2 TIMOTHY 3:16-172008 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: 2 Timothy 3:16-17

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2008. This morning we're looking specifically at chapter 3, verse 16 and 17, and

taking some time to talk about the Bible, the Word of God that we hold in front of us, and how we can trust it, how we know that it is the Word of God, and what we're to do with it if that is the case. And so some important things we'll be looking at this morning. Now, for me, as a believer, many of you know my story. I grew up within the church, and so

I really never doubted that the Bible was the Word of God. I never had an issue or a struggle. It never concerned me. It never bothered me to this day. I don't have to really be concerned or think about if something comes up, if somebody brings questions or there's something that doesn't make sense. It's never even a thought in my mind. And yet...

For many, that's not the case. Many really struggle. Is the Bible the Word of God? Can we trust it? Is it reliable? And so we're spending a little bit of time to study what Paul says here about Scripture and take a look at some different things to hopefully encourage you and establish you and make you understand and realize and have confidence that the Bible that we have before us is indeed the Word of God that has been preserved for us.

Now there's some books I'll recommend here at the beginning.

and I have them kind of like for different temperaments or different interest levels. So if you're mildly interested, here is the Bible by Pastor Brian Broderson. It's really thin, as you can tell. So if you're mildly interested, you just want to kind of get a little bit of better picture than what I'll share this morning, I encourage you to pick this book up and take a look at it. Now, if you're mediumly interested, here's another one. It's a little bit thicker. It's

It's called How We Got the Bible by Neil Lightfoot. And this is the book I spent some time reading this week. And it talks in very simple language, very plain English, and deals with some, because there's a lot of technical details when it comes to looking at the scriptures and how we got the Bible that we got today. There's a lot of history, a lot of manuscripts, a lot of language things that has to be discussed.

But he does a great job of bringing it down to, I could understand it. And it was very simple. And I encourage you to pick that up if you're mediumly interested. Now, if you're really interested...

There's this one. It's a little bit thicker still. It's the Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce. And I have not read this one completely yet, but he is much more detailed as far as the technicalities and things of the scripture. And so if you really want to get in depth with those things, then it's a great book for you to tackle as well.

So I just want to encourage you, if these things are a question to you, if you have some concern about the Word of God, there's great resources and great evidence to show that we can really trust it. It is the Word of God indeed. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. We hear that quite frequently. I'm sure you've heard that before. Sometimes that obscures the other facts, though. Not only is it the best-selling book of all time, but it's the best-selling book of the year every year.

It's been calculated, roughly, it's hard to calculate, but they estimate from 1816 to 1992, when they did this calculation, that some 6 billion Bibles had been printed and sold. 6 billion within that 160, 170 year time frame. All of those within, well, in about 2,000 different languages and dialects.

The Bible is an amazing book. It's a bestseller. It's something that outsells everything else. Why? Well, because it's God's Word. It truly is His message for you and I. If you ever listen to Pastor Chuck Missler, or Dr. Chuck Missler,

You'll hear on his program, it's 66 books by over 40 authors written over thousands of years. And then I think lately he's added on, you know, on different continents and a couple other things as well. It's an incredible book. It's one book for us, but it's divided into 66 books. The Old Testament containing 39, the New Testament containing 27 books.

The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language, the language of the Jewish people. There's a few small parts that are also written in Aramaic. Genesis, the first book that we have in our Bible, is possibly the oldest book, written probably about 1400 BC. Some speculate that Job perhaps was older than this, and so dates vary a little bit on the dating of the books.

But we're guessing about 1400 B.C. The last book of the Bible, about 425 B.C., was the book of Malachi, the prophet Malachi, as he was ministering to the Jewish people after they had returned from the Babylonian captivity. So about a thousand years is the conservative opinion, the conservative idea, that about a thousand years, the Old Testament was written over that time frame from 1400 to 425 B.C.,

The New Testament was written in Greek, the language of the day, and all of the books of the New Testament were completed by about 95 AD. So if Jesus died on the cross, 32, 33 AD is the normal estimation, and he died on the

then within 60 to 65 years, all of the New Testament had been written by those who were there, by those who were alive during the time of Jesus Christ. This is important because it's not exaggerated mythology like we see in some other religious writings. These were all completed 65 years after Jesus had died upon the cross. The Bible was written by many different authors,

Chuck Missler says over 40. It depends on which book you attribute to who, but many different authors from many walks of life. Some of the books were written by kings. King David, King Solomon participated in writing the scriptures. On the other end of the spectrum, some were written by fishermen, common people like Peter and John. Some were written by scholars. Moses, he was trained in all the wisdom of Egypt or the Apostle Paul.

