What is Sola Scriptura?

you know, what do you think is like one of the strongest arguments for Sola Scriptura? My favorite way of presenting

Sola Scriptura, obviously I'm gonna appeal to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, saying, look, that which is

God -breathed, all of Scripture equips the man of God for reproof, for godness, all these things, and it's like, man,

Scripture, that which is distinguished from all other things, that's going to grow me in sanctification.

John 17, 17, to me, this is Sola Scriptura in a nutshell. Father sanctified them in the truth, your word is truth.

Now, Kaiser brings out a point of saying, this would have been totally different if Jesus would have said, your word is true, because when you say something is true, you are judging its truthfulness, if it's right or wrong.

Jesus didn't say that. He said, your word is truth, and so this is a completely different worldview.

This is a different paradigm. The Word of God, whether it be Rhema or inscripturated through a prophet, prophetic ministry, that's the highest court of appeal, and that's the bar, the precipia of truth itself.

What is truth? That which corresponds to reality, I would add, as perceived by the sovereign triune God, right?

Because this all comes back to truth. Truth, at the end of the day, is so important, and when

I talk to my students or discipleship with adults, it's like, why are you a Christian? Is it because that's what grandma told you was right, and she took you to church, and you're just doing the same old, same old?

Or are you convinced that Jesus is the truth? Because if you're convinced this is truth, well, then this is a game -changer, right?

And if it is truth, we should be able to be equipped to talk about these in such a way that the world is not going to be able to have an apologetic, a defense, when we come at them with truth.

So John 17, 17 is so important, because not only is the Word of God truth, but it can sanctify us.

It can grow us in being set apart. John's Gospel says the Scripture cannot be broken.

Hebrews 6 talks about when God speaks or makes a promise, it's of the highest authority, and it even makes a type of circular argument.

Forgive my presuppositionalism, but there are types of circularities that aren't vicious. As Vantillians, we would say, are virtuous.

So does that kind of answer, Dale, on the positive side, how I start laying the groundwork for Sola Scriptura?

And I do make a distinction. Sola Scriptura is pinpointing what Scripture is by its nature, not necessarily getting into the completion of the canon and what those parameters are, even though I'm waiting, you know, for somebody to really press me on the

Scriptures that predict the intertestinal period, and the sealing up of vision and prophet after the destruction of the temple, which those have eschatological implications, but to me it's like, you want the golden index?

It's there. Can I ask you a question, Jeremiah? Absolutely. So I'm looking at John 17, 17 right now, and Jesus says,

Given that graphe, the word normally meant Scripture in the

New Testament, is not used, how do you know Jesus isn't referring to himself there? I would say it's necessarily both, right?

He is... So in John 1, you have Jesus exegeting the

Father in verse 18, which is the bookend to verse 1, and so the whole point of Sola Scriptura is not an emphasis on the

Scriptura part, that which is inscripturated, but the principle of how God has clearly revealed himself, and so I agree with you.

I'm saying, yes, this would also include Jesus being the Logos, right?

The one who has clearly made the Father known. I'm just saying it doesn't stop there.

So the Word of God is, you know, being expressed through the Son, or in the

Old Testament, where you have theophanies, where you hear a booming voice, or through the writings of the prophets.