What About the Sufficiency and Supremacy of the Bible?

According to Baptists, Scripture is "the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried" (e.g., the Southern Baptist "Faith and Message," June 14, 2000). The General Association of Regular Baptists concurs that "We believe in the authority and sufficiency of the Holy Bible" (GARBC Articles of Faith), and then goes on to effuse that:

"The Bible is the final authority in all matters of belief and practice because the Bible is inspired by God and bears the absolute authority of God Himself. Whatever the Bible affirms, Baptists accept as true. No human opinion or decree of any church group can override the Bible. Even creeds and confessions of faith, which attempt to articulate the theology of Scripture, do not carry Scripture's inherent authority" (GARBC "Baptist Distinctives").

The Bible is indeed the inspired and infallible word of God. But the Bible neither makes the claim that Holy Scripture is sufficient nor that it is the supreme standard in deciding religious matters.

Indeed, when we speak of the Bible, we speak of a canonical collection of Scriptures that are accepted as both: 1.) inspired, and 2.) authoritative. However, nowhere in the Bible do we find a definition of the canon of the Bible, hence our canonical Bible cannot be said to have any Biblical authority in and of itself. In point of fact, the canon of the Bible was an ecclesiastical judgment, arrived at over several centuries of Christian life and reflection, and finalized by a series of Councils in the late fourth century. The very process of the canonization of Scripture subordinates the Bible to the authority of the Holy Spirit operating through the ministry of the living Church!

The faithful Baptist, then, would do well to consider the following topics:

What Does the Bible Say about the Bible? Authority, the Bible, and the Average Christian