A scholar in his day. Some were written by priests like Ezekiel. And many other walks of life could be discussed as well. But the point is there's great variety in the type of men who took place or took part in writing the scriptures. Not only was there different kinds of men, but it took place in different places. Some were out in the wilderness. Some were in dungeons when they were writing the scriptures. Some were in palaces. Some were in churches.

There was different times of life within the nation. Some were written during times of peace. Some were written during times of war. Some were written during times of captivity or prosperity. Some had different moods. Sometimes the nation or the people or the writer was in great despair. We see that much in David and Lamentations. But sometimes there was also great joy, heights of joy, great, not tribulation, but jubilation.

Sometimes the scriptures were written in the continent of Asia. Some of the scriptures were written in the continent of Africa. Some were written in the continent of Europe. And so we have great variety and diversity upon the people who wrote the scriptures, the men that God used, the places where they were, the things that were taking place, the mood of the author, of the population at that time. There's great variety. And all of this speaks towards and testifies to

to the inspiration of the scriptures. Because although there's this great variety, they're one book, a single message, a consistent theology about sometimes the most controversial subjects that could be addressed. Now, it would be an interesting experiment to gather over a 1500 year time span, 40 different people, 40 different authors about some of the most controversial subjects that

and line up their writings and see if they are consistent as the Scriptures are. Of course, they would not be. Because the Scriptures, the Bible that we have before us, is the only book that's been inspired by God in this way, that it's God's Word to us. It's His Word. It's one message. And they're consistent throughout because He is the inspiration. He is the one who inspired us.

And wrote through these human authors. The Bible is inspired by God. Now there's three main things that I want to point out this morning. First of all, we'll talk about this a little bit more in detail, but the Bible is inspired by God. Second, the Bible is reliable. And then third, to kind of bring it home, we'll look again at the Bible is profitable in

when you use it as it's directed, as is directed. So it's inspired, it's reliable, and it's profitable. Paul says here in verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. Two weeks ago, I shared with you the...

definition of inspiration by Warren Wiersbe. Let me read that to you again. Warren Wiersbe says, What we mean by biblical inspiration is the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit on the Bible's writers, which guaranteed that what they wrote was accurate and trustworthy. God supernaturally worked through these men that he used. He didn't remove their personalities or their individual characteristics. He didn't remove their personalities or their individual characteristics.

Different authors have different vocabularies, different styles of writing, just as you and I have different ways and styles of communicating. And yet, through their personalities and through their vocabularies and through the people that they were, God supernaturally wrote the Word of God in such a way that it's guaranteed to be accurate and trustworthy. In other words...

We can count on it because it is the Word of God. The Old and the New Testament are inspired by God. Now, the word scripture that Paul uses is used 51 times throughout the New Testament. All of those refer back to the Old Testament scriptures. What Paul is talking about specifically here in chapter 3, verse 16, is the Old Testament.

he says all of it is inspired by god it's given by inspiration of god now we use this verse today and by scripture we also include the new testament is that okay is that consistent is that true is that accurate for us to call the new testament scripture in the same way that the old testament is scripture well i would share with you that yes it is today we do have the new testament it was given to us by inspiration of god

And so as we read verse 16, all scripture, that also includes the New Testament that we have in our Bibles. As a demonstration of this, you're already in 2 Timothy. Just turn back a couple pages to 1 Timothy chapter 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5. Wake up. 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 18 says this. For the scripture says,

You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain, and the laborer is worthy of his wages. Now, if you have a red letter edition of the Bible, the last portion of that verse is in red, because it's a quotation of Jesus Christ. In Luke chapter 10, verse 7, Jesus says that the laborer is worthy of his wages. But the first part of this verse, Paul says, the scripture says,

Again, referring to the Old Testament, referring to the writings of God, he says, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. This is what the scripture says, a quotation from Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 4. And yet, connected to this, Paul quotes the words of Jesus, a direct quotation from Luke chapter 10 verse 7, putting on the same, showing that

