Is a hermanuetic beyond 2 Timothy 3 needed?
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
This passage requires that all scripture be read in harmony with all other scripture, since all scripture is God-breathed, none can be ignored. It assumes that scripture itself is known, as we today have the Bible, so then it was known what scripture he spoke of. It applies to “all God’s people” and equips them for “every good work.” All people, all work, all scripture . . . it’s very comprehensive. What is left out?
Not asking a trick question or coming at you with some tract or PhD study on this. Want your view.
Bless you, friend and brother!
Among those who take 2 Tim 3:16 as a keystone of the place of the Bible in God's self-disclosure, there are many, many disagreements. So we RCs are saying that there does indeed need to be some outside hermeneutic. We would say that Calvin and Luther and Campbell and Miller and many, many, more all are examples of that need, so to speak, on the ground. That is, people we're saying "What he said," after Luther or Calvin or whoever expounded Scripture. They didn't just get Bibles and after much study join in one ecclesial assembly. SOMEBODY needed some guidance, something that he wasn't getting from Scripture.
And even Paul a few verses earlier is asking Timothy to remember his teacher after commending him for following "my teaching". Is it parsing to say that "useful" ωφελιμος does not mean "all-sufficient"?
Predictably, I would also go to (the coffee maker - thanks be to God for all His mercies and then to) 2 Thess 2:15 about holding fast to the παραδοσεις which "traditions" were learned either δια λογου or διÂ’ επιστολης - by word or by letter (in the sense of missive, not character).
Seriously, not trying to be obnoxious (yes yes, I know I succeed without trying), I think that it is over-playing that text to get sola scriptura out of it. Clearly YMMV.
I would also suggest that the history of Christianity argues against the sufficiency of Scripture. Luther may think that a plow-boy could understand it, but look at the recondite discussions we have on FR. I've gotten so I just trot out the Greek so that we can start disagreeing there rather than disagree about translations and then go to the Greek ... And even then Alamo girl has done awesome exegetical work on things like the use of "rock" in Scripture. At the very least we need one another because we simply cannot, most of us, read Scripture by itself. Like the eunuch of the Candace, we need someone to guide us, and like the eunuch, most of us know our need.
Is that responsive to your question?
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
At first blush, it seems like a slam dunk. But consider the following questions.
Scripture equips a man "for every good work," but are good works sufficient for salvation?
What constitutes Scripture? The Catholic canon or the Protestant canon?
Was the New Testament canonized when Paul wrote this letter?
Which canon of the Old Testament was Paul referring to at the time of his writing? The Septuagint or the Alexandrian canon?
Who determined that this letter of Paul to Timothy constituted Scripture?
When?
By what authority?
Does that authority exist today?
Did this authority exist at the time of the Reformation?
"God's People" is actually better translated as "the man of God." Does this phrase refer to priests/deacons?
______________________________________________________
Also consider these passages in light of Luther's doctrine of "The Bible Alone": 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 18:17