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Examined Doctrine
PASSAGE · BSB

2 Timothy 3

17 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come.

2For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

3unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good,

4traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

6They are the kind who worm their way into households and captivate vulnerable women who are weighed down with sins and led astray by various passions,

7who are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth. They are depraved in mind and disqualified from the faith.

9But they will not advance much further. For just like Jannes and Jambres, their folly will be plain to everyone.

10You, however, have observed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance,

11my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

12Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

13while evil men and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

14But as for you, continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, since you know from whom you have learned them.

15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

Who leans on it

Aquinas on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Scripture is the source of revealed doctrine, interpreted within sacred tradition and under the church's teaching office. Reason can establish much about God, but saving truth requires revelation.Jacobus Arminius on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Sola scriptura; he argued as a Reformed pastor within Reformed confessional bounds.Augustine on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTLEANS°Scripture holds supreme authority, but Augustine is famously willing to say he would not believe the gospel except that the authority of the church moved him — reading canonical recognition as a churchly act.Voddie Baucham on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Sola scriptura and inerrancy, pressed as the ground for evaluating cultural and political claims.M. Heiser on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Holds the biblical text as the authority and treats creeds as genuinely useful but secondhand and historically conditioned — his standing objection is to reading Scripture through a confession rather than to confessions …Josh Howerton on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The Bible is the only infallible authority and the final authority. Tradition, creeds, and church history are legitimate and useful inputs but none is infallible. Explicitly distances this from the caricature that Script…Second London Baptist Confession on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 1 is Westminster's chapter 1 almost throughout: Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule, its authority resting on God and not on the church, and every council, father and private spirit is e…Second London Baptist Confession on continuation of spiritual giftsDISPUTED READINGNOT FRAMEDThis is blank of the third kind — never framed in these terms. The confession closes revelation without ever ruling on the gifts: 1.1 says the former ways by which God revealed his will have ceased, which is why Scriptur…Luther on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Scripture alone establishes doctrine, over against both the Fathers and the papacy. Luther will discuss Augustine's opinions only after the abuses are gone, because 'it will not do to frame articles of faith from the wor…John MacArthur on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Plenary verbal inspiration, inerrancy in the original documents, and a literal-grammatical-historical hermeneutic, argued as necessarily following from inspiration itself.Gavin Ortlund on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Sola scriptura, but paired with an unusually positive Protestant retrieval of the church fathers — arguing the Reformation's claim was continuity with the ancient church, not a fresh start.John Owen on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Scripture alone, and Owen makes the point twice over: it is the only place the Christian religion is to be learned, and its authority does not rest on the church's. He is equally clear about how it is known to be God's w…Justin Peters on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Scripture is verbally and plenarily inspired, inerrant in the original autographs, and sufficient on its own for the whole of Christian life — for the individual believer and the gathered church alike. Sufficiency is loa…John Piper on authority of scriptureSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Sola scriptura and inerrancy.Westminster Confession on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 1 settles the question by naming a judge and excluding the rivals by name. Councils, the ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are all placed under examination rather than alongside Scripture, and…Westminster Confession on canon of the old testamentPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 1.2 lists the books by name - thirty-nine Old Testament, twenty-seven New - and closes the list with 'All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.' 1.3 then rules on the Apocrypha dire…Zwingli on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Scripture alone, and applied more stringently than Luther applied it: what lacks positive scriptural warrant is removed rather than tolerated. Zwingli put this first in his system where Luther put justification — Article…