AROUND CAMPUS
Spring Academic Convocation at Midwestern Seminary addresses sufficiency of Scripture By T. PAT R I C K H U D S O N
In delivering the second installment of his “Truths Worth Contending For” series, President Jason Allen opened Midwestern Seminary’s spring semester with an Academic Convocation message addressing the sufficiency of Scripture. The service took place in the Daniel Lee Chapel on Jan. 21. Additionally, newly-elected seminary faculty member, Jason DeRouchie, signed the institution’s Articles of Faith during the service. Allen’s first message of the 10part “Truths Worth Contending For” series took place during the school’s December graduation service on Dec. 6, 2019, and focused on the inerrancy of God’s Word. Now, in the series’ second message, Allen argued that believers should contend for the sufficiency of Scripture. Through an exposition of 2 Timothy 3:15-17, he fleshed out why sufficiency matters and outlined 10 application points about how Scripture is sufficient for believers. Allen explained that if denying biblical inerrancy takes something out of students that nothing else can replace, then to deny sufficiency fails to put something in them. Denying inerrancy removes one’s
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confidence in the Bible, he added. Underemphasizing sufficiency fails to provide a fuller, more robust, more perennial confidence in the Bible. One way that Satan can damage the church, Allen continued, is not necessarily by attacking the inerrancy of Scripture, rather it would be through the undermining of the sufficiency of Scripture. “A subtle undermining of sufficiency questions the relevance of Scripture, the completeness of Scripture, the adequacy of Scripture, the power of Scripture,” Allen said. “This could wreak similar havoc and, indeed, does do similar damage in the body of Christ.” living and Christian ministry. Allen defined “sufficiency” from Because it is inerrant—God’s Word 2 Timothy 3:17 saying “that the is profitable to us for teaching Word of God, the inspired, inerrant Christian doctrine, the truth of Word of God is given to us, and Scripture, how to live the Christian with it the man of God, the woman life, and what Christians are to of God, is adequate, equipped for every good work.” “For us in this ministry moment and for The reason it every generation of Christian ministers, matters to believers, Allen conis it not good and fitting and right to, cluded, is that the again and again, reassert and reScriptures convey prioritize the sufficiency of Scripture?” all truths necessary for Christian - Jason Allen