They are on the same playing field. They're inspired of God like no other works and no other writings are. The Old Testament and the New Testament are the scriptures. They are the word of God to us, inspired by God for us. Another example of this is what Peter said in 2 Peter 3. You don't have to turn there, but you can look it up later. 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16 says,

In talking about the writings of the Apostle Paul, Peter says that some people twist his writings just as they do the rest of the Scriptures. So Peter, by referring to Paul's letters and saying the rest of the Scriptures, equates and puts Paul's letters, the epistles that we have in our Bibles today, of equal weight, of equal value, equal importance with the Old Testament, the rest of the Scriptures.

There's much more that could be said about this, but we'll leave it for that. And you can pick up a book and check it out later if you want to dig in a little bit further. The Old Testament and the New Testament are inspired by God. They are the scriptures. They are given to us supernaturally by God who wrote them through the authors, the human instruments that he chose to use. Now,

If this is true, if truly all scripture is given by inspiration of God, what would we expect to find in the scriptures? What quality of work would we expect of the scriptures? Three things briefly. We would expect that it would be accurate. We would expect that it would be inerrant, that it would contain no errors. And we would expect that it would be consistent, that there wouldn't be contradictions throughout it.

And what do we find? Well, we find as we study the scriptures that indeed it is accurate, it is inerrant, and it is consistent. We find that the evidence of inspiration in these three points is all throughout the scriptures. Now, the Bible tells the story of his plan of salvation.

It's the story of his people through whom he brought the Savior. It's not a history book and it's not a science book, but where it does deal with history and where it does deal with science...

It is always accurate. In fact, every time that scholars and archaeologists and all these critics always thought that the Bible is false and this person is never mentioned or this person is mentioned in the scripture, but we have no evidence other than the scriptures about this person. They said this of Pontius Pilate and then they found the inscription about Pontius Pilate there in the land of Israel and so on and so forth. And so we find that every time

The Bible is tested historically, scientifically, about the things that it says. It is completely accurate. Moses said that the life of all flesh is in the blood. And about 4,000 years later, science agreed with him. Because it's accurate. It's inspired by God.

How accurate is it? How well can we trust it? How can we be sure that it's inerrant? Well, one example of how we ought to use the Scriptures and view the Scriptures is by doing a study of how Jesus used the Scriptures. What did He view of the Scriptures and how did He handle and what was His opinion of the Scriptures? We find that throughout the Gospels, as Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, He's

He would look at the specific details of a portion of Scripture, trusting every detail about the words that were used, whether it was a tense, past, present, or future, whether it was plural or singular. For an example of that, please turn with me to Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12. In Mark chapter 12, we have Jesus, and he's speaking with the Sadducees. Actually, he's teaching in the temple. And as he's teaching in the temple,

He asks a question and then answers it with a quotation from the scripture. Here in Mark chapter 12, verse 35, it says, Then Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? For David himself said, By the Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.

So here, while Jesus is teaching in the temple, he asks the question, how is it that the scribes say that the Christ, the Messiah, is the son of David? How is it that he's a child or a descendant of David, Jesus is asking?

Now, this is a whole separate subject, and I'm not going to teach this portion, but Jesus is talking about the fact that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would be God, but also would be man. It's an incredible miracle that took place in the incarnation. But he asks this question, and then he goes on to quote from David in Psalm 110, verse 1. It says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.

Now, first, before Jesus quotes it, he says there in verse 36, by the Holy Spirit. How did David say this? He said it by the Holy Spirit. In other words, he wasn't writing it on his own. It wasn't his idea, but he was inspired by God. He wrote by the Holy Spirit. Again, Jesus Christ viewed the scriptures as being inspired by God, written by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus' argument here is based upon one word. He says, the scribes say that Jesus, the Messiah rather, is the son of David. But the scripture says, David says, David writing this psalm, says, the Lord said to my Lord, and Jesus asked the question, if David calls him Lord, how can he be his son? It was something that would be not typical in the ancient world for Jesus.

a forefather, a patriarch, to refer to a descendant, a son, grandchild, whatever, as Lord. That was a title of respect for the elder or for referring to God, to the Lord. So Jesus says, look, he calls him Lord. How could he be descendant if David calls him Lord?

