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Sometimes I attend or teach Sunday school at my church, and I love the discussions we get into. One of the people who attends my church has a very particular mindset from which she approaches our discussions, and that is the exactness of Scripture -- if it doesn't say it in Scripture, it is either not true or not worth considering. And on one hand, I see where she is coming from. I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, and that whatever God wants us to learn can be found in the actual words of the Word.

On the other hand, I don't believe there is any harm in speculating about what is not in the Word. There is much that is left out in Scripture, and just because it is not in the Word doesn't mean it isn't worth wondering about. One of my favorite songs is "Boy Like Me/Man Like You" by Rich Mullins, where Mullins speculates what Christ was like as a child. No, the Bible doesn't say He ever skipped rocks, but since He was completely human as much as He was completely divine, why wouldn't He have skipped rocks? And no, the Bible doesn't ever say he kissed a baby on the forehead when He was holding one, but is it blasphemous to consider it? And I would argue that a rock-skipping, baby-kissing Christ adds to my understanding and love for Him in ways that a singular focus on a picture of Christ derived solely from Scripture lacks.

The Word is clear that we can't add a single serif to it, and that the Word is complete and whole and all-sufficient for instruction. All agreed. But I don't think that is the same thing as being mutually exclusive to a position where our wonder, our curiosity, our contextualizing based on our knowledge of humanity and history can't also be allowed to ponder about God and His nature and the nature of the great heroes of faith. So long as we don't stray from or contradict the Word, I think the Lord loves having the kind of conversation where He bends down as we say, Lord, what about this?