Look at the Book
Breathed Out by God: 2 Timothy 3:14–17
(bell chimes) Welcome to Look at the Book. This is your first time perhaps with us. I hope it's not your last. Our focus is on 2 Timothy 3, 14 to 17. Let me pray with you and ask for God's help. Lord, open our eyes to see what's here, really here in this text. Our minds to understand it, our hearts to embrace it and our lives to obey it. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We're gonna read through this three times and do something different each time. And the first time through, I want to isolate some of the main units of thought with you. As for you, Timothy, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed. Knowing from whom you learned it. And how from childhood you have been equated with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All scripture is breathed out by God. And it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training, and righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I've got six units of thought there. When I come to a text, I want to come to terms with it, which means I want to know what words mean. Like this hugely important main word here, continue, remain, don't depart from. And I want to know how propositions these units thought relate to each other. And that's what we're gonna focus on mainly. So the first one is for Timothy to continue in what he's learned and what he's believed, which I take to refer to these sacred writings here especially. Continue in what you've learned, what you believed, namely these sacred writings. And the reason, whenever you see a participle like this, knowing from whom you've learned it, you have to decide how that participle is functioning logically. And I take it to mean because you know from whom you learned it, namely, this is Lois and Eunice, I think, because they're referred to in chapter one, verse five, and because it refers to his childhood here. So you know their character. Don't walk away from what they taught you. Be very slow to abandon the truth that someone has shown you, who has character that you admire, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able. So here's a second reason why you should continue in what you have learned from these scriptures because they're able to make you wise onto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. These scriptures, Timothy, have given you a wisdom. This wisdom has led you to faith in Christ that you've heard in the gospel, and that has brought you salvation. A third reason for why you should continue is that it has this effect of bringing you to salvation because scripture is breathed out. It's inspired, it's breathed by God. God has put in the minds of the authors of scriptures what they are written, and therefore it has that amazing saving effect, or to put it another way now, it's profitable. These scriptures are profitable for teaching, and now you've got a string of words, teaching, reproof, correction, and training. Whenever you have a string of words like that, I pause and say, now, how are they related? Are they all equal, or does one include the other, or is one the basis for the other, or the result of the other? And I notice here that teaching seems to be broad, and these seem to be more specific, and so my conception is like this. There's teaching that we find in the Bible, and that teaching finds people going in the wrong direction. And when they're going in the wrong direction, you'd be stopped and told that you're wrong. That's called reproof. And then you don't just need to be stopped and told you're wrong, you need to be turned around, or corrected, so there's correction in the scriptures. And you don't just need to be stopped and corrected, you need to be pointed on and helped on in the way of righteousness. So there's training in that. So I take the four pieces, training to be, I mean, teaching to be three fold, described like that. And the result of that life change, this life turnaround here, is a righteousness, or as it says now, that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work, and I take these good works here to be an unpacking of this righteousness here. So those are the reasons that are given for why Timothy should be slow to walk away from what he's learned in the sacred writings, which he learned from his mother and his grandmother. Now let's do one more thing. It's helpful sometimes not just to follow a text in its textual flow, but rework it in its logical flow from the most basic to the most ultimate, or the most supported, so we're gonna do it this way. So we put logic down here like this, and we're gonna move up from the most basic. So here's where I start. All scripture is breathed out by God. So my first most basic thing is inspired Bible. And that inspired Bible yields or presents us a teaching. This life-changing teaching or this wisdom here. And the reason I link those two is because these sacred writings are the same as this scripture here, and so these sacred writings produce this wisdom and this scripture here produces this teaching, and so this teaching and this wisdom are related. So I'm gonna put, let's just put teaching here. You could put wisdom. That teaching and that wisdom produces yields leads to faith in Jesus Christ. So the Bible leads to a wisdom or a teaching that produces faith in Christ Jesus. So I'm gonna put faith here. Understand faith in Christ. And that faith is the most essential means by which we are equipped for every good work. And so that's crucial because now we see that good works in the Christian life flow from faith. They're not legalism. Everybody's concerned about legalism these days, and so am I, they are in fact the works of faith, which is a term I get from 1 Thessalonians 1, 11. They're not legal, they don't earn anything. They're flowing from faith, which unites us to Christ. So I'm gonna put good work here. And that's the same as this righteousness here, this practical lived-out righteousness. And that good work and that righteousness, a life of good works and a life of righteousness leads to salvation. And I know that salvation in Paul is past, present and future. We have been saved, Ephesians 2-8, we are being saved for Corinthians 1, and we will be saved Romans 13, 14. And this I think is in large measure, future, wise for salvation through faith in Christ. But really it includes all of them. But if you take all this into account and say, how does the Bible, how does this inspired scripture make us wise unto salvation? The answer is that it is equipping us for a life change and for good works that will give evidence at the last day that we had faith and were united to Christ. So I'm gonna put at the top here salvation. And therefore Timothy, because of all that, continue in these words, continue in the scriptures. They have that amazing effect. And remember from whom you learned it for. So you've got a character, a reference for the scriptures and then you've got this amazing effect and power that it has in life. So the top of the argument is continue in the scriptures or we might paraphrase it like this. Never stop looking at God. Looking at the book. So is there any doubt in anyone's mind why we consider this an important work and why we're doing? Look at the book. (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training. Learn to identify, explain, and differentiate each reason for continuing in the word.