Now, I'm not going to go into all that again. I'm tempted to, but I keep trying to pull myself out of it. His argument is based upon one word, the word Lord. The Lord said to my Lord, referring to the Messiah. What do we mean by the scripture is inspired? We mean that every word of it is inspired. Jesus trusted a single word and used that, and many times he would use such scriptures to

And it would be the basis of one word that his argument would be based upon, and his life would depend upon it. There's several times that the Jews were attempting to stone him, and he would share with them the scriptures, and it was one word of the scripture that he was sharing that made the point that he was making, staking his life on the accuracy, the reliability of the scriptures. In John chapter 10, he uses an argument that,

based upon whether a word in the Old Testament was plural or singular. You can check that out later in John chapter 10. In Matthew chapter 22, he shares a scripture and comes to a conclusion and shares a conclusion on the basis of the tense of a word, past, present, or future. He says in Matthew 22, 32, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And then he goes on to say God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

In that situation, Jesus is talking to the Sadducees. They don't believe in the resurrection. They're questioning him about other things. And he comes and he says, look, how is it that you can't believe in the resurrection when the scriptures say this? I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. What does this mean? Well, he didn't say I was the God of Abraham. I was the God of Isaac. I was the God of Jacob. He says, I am present tense.

Meaning, and Jesus is proving that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive. They've not perished and are never more, but they're awaiting resurrection. They exist. They continue to exist, Jesus is saying. And so he bases all of that upon the tense of the word to be. Not I was, but I am, Jesus says.

And so by Jesus' use of the scriptures, we can see that the Bible is inspired of God, supernaturally written through human instruments. It's accurate. It's inerrant. It's consistent. We can believe every word of it. And we can be assured that until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle will pass away until all is fulfilled, Matthew 5.18 says.

So the Bible, first of all, is inspired by God. Again, there's much more that we could go into there, but I'll leave that to you as the Lord prompts your heart or as you have a desire to study those things. Not only is the Bible inspired by God, though, it is also reliable. The Bible is reliable. And two things we want to look at in this. First of all, the Bible includes the books that are inspired by God. The contrast of that is

is that it also excludes the books that are not inspired by God. So it includes, it keeps in, we have the books that are inspired by God, but we don't have in the Bible books that were not inspired by God.

Secondly, the Bible has been accurately transmitted to us. And so when it comes to reliability, we need to know that the books that we have are the scriptures that are inspired by God. We also need to know that the books that we have and the scriptures that we have before us have been accurately transmitted or copied or brought down to us, that we can be assured that what we have is what was originally there, what was originally written by those authors.

So the Bible includes the books that are inspired and it excludes the books that are not inspired. Because there were many other writings. There was many other religious materials. Lots of other historical accounts of the Jewish people. There was lots more writings than what we have in the scripture. And so there came a word that is used frequently.

somewhat seldom today, but the word is canon, not the guns that you fire. But when we talk about the canon, we're talking about the Old Testament, the New Testament, the books that are included, that are accepted as being the inspired word of God. The word canon is a standard or a rule, and it's used to describe the books that we agree. These are the books that

that are inspired by God. The Old Testament canon consists of 39 books. These are the books that were accepted by the Jews as the Word of God. In the Hebrew Bible, they have the exact same scriptures that we have in our Old Testament.

They're in a little bit different order and they divide them up into a little bit different way. There's actually 22 books in the Hebrew Old Testament because they combine some books. They combine all of the minor prophets into one book and so on and so forth. But all of the material, all of the scriptures are exactly the same as what we have in our Old Testament.

By the time of Christ, these 39 books were established as the accepted canon. These are the ones that were accepted as being inspired by God. There was other writings, but those were not accepted. Some of those other writings are included in the Catholic Bible, the Apocrypha. You maybe have heard of that.

but they were never accepted by the Jews as being inspired by God. In fact, the Old Testament scriptures, the Old Testament canon, has been the same since Malachi, since 400 B.C. There was never a book added into the Old Testament canon since then. The New Testament canon, the New Testament group of books that are accepted as being inspired by God, is a total of 27 books. They were all written by no later than 100 A.D.,

Soon after that, they were in use within churches as scripture and being publicly read, being shared, being taught. Some were circulated more than others. Some made it to farther areas because of the limitations of that day and circulation and things like that. But they were in use throughout the churches.

