We are continuing to look at the second letter
Paul wrote to Timothy, a young follower of Christ, to whom Paul is entrusting
the future of the Church. Paul himself is in prison and has been sentenced to
death, awaiting his execution. Paul sees
his demise in the not too distant future. He is doing what he can to invest in
Timothy as a way of equipping the next generation to carry on the faith and
assure that the truth of the Gospel will continue to spread. As Paul is doing
what he can to assure the Faith and the Church will be able to continue into
the future. Timothy, in many ways, is representative of the next generation. If
Timothy can take on the responsibility to carry on the work of the first
generation of Christians into the second, Paul will know that the work he and
the other apostles began will carry on for one more generation.
Paul is equipping Timothy for the
betterment of the Church. Timothy and his peers are the ones who will preserve
the truth of the Gospel to the next generation. Paul wants to preserve the
Church but he is very well aware of her shortcomings. At this time in the
history of the Church, the church is facing struggles from within as well as
from without. At this point in his
letter Paul is most concerned with a contingency of people who are going around
teaching things that are contrary to the teachings of Paul and the apostles;
contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. They are embellishing on the gospel
and making it “new”; making it into something which is contrary to the truth of
Jesus Christ. Paul is warning Timothy to not turn from the truth of the Gospel
he learned as a child and follow this “new” gospel. He is calling for Timothy
to stick to the good “old” gospel that he learned from his mother and his grandmother,
who learned it from Paul and the apostles.
Here,
Paul does this by pointing Timothy to Scripture, telling him that all Scripture
is inspired. The word which is commonly translated “inspired” here, in the
original language, literally means “God-breathed.” Being God-breathed is what humans are. This
is what God did for the first human at creation; God breathed God’s own life
into us. Scripture being God breathed means that God breathes God’s own life
into the words which were written and they become something more than mere
words.
Now
to be completely truthful when Paul said “scripture”, he was not exactly
referring to what we mean when we say “scripture.” Those of us who live in the
modern world who have nice little bound Bibles like the one I read from this
morning, which we know to be God’s holy Scripture, we must all realized that
Paul did not have this (holding up my Bible). Paul did not have a Bible. I mean
I picked this up and turned to this letter which Paul wrote to Timothy. Paul is
still in the process of writing what would later become the book of 2 Timothy.
Paul could not at the time he was putting ink to paper (or velum or what ever
it was they used), he could not have been referring to the New Testament as we
know it. The only scripture Paul would have had, at the time, and the only
scripture to which he could have been referring, was the OT Scriptures.
Paul
is telling Timothy that all the Scripture with which he grew up, the Law, the
Writings and the Prophets were “God-breathed.”
Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am not implying that the New Testament is
any less Scripture than the Old Testament. In fact, neither Paul, the apostles
or even Jesus Christ saw the Gospel as separate from the OT, but instead saw
the Gospel as a continuation. Because the Gospel, which had not been formally
written down, (there was no NT as we know it today) was considered a part of
the OT story, it was not something separate. Therefore, God-breathed included
the truth of the gospel; that is the life, death, resurrection and salvific
mission of Jesus Christ. The truth gospel is not limited simply to the books
the four Gospel writers penned, but extends to all of the NT scriptures. So,
although Paul was not literally speaking of the Old and New Testaments, as we
know them today, we can understand that Paul’s statement refers to the truth of
the Gospel which can be found in the entirety of the Scriptures.
So
Paul tells us that the Scriptures are God breathed, filled with the spirit of
God, he also tells us that they are useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training. Paul gives us here a list of what scripture does.
This is not a list of what we can do
with scripture. Too often we look at this passage and think that Paul is
telling us that Scripture is a tool which we can use. But Scripture is not ours to use. Scripture does not belong to us, it is not something we can ever possess. Scripture is God’s
and it belongs solely to God. Paul is not telling us how we can use Scripture. Paul is telling us how
scripture shapes and forms us, what Scripture does for us, not what we can do
with Scripture.
Paul
tells us that Scripture teaches, reproofs, corrects and trains. Scripture
teaches us, it gives us a sound understanding of the gospel, the story of God’s
love for humanity and the extent to which God will go to show God’s love for
us, climaxing in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is also reproofs us, that is scripture shows
false teaching for what it is. False teaching is any teaching, which strays
from, or claims to add to the gospel. Scripture corrects us. It instructs us in
proper behavior as Christians, and shows us when our words, actions or
attitudes do not reflect those of Jesus Christ or speak contrary to the character
of God. They show us how God calls for us to live. It straightens us out and
improves who we are as Christians. And
lastly, it trains, it educates us. We are its pupils, and from it we learn who
we are, we learn who God is and we learn about our relationship with God and
how best to work that relationship out.
Scripture
is that which guides and directs us, it is through scriptures God is able to
speak to the Church and show us what it means to live as we were meant to live;
what it means to be who we were created to be. God calls to us, and draws us
close to God’s self through scripture, and it is scripture which introduces us
to the truth of the gospel and truly allows us to see the life, teachings,
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; that is an act of desperate love of God
for humanity. A love which is calling to us, begging for us to turn from the
bent broken ways we are living, and turn to God, to love and be loved in
return.
