—our belief. The Scriptures are also profitable for reforming one’s actions and discipline in right living—our behavior.

The Scriptures Construct Our Faith by Establishing Correct Belief

The Word of God benefits believers by supplying the absolute truth-deposit from which Christians are taught the propositional truth-claims of God (πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, “for doctrine”; 2 Tim 3:16). The Scriptures teach by means of setting forth the whole counsel of God, which is the systematic, unified, non-contradictory body of truth inscripturated in the Bible. Sound doctrine also includes the moral implications which necessarily result from genuine faith in the truth: “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Tim 1:10).

Doctrinal preaching has fallen on hard times in some sectors of Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism. The declining doctrinal emphasis in preaching, ministerial training, and ecclesiastical associations is hard to miss, but difficult to prove. Much too often God’s objective, inscripturated truth is invalidated by a subjective, non-theological approach to preaching. Fundamentalism historically has used doctrine to define its beliefs and its relationship to a hostile world. The Fundamentalists’ understanding of biblical truth has always led the movement to display a militant spirit against the naturalistic age. Christians who fail to recognize the gradual shift from an objective apprehension of truth to a subjective embracing of error are naïve to the destructive power such a shift has over the historic Faith. The failure of the experiential to be anchored to biblical truth surrenders the historic Faith to the whims of human autonomy. Truth, for some, comes by intuition and feeling, rather than by ascertaining God’s viewpoint on a particular subject. “I feel” rather than “God says” is the current mantra to theological questions.

To make matters worse, ministers are now regarded as corporate managers and psychotherapists who no longer need precise and thorough theological training. As “professionals” who cater to the world’s mind-set of what ministry should be, pastors have unwittingly produced a practical atheism in their congregations based on the erroneous assumption that truth for its own sake is neither relevant nor practical. Rather than theology coming from God’s Word, a democratized faith has developed in which each man’s intuitions are granted equal value, extending a presumption of common wisdom to all. Like modern politicians, the best pollster today makes the best pastor, one who trims his preaching to fit the popularly held ideas of his audience rather than the truth expressed in the text. It is time for both pulpit and pew to have an understanding of the Faith rooted in an historical, contextual, grammatical, theologically accurate understanding of the biblical text and to correlate that truth with every other truth God has revealed in His Word. A strong revival of doctrinal instruction and preaching is necessary to cure the cancer that is eating away the paper-thin piety that passes for godliness today. In the absence of such a revival, our churches will continue to move toward an entertainment format which will result in losing the “reached” rather than reaching the lost.

Mike Harding is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Troy, Michigan.

Previously in this series:

• The Believer’s Certainty of the Doctrine of Inspiration (Part 2)
• The Believer’s Certainty of the Doctrine of Inspiration (Part 1)
• The Believer’s Certainty of Scripture
• What is a Bible Worth?

1. George W. Knight III, Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 449. [↩]