Because of false teachings and writings, there was a need to establish an accepted group of books. The official date of this, the date that many will look to, is the Third Council of Carthage when the church council took place in 397 A.D. to establish the canon of the New Testament, the 27 books that we use today.

Those 27 books at that Council of Carthage, when they were considered, were based on three specific criteria. The first, as the book was evaluated, they considered the apostolic authority. Was it written by an apostle, or did it have an apostle who backed the book? So, for example, Matthew, he was an apostle. He was a disciple of Jesus Christ.

He definitely had apostolic authority because he was an apostle. Mark, on the other hand, was not an apostle, yet it is believed that the book of Mark was

Mark writing down, transcribing the things that Peter shared with him. And so Peter was the apostolic authority for the book of Mark. And it goes on down. Luke, along with the Apostle Paul and so on and so forth. John was an apostle. The Apostle Paul, of course, was an apostle. Peter was an apostle. The authors of the New Testament were apostles or they were written by someone who had the support or the backing of an apostle.

So that was the first criteria that was evaluated in looking at the scriptures in the New Testament. Is there apostolic authority in this book? The second thing they looked at in considering what books would be included is they looked at a book's uniqueness or internal evidence of inspiration.

So they looked at it. Is it valuable? Is there evidence that it is inspired by God? Is it consistent with the rest of the scriptures? And they used that to evaluate it. The third point that they used to evaluate the books is, was it accepted by the churches? Yes.

And there was no book that was doubted by a large number of churches that was included in the New Testament. Again, there was many other writings. There was many others who claimed to be apostles, who claimed to have apostolic authority. But by using these three criteria, they were able to put together the New Testament that you and I have today. So we have in our Bibles the books that God intended us to have.

The books that were inspired by God were included. The books that were not inspired by God were excluded, kept out of the scriptures. So we have the right books. Has it been accurately transmitted to us? Because when we say that the Bible is inspired by God, what we mean technically is that the original writings were inspired by God. As the authors were writing, they were inspired by God. There would be

complete accuracy, there would be no errors, and it would be consistent with the rest of scriptures. The original authors were inspired, but not necessarily the scribes who copied the books later on. There's variations. Oftentimes in your Bible, you see a footnote, and I'll say, you know, some manuscripts say this a little bit differently than what's worded in your scriptures. The reason for that is there's slight variations in some of the older manuscripts.

So if there is those variations, how can we be sure that we have what they wrote? Have the original writings really been preserved for us? Now, the short answer to that is yes. I'll talk about it briefly, but if you want to dig in, I encourage you to pick up one of those books because there's a lot more detail than I can go into. First of all, I'll say this. None of the variations have anything to do with matters of faith, doctrine, or commands of God or the Lord.

There's slight variations in words like for, in the, sometimes in numbers, there's a variation or a discrepancy. Oftentimes that's accounted for by the way that they had the number system as part of the alphabet, and sometimes there would be mistakes in copying those things. But they're all very minute details and have nothing to do with matters of faith, doctrine of the commands of the Lord. The Old Testament scriptures say,

that we have are based upon the Hebrew manuscripts that we have. A manuscript is a word that means it's a copy of an original writing. So it's not a translation. It's in the same language that was originally wrote since the Old Testament is in Hebrew. All of the manuscripts for the Old Testament are Hebrew manuscripts. They're copies of what was written in Hebrew originally.

The Dead Sea Scrolls was an amazing find as a testimony to the scriptures that you and I have today. Up to that point, the oldest Hebrew manuscript that was available was dated roughly 1000 A.D.,

So we're talking about 900 years after the time of Christ. Now, I'll talk about that in a minute. There's still great accuracy and reliability on those scriptures, but they're pretty late. They're pretty old. And the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many of those scrolls containing scriptures, put the dating back or put the time back to 100 BC, a little bit before, about 100 years before Jesus Christ was even born.

And the amazing thing when they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls not too long ago was that they were identical. They matched completely. The book of Isaiah was there in its entirety and it was identical to what we have today in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Now those manuscripts that we have from 1000 BC, those are incredible manuscripts as well because they were written and copied by a group of scribes called the Masoretic Scribes. And these scribes were amazing because they went to great detail to make sure that they kept the authority, the integrity of the books that they copied. They numbered all of the verses of the books that they copied.

