Scripture is truly a living and active Word and it takes a living and active God to interpret it rightly. Thankfully, the people of God made alive by the Spirit are given everything we need for life and godliness—both in the Scriptures and in the Spirit. 

Writing about Sola Scriptura in his book Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity, Kevin Vanhoozer notes that the reformation principle of Scripture Alone “implies the sufficiency of Scripture” (114). But then he asks and important question: “Sufficient for what?” What does the sufficiency of Scripture promise? And what does it mean?
To that question, he gives four answers—one negative and three positive. Here they are in abbreviated form.

Scripture is not sufficient for anything and everything that it may be called upon to do or describe.
“Scripture is sufficient for everything for which it was divinely inspired. ‘[My word] shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it’ (Isa. 55:11).”
“Scripture is materially sufficient (‘enough’) because God has communicated everything we need to know in order to learn Christ and live the Christian life: ‘all things that pertain to life and godliness’ (2 Pet. 1:3).”
Scripture is formally sufficient, which means when it comes to interpretation “Scripture interprets Scripture” so long as the interpretive community (i.e., the church) relies upon all the means of grace created by the Holy Spirit.

Understandably, these four answers need further elucidation, and in his chapter on “Scripture Alone,” Vanhoozer explains each point that I have abbreviated above. Here are a few quotes and explanations to help round a sufficient doctrine of Scripture’s sufficiency.
Four Aspects of Biblical Sufficiency
1. Sufficiency Caricatured
Introducing the topic, Vanhoozer asserts that Scripture is not sufficient for everything. He writes,
To say “Scripture is sufficient for everything—stock market investments, leaky faucets, clogged arteries—is to saddle it with unrealistic expectations, and eventually to succumb to naïve biblicism and the quagmire of pervasive interpretive pluralism.” (114)
Sadly, many have taken the Bible to address everything in creation. But this only creates more problems than it solves. Instead of overpromising what the Bible can do, we should read the Bible and learn what it says it can do.
2. Sufficiency Simpliciter 
If the Bible does not say that it is sufficient for everything, it does say what it is sufficient for—namely knowing God in Christ and how to live by faith in the promises of God.
Scripture is sufficient for everything for which it was divinely given: “[My word] shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). Paul tells Timothy that Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). These verses help us see what sufficiency means and does not mean. The Bible is sufficient for the use that God makes of it, not for every use to which we may want it put. In John Webster’s words: “Scripture is enough. This is because Scripture is what God desires to teach” [Domain of the Word, 18]. Scripture is “enough” to learn Christ and the Christian life. (114)
Indeed, this is the simple answer to the question of what Scripture is sufficient for. However, Vanhoozer presses deeper to explain what “enough” means.
3. Material (or Doctrinal) Sufficiency
Going beyond the basic statement that Scripture is enough, Vanhoozer states,
Scripture is materially sufficient (“enough”) because God has communicated everything we need to know in order to learn Christ and live the Christian life: “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). Article VI of the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles makes exactly this point: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.” The material sufficiency of Scripture excludes any possibility of Scripture needing an external supplement in order to achieve the purpose for which it was sent. The Westminster Confession forbids adding any new content to Scripture, “whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men,” thereby echoing statements in Scripture itself, such as Revelation 22:18: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described this book.” What God has authored is adequate for his communicative purpose: “Scripture is materially sufficient for the bearing of propositional content (the presentation of Jesus Christ as the means of salvation) and for the conveying of illocutionary force (the call or invitation to have faith in him)” (Timothy Ward, Word and Supplement, 205). (114–15)
In short, the Bible reveals everything necessary for knowing God and living before him (Coram Deo). Still, there is something else and Vanhoozer shows us that a full doctrine of Scripture must consider another kind of sufficiency—namely, one that grapples with the interpretation of Scripture, and not just its doctrinal content.
4. Formal (or Interpretive) Sufficiency
Acknowledging the difficulty of interpretation and the criticisms leveled against Protestants, especially those who ignore their confessional heritage, Vanhoozer states that material sufficiency does not “authorize its own interpretation, or to adjudicate between rival interpretations” (115). That is, affirming that Scripture contains all that is necessary for life and godliness is not the same thing as stating that all who read Scripture are sufficient to interpret correctly. We are not, and this is why many will criticize the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura.
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God has spoken, in the Scripture of the Old and New Testament. The Bible alone is the living and true Word and nothing else. God speaks to you through it by His Holy Spirit. Listen to Him, look to Him, and live by Him.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets…Hebrews 1:1
God has spoken to us, what must we do?
Listen to Him
Here is the call to action of this book of Hebrews. Listen to God! What will He say? He will reveal the glorious, powerful, living, enduring truths of Himself. But we must listen! Oh that my people had listened unto me, cried the Psalmist, then would God have subdued their enemies (Psalm 87:13). If we do not listen or if we stop listening we will perish.
See then that we do not refuse Him who speaks – For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven. (Hebrews 12:25-29).
Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. The God of all glory is speaking in His Word. He is above all, before all, over all, for He alone is God and there is no other! He is the self-existent God. This is the first proposition of the Christian faith and the second is related, that this great God revealed Himself in creation in this greatest and glorious manner, by speaking to us.
Will you not listen to Him? Listen to God who speaks to you for He brings a message of life and the power of life to those that will repent and believe. He brings a message of death and the power of death to those who are soon perishing.
Look to Him
There is a great heresy taking place in quiet around the evangelical world. It is the heresy of unbelief manifested again in this way – through the denial of the power of God. It appears in many ways and in many fashions but it ultimately has at its core a denial that Word of God is sufficient to change lives or to meet the needs of men and women boys and girls in all areas of faith and practice.
It manifests itself in evangelism – “God doesn’t want you to deny your inclinations and feelings, just don’t act physically upon them.” “God will keep you struggling with the same sins all your life, don’t expect deliverance but be joyful anyway.” “You are not really that bad, you are just the victim of ideologies and external factors of which you have no control.”
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Shortly after Elizabeth was crowned as Queen, she established a day each year from then on, stating that if any of these young women who had performed such noble service, would like to come and be thanked, she would meet them at Westminster Abbey. These 40-50 older women we saw walking in were some of the very few still living. The Queen had been honoring the service of these women every year for over 50 years.

