I. Introduction

There are many sources for inspiration.

Inspirational movies, Like Rocky I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X.  Now they’ve changed the names of the movies to Creed and started over at I.  But the story of a man overcoming all odds to become a winner is inspirational.

And “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  I watch this every Christmas, the story of a man who feels he has nothing left to live for finds his life worth living in the lives of everyone around him.  I’m not convinced the theological message of angels and their wings, though.  Great story, inspirational.

There are inspirational books, like “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”.  I love the subtitle, “and it’s all small stuff.”

Inspirational people like Nick Vujicic.  He was here at Second a few years back.  He’s an Australian man born with Tetra-amelia syndrome, is missing all four limbs and has only 2 small toes protruding from his left thigh.  He graduated at the age of 21 with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning, he surfs, swims, plays golf and soccer.  And when he’s done describing how wonderful his life is, I remember him asking the audience, “the crazy thing is that you’re sitting in your seats envious of me.  I’m happy; why aren’t you?”

But the bible is different.  I get more out of a single paragraph from Paul than I do from all the “Harry Potter” movies combined.  And do you know why?  Because the bible isn’t just an inspirational book of sayings.  It’s the very inspired word of God.

II. Inspirational Word of God

Let’s spend some time in 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and see what the bible says about the bible,

and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

One paragraph from Paul.  If you spend enough time in the bible, the evidence of God’s inspiration is amazing. There’s just nothing else like Scripture in all of literature, in movies, in reality TV. A heart tuned in to God will find inspiration in Scripture that can’t be found anywhere else.

Beginning next week, Second Baptist will start a 52 week series on a chronological study of the Bible. We’ll go through the fourteen eras of the Bible in our quest to understand the overall scope of Scripture like never before.  We will see how God’s plan is rolled out, how man rebelled, how God’s love overcomes God’s perfect justice, and how the End of Days gives final victory of God over evil and life forever with our savior.

I’m looking forward to every bit of it.  Well, with the possible exception of Exodus.  I like the story of how God rescued Israel, but man, that Moses was a basket case.

If you don’t think that was funny, you’re in da Nile.

But before we begin that series of lessons, let’s look this week at how important, helpful, and useful Bible knowledge is.

III. Background

Paul is writing to Timothy at a time when wayward elders and teachers have been deceived and are deceiving others, even to the point of abandoning the truth.  Some of these leaders are twisting the truth for their own ends, teaching false doctrine, and worse, leading others astray.  Those who seek to follow Jesus must remember to keep their eyes on Jesus, and not be distracted.  I think of one of Jesus’ closest disciples, Peter.

I like Peter, probably because he was such a mess.  One minute incredibly devout and trusting, and then the next minute doing some sort of bone-headed move.  Reminds me of me.  Anyway, in Matthew 14, Jesus had just heard about his friend John the Baptist had been arrested by Herod and then beheaded.  Jesus withdrew to a secluded place by Himself, but a huge crowd followed him.  Jesus had compassion, healed the sick, fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.  He must have been exhausted and sent his disciples into a boat while Jesus went up on a mountain to pray.  When it was dark, the boat was offshore, and Jesus walked across the water.  And all the disciples were like, “Aiieee!  A ghost!”

Here’s why I like Peter – he said to Jesus, “Lord, command me to come to you on the water,” and then Peter, too walked on the water.  What incredible faith and trust.  But then Peter started looking around, saw the waves, he got frightened, he began to sink, and cried out, “Lord save me!”

Focusing on Jesus gives us the power of the Holy Spirit living with in us.  Taking our eyes off Jesus sinks us.  That’s what Paul was telling Timothy about the false teachers, Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:18-19,

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.

Focusing on Jesus we can walk on water, fight the good fight.  Anything else is a shipwreck.  It makes a shipwreck of our own faith and the faith of others.  Paul tells Timothy to oppose heresy by remaining faithful to what he has learned, both verbally from Paul and from the written Scriptures.

When I was a new Christian, it took a while for me to get pointed in the right direction.  I went to several churches with incomplete doctrines and light Christianity. One of my weirdest experiences was at a church where one of the members told me that the bible had a secret code in it that foretold Martin Luther King’s assassination, the twin towers of 9/11.  You just needed a computer to find the hidden patterns.

Of course, it’s a bunch of hogwash.  The Bible is not to be read to discover “magical number formulas,” hidden scientific discoveries, or as an answer book for every question about the world or God that we might have. The Bible doesn’t tell us all we want to know, but it does tell us all we need to know. The main objective of scripture is to tell the story of God and his people – where we came from, who God is, what went wrong, and how God is setting everything right through Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Bible invites us to join this story by becoming “saved” – people who accept God’s truth in Scripture, people who respond as He asks us to respond, and people who live to proclaim His truth to others.

When Paul wrote this letter to Timothy,

and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Paul presents two central truths about Scripture: its origin and its purpose.