They numbered every word and the letters as well of the books that they copied. In fact, they counted the number of times each letter was used in each book. And so at the end of the book, there would be kind of a table of all these numbers and they would show this letter was used this many times, this letter was used this many times, this letter was used this many times. And by looking at those numbers, they would be able to evaluate whether or not it was a completely accurate copy of the original. They calculated the middle letter first

The middle word, the middle verse of the whole scriptures, of the Pentateuch, of the Psalms, and so on and so forth. They went to great length to make sure, to check the accuracy of the things that they copied.

Along with those original manuscripts, we also have very, very early versions of the scriptures. The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek that took place about 300 BC, 300 years before the time of Christ. And again, we have those manuscripts as well.

They're written in Greek instead of Hebrew because they're a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. We also have the Latin Vulgate, which is a Latin translation of the Scriptures from very early on. So that's a quick summary of some of the supporting evidence for the Hebrew manuscripts, the Old Testament that we have today, showing that what we have today is indeed what was originally penned by the authors of the Bible. The New Testament, a little bit different, it wasn't written in Hebrew, it was written in Greek.

Now, of the Greek manuscripts, the copies of what was originally written by the Apostle Paul and James and Peter and so on and so forth, we have over 5,000 manuscripts of New Testament texts. Some of them are the complete New Testament. Some of them are certain books. Some of them are portions of certain books.

But altogether, it's about 5,300 manuscripts that are the basis for the New Testament that you and I have today. Many of those were copied as early as 100 years after the originals were written, dating it back very early, very close to the original writings. Now, by comparison, I looked up the pronunciation for this name and I can't remember it now, but Thucydides, that's how it is, Thucydides.

Thucydides was an ancient Greek historian. He goes back to the 5th century, about 400 to 500 BC, in that time frame. He's the one who recounts for us the war between Sparta and Athens that is very familiar and popular right now, that took place in the year 411 BC. So he is the one who gives us the history of that and the account of that war, that battle. His history book...

that he wrote, which contained that battle, was written about 400 BC, and it exists today on the basis of, you know how many manuscripts it had? Eight. Today, we have eight manuscripts, in whole or part, of his original work dating back to 400 BC. And those eight manuscripts, none of them are earlier than 1300 years after Christ.

The fact, after he wrote the book. And so we see a clear contrast there. He wrote it, 1300 years later we have a copy of it, but there's only eight manuscripts that support or that give us the detail of that book. In fact, of the ancient texts and ancient classical writings, the best supported, aside from the scriptures, has 400 manuscripts.

Now again, in comparison, the New Testament alone has 5,300 original manuscripts. I shouldn't say original manuscripts. They're manuscripts, copies of what was originally written by the New Testament authors. So there's an overwhelming support for the accuracy of

for the reliability of the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. All in all, considering manuscripts, considering translations and commentaries and things, the early church writers and so on and so forth, they estimate there's over 20,000 elements of support for the scriptures that we have before us. And it's no wonder because Jesus said so. He said, heaven and earth will pass away but...

My word, it won't. He says heaven and earth will pass away, but every detail of the law, every detail of the word will be fulfilled. It's reliable. It was accurately transmitted to us. The significance of this is amazing. And I've been studying it all week. And so I don't know if it's as amazing to you as it is to me, but it's just astounding that we have before us God's preserved word.

His word that was inspired, that he supernaturally wrote by his Holy Spirit through these authors, kept overwhelmingly accurate by the many manuscripts, by the much evidence and proof that these things are accurate, that they're supported, that they're reliable. And he preserved it for you and I. We have the Bible that we have today because God inspired it, because it's reliable, it's accurate. And...

That leads us to, we should kind of now come to the point, so what? Now what? So, okay, the Bible's inspired, so it's reliable. It's His Word. That's really amazing. But now what? What's the purpose of all of this? And that's where, looking back at 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, he says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. He says that it's inspired by God for what?