Paul
establishes Scripture as that which holds the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth
of the love of God, as that which calls us back to the created order. It is, also,
that which calls for us to proclaim the message of the gospel. Paul is telling
Timothy, “you know the truth, you need to share it.” The fact of the matter is Timothy would not
have known the gospel had it not been proclaimed to him. He would not have come
to the Faith, if his mother and grandmother had not proclaimed the message to
him in the first place. They would not have known if the apostles and Paul had not
proclaimed the message to them. The only way anyone else will know is if someone
who knows goes out and tells them! Paul
is calling for Timothy to go do for others what was done for him. That is proclaiming
the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul
sees Timothy as the future of the Church and God has called Timothy to live a
life of proclamation. It is not merely
Paul is who is intrusting Timothy with the future of the Church but it is God
who is entrusting Timothy with the future of the Church. As the lives of the
first apostles expire it is up to the newer, younger Christians of the next
generation to take up the mantle and proclaim the truth so that future
generations may know as they know. God has set this task before you, go out and
do what it is God is calling for you to do.
Paul reminds us that God has given us
scripture. God had spoken through humans and they have written scriptures and
God breathed God’s own life into those words and God uses the words of mere
human beings to speak, to teach, to guide and direct the people of God. God has
given us this gift and too often we don’t allow it to work in us and through us
to change us and remake us.
I would guess that most of us have at least
one Bible (if you don’t come to me after service and we will do what we can to
remedy that). Yet, it is far too frequently we forget that God has given us
scripture, not so we can have it on our shelf and pull it out and use it when we see fit. Scripture is
not something we use, it is something God has given us scripture to shape us,
change us. Through Scripture, is one of the many ways, God chooses to transform
us, so we can be the people God created us to be. But in order for that to
happen we need read it , and study it and allow God to breath through the words
on the page and into our very souls, filling us with who Gods is, changing us
through words, changing us through The Word. Unless we are reading,
participating, in scriptures, it is just another book which rests on our self,
collecting dust, which we say we should to get around reading at some point in
our lives. But, it is not merely through opening it and reading it that God
moves, it is by allowing scripture to open us. When we come to scripture ready
to hear God, ready to receive God ready to participate in what God chooses to
do in us and through us, then God breaths through mere human words and
transforms us, and brings us to life through something which prior to the
moment in which God moved was nothing more than ink and page.
But this is not merely about us. It is not
simply about us knowing and being known by God through scripture but it is God
calling us to move beyond ourselves and take the one whom we know, into the
world and introduce others to the one whom we love, the one who loves us and
the one who loves through us. We are transformed and changed by God and in turn
we are called to proclaim the one who transforms and changes us, to the world
around us with words and with lives which speak the love of God to those around
us.
The church is always one generation from
extinction. If this generation does not leave a gospel legacy for the next
generation, there will be no church when we die. This is the simple fact. We
gather here as the Church, we are known by God, we strive to understand who God
is. But unless we actively seek to pass the truth of the gospel on, there will
be no others when we like Paul find ourselves at the end of our lives.
Paul is calling to us from his jail cell
this morning. Paul sees the end of Church. Paul sees how this could all die, as
those who know and believe die and Paul is telling us, just as he is telling
Timothy here, two very important things. First he is telling us to be people
who are shaped and transformed by scripture. He is telling us that all
scripture should participate in who we are as the people of God. We need to be
people of the Word, living in the word, allowing the very breath of God to be
breathed in us daily as we allow our lives to be shaped and transformed by
scripture.
In short Paul is telling us, as so many
pastors, Sunday school teachers and wise Christians have told us before, read
you Bible. But not just read it to read
it. Don’t just read it to put a check in the check box in your list of
Spiritual things you need to do today, but read Scripture because through it
God speaks, teaches, corrects and changes us, infusing us with the very life of
God. Paul is telling us to do our devotions. To read our Bibles first thing in
the morning, on our lunch breaks, or last thing at night. Paul is telling us to
dwell in the Scriptures, to live there so that through Scripture God will not
only speak but shape, transform and remake us from the bent broken people we
are into the holy people God created us to be.
Secondly, Paul tells us that once we are shaped
and changed into the people God is calling us to be, we are to then take what
has shaped us and changed us and bring that transformative power to others. We
are to live lives which tell others who Jesus is. We are to speak words which
tell others who Jesus is. We are to be people who love as Jesus loved, live as
Jesus lives and proclaim the truth of the kingdom of God, just as Jesus
proclaimed the kingdom of God. The fact of the matter is being Christian is not
just about what Jesus does for us. Being the people of God is not just about
how God works for us and in us. We are Christians, we are the people of God, so
that we can go out and share the one who we know, the truth of his life,
teachings, death and resurrection with a world who is lost and broken without
him. We know, are changed and transformed through the love and grace of God
because someone told us, no one else will know unless we in turn tell them.
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