In the very early part of this century, my wife Joyce and I were on one of our many trips to the United Kingdom leading a student tour. One early morning, we had spent about an hour at Westminster Abbey with about 25 recently graduated high school seniors. We were just about to leave the Abbey when someone found out “the Queen is coming.” And so we decided that we should stay and see her. The Abbey officials eventually herded us outside and put-up small barriers from the street right up to the entrance. We were quite excited to be right in the very front. From this vantage point, we waited and waited probably an hour or so, and nothing happened. Finally I said to Joyce, “Let’s go! I wouldn’t wait this long to meet the Apostle Paul.”
No sooner had those crazy words left my mouth when I looked up and suddenly there were sharp shooters on the tops of four different surrounding buildings. And then I heard the sirens and a motorcade of motorcycles and large cars pulled up. Just before this happened about 40-50 older women were ushered by right in front of us and led into the Abbey. Some walked very slowly, some limped, all had gray hair, and I thought none were under 80-years-old.
I quickly asked someone standing on the other side of the barrier, who looked like a guard, who were these women? He told me they were probably some of the last ones still alive known as “The Maidens of Dunkirk.” And he also explained that when the infamous Dunkirk evacuation from France took place in 1940, when over 300,000 soldiers were evacuated across the English Channel, many of them were sick and wounded and close to death. The British Government was overwhelmed in trying to care for all these soldiers; they sent out an urgent request for young women in their 20s and 30s to come and help nurse and care for these suffering soldiers. Thousands responded and many lives were saved!
Shortly after Elizabeth was crowned as Queen, she established a day each year from then on, stating that if any of these young women who had performed such noble service, would like to come and be thanked, she would meet them at Westminster Abbey. These 40-50 older women we saw walking in were some of the very few still living. The Queen had been honoring the service of these women every year for over 50 years. And this special commemoration just happened to take place on the morning we were there!
And as I turned, suddenly I saw the Queen getting out of her car and walking right in front of us; maybe 10 feet away. And as she walked in she glanced up and our eyes met for just a second. That second is frozen in time for me. Not only was I staring face to face with one of the most famous persons in the world, but she was doing something so meaningful and thoughtful. No wonder the whole nation loved her, as they are showing now in mourning her loss.
Of course, the tears appeared in many of our eyes at that moment, including a number of those who had just graduated from high school, boys and girls from Memphis, and Greenwood and Hattiesburg, Miss.
There is much evidence coming to light right now that Elizabeth was a genuine Christian. She certainly made a group of Americans believe she was that morning.
Wayne Herring is a retired Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America living in Raymond, Miss.
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