Well, he says it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, fairly, quick for every good work. There's all of this amazing background and detail and support for the scriptures that we have

But that's not so that we can put it in a museum and have the music on all the time and just be amazed by it. What's the point of it? Well, he did all of this. He gave us the scriptures through his inspiration, through his preservation throughout the centuries. He gave us all of this because it's profitable to us. Now, in order for it to be profitable to us,

As I talked about and shared a couple weeks ago, it needs to be used as directed. The Bible is profitable, but you need to use it as it is directed. And there's an insert in your bulletin, it's this color, whatever color that is, it says the Bible uses directed. And there's just some selected scriptures there. It's not exhaustive, but just some of the scriptures I put together in looking at the study for this morning.

to give us an idea, how are we directed to use the scriptures? Because if the Bible, being the word of God, is inspired, if it's that reliable, how are we to use it? And how is it that it would be profitable to us? It truly is an amazing book. And it's profitable to us in so many ways. But if we want to be complete,

If we want to be thoroughly equipped for every good work, then we need to use the Bible as it is intended to be used. How did God intend for us to use the Bible? How did God intend for it to be used that it would be profitable for us? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I used the example of medication.

If you use it as directed, well, it can be profitable. If you don't use it as directed, if you mix medications, well, it can be very deadly to you. In the same way, if you take, well, I want to hold on to the scriptures and I want to believe world philosophies, you're mixing medications and it can be very deadly. It's not how the Bible is intended to be used. For some people...

The thousand dollar computer on their desk is just a very expensive solitaire game. You ever known any of those people? Now, it wasn't intended just to be used for solitaire. There's much more and it can be very profitable for the person who would use that technology. But for some, they don't use it for the reasons it was intended and it's just an expensive game. In the same way, we need to understand how the scriptures were intended to be used so that we don't

cheat ourselves on the profit that we could have. The benefit that God has given to us through His Word, but it's through specific means. And there again, we look to the Scriptures to find out. So turn with me to Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5. In Hebrews chapter 5, we have one of the elements that show us how the Scripture was intended to be used by us. In summary, it's intended to be used little by little.

Look at Hebrews chapter 5, starting in verse 12. He says,

but solid food belongs to those who are of full age. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Here the writer of Hebrews says, look, by this time you've been around long enough, you ought to be a teacher. You ought to be able to instruct others in the things of God. But the sad state of these people that he's writing to is, you need to be taught again the first principles.

He says, you've come to need milk and not solid food. Now, oftentimes in the scriptures, the word of God is equated with or compared with food. Now, just consider food for a moment. Can you, on Sunday morning, consume all of the food that you will need for the entire week? Anybody want to try it? George volunteers, I think. You can't. It doesn't work that way. You can't eat once a week. Your body will not survive. You'll die. Now,

In the same way, spiritually, we need to consider this. We can't eat once a week. It doesn't work that way. Spiritually, we will not survive. The Bible compares the Scriptures, the Word of God, with food for a reason. Because it's not intended for us to, well, just digest once in a while or occasionally, but pretty much as regularly as we eat and consume real food.

Here the Apostle Paul is saying you should be mature already. But there's a lack of maturity. And why does he say this? Well, he says everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. Who is the one who only partakes of milk? Looking at verse 12, he says, the ones who only are taught the first principles of the oracles of God. Paul is equating milk with those who don't dig into the scriptures on their own, who don't spend time in the word on their own.

He says the babes in Christ, those who are immature spiritually, are the ones who do not themselves get into the Word of God, but they're only taught. They come to Bible studies, perhaps. They listen on the radio. They hear others talk about the Word of God, but for themselves on their own, they don't really dig in.

Because look at verse 14. Solid food belongs to those who are full age. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. By reason of use. Those who are of full age, those who have solid food, are those who are experienced in the Word of God. They spent much time in the Word of God. By reason of use, they've learned how to rightly divide the Word of Truth. They've learned how to study the Scriptures. They've learned how to digest the Word of God.

Milk is when someone teaches you the first principles. And I can share with you, a lot of the things that the scripture talks about, we don't get into. Although we go verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and we do our best, there's much more depth than can be communicated today.