1. Scripture’s origin is nothing less than the mind of God himself.  God did not “dictate” Scripture in most cases.  There are a couple examples in the Old Testament when God told a prophet to write something down verbatim; also, the original Ten Commandments were written by God’s own finger, but God primarily worked through humans to breathe out truth, instruction, warning, and encouragement.  Scripture’s ultimate author, therefore, isn’t an inspired individual; it’s the Holy Spirit working through different people over the centuries to proclaim one story that tells one truth.
2. Scripture’s purpose is to teach us truths that ultimately result in salvation and to show us how to live righteous lives.

When Paul says that the Scriptures are useful to make us wise for salvation, this tells us the Bible’s first purpose isn’t history – although the bible is historically accurate.  The bible’s first purpose isn’t science – although the bible does present truth without contradicting known scientific facts.  The bible’s first purpose isn’t a series of object lessons or proverbs or parables.  The purpose of the bible is to show the way to salvation and help us live lives that are pleasing to God.

IV. “All Scripture”

What does Paul mean by “all Scripture?” How can we be sure he’s referring to what we call “the Bible” today?

Let’s just try the two words, “all scripture.”  What does “all” mean?  It means “all”.  Not “some,” not “most.”  Not “the majority” or “the parts I like.”  I might be going out on a limb here, but I believe “all” means “all.”  That includes both Old and New Testaments.
Paul encourages Timothy to receive and stay true first to the teachings of what we today call the Old Testament.  In Romans 3:2, Paul refers to the Old Testament this way,

First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

Paul refers to Old Testament writing as “the very words of God.”  God’s word was relevant to the Jews, but it also means they are relevant for Christians today.

In this same letter of 2 Timothy, Paul reminds Timothy that Timothy learned doctrine from Paul himself and from the other apostles, so it’s also clear that Timothy would understand the word “scripture” to include select writings from Paul and the other apostles.

There are other reasons to consider the New Testament writings as part of scripture, including:

• Colossians 4:16,
  

  After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.

  Paul tells Timothy to read his letters in public worship, alongside the Old Testament.  Paul says the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 5:27.

• 1 Timothy 5:17-18,
  

  The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.  For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”

  Here, Paul intermixes Old Testament and New Testament.  The first quote is from Deuteronomy 25:4, the 2nd quote is from Jesus in Luke 10:7.  Paul calls both of them “scripture.”

• 1 Thessalonians 2:13,
  

  When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

  Paul claims divine inspiration, one who speaks the very words of God.

• And similarly, Paul tells the Corinthians his words aren’t taught by human wisdom but by the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:12-13,
  

  What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

  This is a direct claim to inspiration by God, which is a distinctive characteristic of Scripture.

• Even Peter refers to Paul’s letters as “scripture” in 2 Peter 3:15-16,
  

  Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.  He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

  There’s that shipwreck again when one doesn’t focus on the truth of Jesus.  And Peter also says in 2 Peter 1:21,

  For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

V. Historical Acceptance

It is sometimes taught by the secular world that there wasn’t a “Bible” as we know it until several centuries after the death of the apostles.  But what does history teach us about the early church and the acceptance of the bible?

Clement was Bishop of Rome from 88AD till his death in 99AD; you can tell from this photograph that cell phone cameras were not very advanced back then.  The apostle John is thought to have died in 100 A.D.  During John’s lifetime, Clement reveals that he is very familiar with Matthew, Mark, Luke, the letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians, Timothy, Titus, and 1 John. These were treated by Clement as authoritative Scripture while the last apostle John was still alive, and clearly John would have spoken up if he disagreed.  Clearly the early church accepted these letters and writings as authoritative truth from God.

Marcion was excommunicated in 144 AD for teaching there was no connection between the Old and New Testaments, meaning the early church already saw this as heresy, so the early church also accepted the authority of the New Testament.

Polycarp, who lived from 69 to 156 AD was a direct disciple of the Apostle John, and Polycarp referred to Old and New Testament books as “Scripture.”

The early church had recognized the 27 New Testament books as canon by AD 200, though it’s not likely they were collected as one volume, even though the individual books were regularly referred to as authoritative. They were already being translated into many languages, demonstrating their value, and Origen of Alexandria in approximately 220AD began writing commentaries on them.

By 367AD, the canon of the New Testament – including the same 27 books affirmed 150 years prior – were officially gathered and recognized as authoritative by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in the East, and the Council of Carthage in the West.  This council didn’t grant new authority to the books we now think of as Scripture as much as it denied authority to other books not considered inspired, affirming the long-held view that there is something distinct about the New Testament books that make up the “canon.” All the books recognized in 367 had been used, studied, and treated as Scripture from the time of the early apostles.  It’s an important distinction to note that the canon was not created in 367AD.  It was rather closed, definitively so.

