The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. The statement that the Bible is sufficient means that it is all we need to prepare ourselves for a life of faith and ministry. It provides a clear understanding of God’s intentions to restore the broken relationship between Him and humanity through His Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches us about faith, election, and salvation through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection. According to the Bible itself, no supposed spiritual authority outside the “scriptures” of the Bible can give us any wisdom that will lead us to salvation (McGrath, 2012, p. 97). No papal encyclical, oral tradition, or last-day prophecy can contain fundamental teaching outside of Scripture.
However, this is not to say that any fundamental element of faith must be confirmed by a clear statement from the biblical text. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is undoubtedly essential to true Christianity. It can be clearly seen in Scripture, but no single passage in the Bible provides a comprehensive description of the Trinity (McGrath, 2012, p. 95). This is not to say that fundamental doctrine cannot be controversial. Some argue that the only test for recognizing a doctrine as essential to the Christian faith may be its acceptance by all Christian traditions. However, if such rules are followed, there is hardly any effective teaching left to distinguish the Christian gospel from the path of “salvation” offered by pagan moralism or Muslim theology (McGrath, 2012, p. 91). After all, the doctrine can be called fundamental if eternal life depends on it. Scripture contains many statements that define salvation and describe living faith.
In general, after reading the books, my view of mankind has not changed, as I had an idea of the history of Christianity before that. However, it is worth noting that I find it fascinating to explore the opposition of various Christian denominations (Gonzalez, 2010, p. 623). It is also interesting to investigate how the spread of Christian thought contributed to the emergence of new interpretations of the Scripture and various adaptations of doctrine and boosted the influence of the New World.
The Holy Book of Christians is the Bible, which is divided into two parts – the Old and New Testaments. The Catholic Bible contains the books of Tabitha, Eudit, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Baruch, the First and Second Maccabees, plus some additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. These additional scriptures are commonly referred to as the Apocrypha. They are scattered among the 39 books of the Old Testament (McGrath, 2012, p. 112). Apocrypha refers to scriptures in the authenticity of which there are doubts or their source is generally unknown.
Both Catholics and Protestants have rejected many similar works. Those accepted in the Catholic Bibles are commonly referred to as the Old Testament Apocrypha. These books were written between 200 BC. and 100 A.D (Gonzalez, 2010, p. 625). Some, such as the First and Second Maccabees and Ecclesiastes, are of some interest in terms of their historical or ethical content, while the rest are pure fiction and therefore have no value (McGrath, 2012, p. 104). Their absence in the Protestant Bible is not due to the degree of their suitability but due to doubts about their God-spirituality. Therefore, all fundamental teachings are present in Protestantism, so the absence of some books cannot be called heretic or anti-Christianity.
References
Gonzalez, J. L. (2010). The story of Christianity: Volume 1: The early church to the dawn of the reformation (Vol. 1). Zondervan.
McGrath, A. E. (2012). Historical theology: An introduction to the history of Christian thought. John Wiley & Sons.