An adjective meaning sufficient, adequate, worthy, or competent. It describes someone or something that meets the required standard — that is up to the task. It appears in humility formulas (I am not worthy), in questions of competency, and in Paul's reflections on his own apostolic calling.
The sufficiency question runs through all of Paul's reflection on ministry. 'Who is equal to such a task?' (2 Corinthians 2:16) — the answer is emphatically no one in themselves. But Paul continues: 'our competence comes from God' (2 Corinthians 3:5). The trajectory is from human insufficiency through divine enablement to God-given competency. This is the pattern of all genuine ministry: those who feel most keenly their own inadequacy are the most receptive to divine empowering. Conversely, those who feel hikanos in themselves have cut themselves off from the source of true sufficiency.