We can, with confidence, state that Paul’s assertions about the origin of Scripture refer to all the books that Christians today call the Old and New Testaments.

VI. God-Breathed

So when Paul tells Timothy that all of scripture – remember what “all” means?  All of scripture is “God-breathed,” what does “God-breathed” mean?

Some translations use the word “inspired” instead of “God-breathed” which is more or less accurate, but the original Greek work packs a lot more meaning into it.  The word is “theopneustos,” “θεόπνευστος,” and literally means “divinely breathed by God.”  God spoke His Word to us with purpose for us.

Paul isn’t claiming that there is simply something exceptional about Scripture.  He goes much further than this, Paul claims that scripture is the very breath of God. As B.B. Warfield once wrote, the Bible isn’t so much “in-spired” as it is “ex-pired.”

“God-breathed” does not mean dictation, as if God somehow “possessed” the biblical writers and wrote through them.  When scripture is read in their original languages, the biblical writings clearly display that each writer has different levels of education, style and personality. But God oversaw what they were writing to supernaturally produce completely reliable truth.

VII. Scripture’s Use

2 Timothy 3:16 offers four purposes of Scripture with two positives and two negatives.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

The first two pairs of purposes are “teaching” and “rebuking.”  This refers to Scripture as the final authority on doctrinal truth.  The positive angle, teaching, proclaims Scripture’s usefulness to tell us what is true and what we need to know. The negative angle, rebuking, speaks of what is in error and what must be rejected, so that we believe the right things and reject everything that is false.

The second pair of positive and negative purposes, “correcting” and “training”, refers not to what we believe, but to how we should live. 2 Timothy 3:16 is the only place in the New Testament when the word that is translated “correction” is used; outside the Bible, the Greek word typically refers to helping get someone who has fallen back on their feet.  So the spirit behind the action isn’t to simply condemn people for committing these acts, but to help people get back on the right path.  The negative “correcting” refers to Scripture’s role in moving us away from harmful, sinful, God-dishonoring actions, such as the lists found in Colossians 3:5 and 8:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

The positive “training in righteousness” refers to Scripture’s many admonitions about how to live, such as the list found in Colossians 3:12-13:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Notice that both doctrine and life matter, both thoughts and actions.  Belief alone is not enough.  Consider James 2:19,

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.

Clearly Satan believes the right things about God, but Satan’s actions are certainly displeasing to God.  Correct beliefs are not enough.

On the other hand, if we live a “good” life that resembles how Scripture calls us to live but believe lies about God, such as believing that salvation can be gained through anyone other than Jesus, we are also in error.  Salvation is obtained only through trusting in the perfect sacrifice in our savior to pay the price for our sins.  I have met some truly wonderful people over the years with such a wonderful, encouraging, helpful attitude, but have no interest in trusting Jesus.  Our life and our beliefs work together, as Paul tells Timothy directly in 1 Timothy 4:16:

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Then, continuing in 2 Timothy 3:17,

So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The “servant of God,” or in the Greek anthrōpos theos (ἄνθρωπος θεός), means the “one who belongs to God.”  It’s a title of endearment.  We are God’s treasured possessions.

This means we cannot expect nonbelievers to accept this book or to try to follow its rules just because the Bible tells them to.  The Bible is a love letter to those who love God; it’s not a book of verbal hand grenades to toss at people who don’t yet believe.  If someone doesn’t accept Jesus, obeying the Bible won’t save them.  They need to come to Jesus first, and obey second.

However, Scripture is powerful enough that when it is read correctly and appropriately, it can draw others into a life of faith.  Consider Hebrews 4:12:

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

My wife recently had shoulder surgery; she had some damaged cartilage and a torn rotator cuff.  The doctor would have used a sharp scalpel to cut out the damaged tissue in order to repair the shoulder.  The bible is sharper than a scalpel and helps us cut out the sin and damaged life so that as “servants of God,” God’s treasured people, we can be

Thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I recently read this story in the news, but it’s been around for awhile.

The Oakland Raiders used their first round draft pick of 2007 to select JaMarcus Russell, a 6’-6”, 265lb quarterback.  In the NFL, he was a mediocre player; coaches suspected he wasn’t preparing for the games like he should.  The coaches sent him home with some blank videotapes, and the next day asked him what he had studied on the tapes.  JaMarcus answered, “blitz packages.”

As Christians, disciples of Jesus, ones who belong to God, we should study the game tapes.

VIII. Conclusion

Scripture gives us everything we need to be thoroughly equipped.  If we read them, meditate on them, listen to them, ask God to enlighten us through them, and then apply them, we won’t be lacking for anything when it’s “game day.” We’ll be thoroughly prepared and have all the wisdom and truth we need as parents, friends, teachers, and workers on behalf of Jesus Christ.

Our Scripture is the very Word of God.  John 1:1,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

To God be the Glory.  Amen.