{"id":2490,"date":"2023-03-31T07:10:10","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T11:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2490"},"modified":"2023-03-31T07:10:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T11:10:53","slug":"2-timothy-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/31\/2-timothy-316\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Timothy 3:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.

Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th<\/sup> verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books. <\/em>

\u201cAll Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness\u201d (2 Timothy 3:16).
 
A young man announced to his father that he was enrolling in theological studies at a particular seminary. 
 
The father bristled.  He had doubts about this school.  He suspected it had the kind of academic environment that would debunk the Bible\u2019s accounts of miraculous events.  He said to his son, \u201cI just hope that when you get back, the story of God parting the waters of the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites is still in your Bible.\u201d
 
Three years later, when the son had completed his studies, that\u2019s the very question his father asked him. \u201cSo, is the crossing of the Red Sea still in your Bible?\u201d
 
\u201cGosh, Dad, why do you ask that?  That story isn\u2019t even in your <\/em>Bible.\u201d \u201cOf course it is!\u201d retorted the father.  \u201cThen show me,\u201d replied his son.
 
For several minutes the father frantically scoured his Old Testament searching for the account of the Israelites escaping the Egyptians.
 
\u201cIt\u2019s not there,\u201d said his son. \u201cThe day I left for seminary I took your Bible and cut out the whole middle section of the book of Exodus.  So, tell me, Dad:  What\u2019s the difference between not believing that it\u2019s true, and paying so little attention to it that you don\u2019t even know it\u2019s gone?\u201d 
 
It matters what\u2019s inside the Bible.  What matters even more is whether the Bible ever ends up inside us.<\/em> 
 
That\u2019s a crucial consideration as we arrive at 2 Timothy 3:16, which is hands-down the most frequently quoted verse regarding the nature of the Bible.  When Paul mentions \u201call Scripture,\u201d he\u2019s talking about the traditional Jewish Scriptures \u2013 what Christians have come to call the Old Testament.  Scholars generally agree that at the time this letter was written, the New Testament was still decades, or maybe even a century, away from being treated as a 27-book collection endowed with scriptural authority.   
 
It\u2019s worth pausing here to note another of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses \u2013 the one we find in 2 Peter. 
 
That author tells us, concerning the apostle Paul, \u201cHe 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\u201d (2 Peter 3:16).  Suggesting that Paul\u2019s correspondences are on the same level as \u201cthe other Scriptures\u201d indicates that the notion of a \u201cnew testament\u201d was already underway. 
 
Paul writes, \u201cAll Scripture is theopneustos<\/em>\u2026\u201d
 
This term is a hapax legomenon<\/em> \u2013 literally, \u201conce-spoken\u201d \u2013 a word that appears only once in the original Greek text of the New Testament.  For that matter, it\u2019s never been found in any other Greek documents of the period \u2013 a strong hint that Paul coined this word in order to communicate precisely what he wanted to say.
 
Theopneustos<\/em> means \u201cGod-breathed.\u201d 
 
Scripture is somehow associated with respiration.  People traditionally say they believe in \u201cthe inspired Word of God.\u201d  And others point out that the Bible is a truly \u201cinspiring\u201d book.  But that\u2019s not what Paul is saying.  Theopneustos<\/em> is not a description of the Bible\u2019s effect on its readers.  It\u2019s an assertion concerning Scripture\u2019s origin and nature.
 
While a variety of human authors (at least 40 of them) put pen to paper in order to create the Bible \u2013 and their particular personalities definitely shine through \u2013 Paul asserts that God is ultimately responsible for the Bible\u2019s contents.  God breathed his Word into existence, and then breathed life into every page. 
 
The \u201cbreath of God\u201d is an important theme in the Old Testament.  Genesis tells us that God breathed the breath of life into the first human being.  Ezekiel reports that God breathed life into the dry bones of the people of Israel.  Every time we hold a Bible in our hands, we\u2019re clutching something that was breathed out<\/em> from the heart and mind of God.   
 2 Timothy 3:16 goes on say that all Scripture is \u201cuseful.\u201d  Other translations say it is \u201cbeneficial\u201d or \u201cprofitable.\u201d
 
Useful for what?
 
Here we find an interplay of things that are true and things that are wrong.  Scripture is useful for teaching (that is, revealing what is true<\/strong>), useful for rebuking (reminding us what is wrong<\/strong>), useful for correcting (showing us how wrongs<\/strong> can be made right), and useful for training (demonstrating how truth<\/strong> can be applied to our lives).  Truth \u2013 Wrong \u2013 Wrong \u2013 Truth<\/em>.  The Bible, in other words, is a comprehensive guide for living.
 
But its power to impact our lives becomes operative only if we keep on reading to the next verse.  2 Timothy 3:16 isn\u2019t a complete sentence.  Verse 17 says, \u201c\u2026so that<\/em> the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.\u201d   
 
Those two words \u2013 \u201cso that\u201d \u2013 mean more than we can know. 
 
It\u2019s fun to learn things about the Bible.  It\u2019s cool to get insights into a smattering of Greek and Hebrew words, and to take deep dives into ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic culture.
 
But Bible study has to lead somewhere.  There has to be a so that<\/em>. 
 
We don\u2019t achieve an intellectual appreciation of Scripture for its own sake, but so that<\/em> we might be God\u2019s servants \u2013 women and men who are equipped by the Word to step into the kind of lives to which God has called us. 
 
Sure, it\u2019s a good thing to know where to find the story of the crossing of the Red Sea.
 
But it\u2019s better by far to come before that text, and all texts, with a spirit that says, \u201cLord, open my heart to this part of your Word \u2013 so that<\/em> my eyes might be opened more fully to who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.  \u201cAll Scripture is God-breathed and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[571,581],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-316-verses","tag-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2493,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions\/2493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}