Sometimes I wish we could have more services throughout the week so I could communicate more of what the scripture says and more of what God's speaking. But it's just not possible to communicate the depth of what the word of God says. The only way for you to experience that, the only way for that to be profitable for you is for you on your own, by reason of use, to get into the word of God. And not just be taught the word, but to study it for yourself, to read it and spend time in it.

for yourself. That's solid food. It's for those who are mature because by many usings, they've experienced and understand the word of God. Again, it's little by little. As Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 28, the word of God is little by little. It's precept upon precept, line upon line. It's this, a little bit of that, a little bit here, a little bit there. We can't consume everything spiritually that God wants us to digest that we need for the week on Sunday morning.

We need to take in a little bit today and then take in a little bit more tomorrow and then take in a little bit more the next day in the same way that you and I need food to supply the needs of our body in that way. So the scripture was designed, it was intended to be used not once a week, not only hearing, but also ourselves individually digging in and spending time in the word of God. Another element of the way that God intended us to use the scriptures is

is He intended for us to have the whole counsel of His Word. Sometimes it's very easy for us. We like to read the passages and the books that are very familiar to us, that we enjoy, that are easy. And we neglect some of the other portions. Sometimes Christians neglect the Old Testament altogether because it's a little bit too difficult. It's a little bit longer. It's a little bit harder to read. But there's a danger in that as well. Jesus said in Matthew 4, verse 4,

Understand that all scripture is inspired and profitable. That's what 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says.

Don't neglect the Old Testament. Don't neglect those books that, yeah, they're difficult. And there's some that takes more work. Just like sometimes when you eat a steak, you have to cut it. You have to work at it. You have to chew it a little bit longer. It takes a little bit more time, but it's a whole lot better than mashed potatoes. In the same way, dig into the Word of God. Spend some time in it. You might have to chew on it. You might have to cut it up. You might have to spend some time.

but it's profitable for you. God intended for us to have the whole counsel, for us to have every word that proceeds from his mouth, not just our favorite ones or not just the easy ones. So the intended use of the word of God is that we're to use it little by little, we're to use all of it, the whole counsel of God.

This paper has a bunch of different scriptures to encourage you in a bunch of other ways. We're to meditate on the word of God. We're to obey the word of God. We're to believe the word of God. We're to teach the word of God to our children. We're to abide in the word of God. We're to preach the word of God. We'll look at that next week in 2 Timothy 4. This is how God intended his word to be used. But primarily this morning, I want to encourage you, God's intention, so that the word of God will be profitable to you. You need to use it as directed.

And he intended for the word to be used little by little for you to spend time in the word of God because it is the word of God, because it's inspired by God, because it was transmitted accurately and reliably to us that we can count on and rest assured that what we have before us is what God wants to speak to us. And he did all of that so that we would spend time with him in his word. And then it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that you may be complete, perfect, lacking nothing,

Fully equipped for every good work. It's not just profitable for doctrine in the sense of this scripture says this about doctrine. No, it's not. Although those are important and there are those certain doctrines and we have those scriptures, but we're to take in the whole word of God. And as little by little, as we consume, as we digest, as we spend time with God in his word, you know what's going to happen? We're going to have right doctrine.

and the areas that are going astray will be reproved by the Word of God. It will show us the error of our ways, show us the sin that we're involved in. We'll also be corrected. It will teach us how to get right, how to set things straight. We'll be instructed in righteousness as we, by reason of use, learn to discern between good and evil, partaking of solid food, the Word of God on our own. God wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to get closer to you. And He gave us His Word today

as a tool for that. It's profitable for you when you take the Word of God and use it on your own, developing your relationship with God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you that you love us so much. Not only did you send your Son to die for us, but Lord, you sent to us an incredible message through your Word. Lord, an awesome tool for us to draw close to you, to protect our hearts, to protect our minds, to protect our children.

Lord, you gave us this tool that we might draw close to you, that we might grow in you, that we might increase, that we might become mature in our faith and our beliefs and our actions. Lord, you gave us this instrument that we might become more like you. So Lord, I pray that you would help us not to just be those who are taught, those who hear, but Lord, help us to dig in, to mature, to partake of solid food by spending time in your word on our own.

Lord, give us a thirst for your word like never before. I pray that we would desire it. Help us, Lord, to be disciplined. Not lazy, not full of excuses, but Lord, that we would be committed to spending time in your word. Lord, even if we don't see immediate results, if we don't see immediate fruit, help us to be persistent, to continue, knowing that your word will accomplish what you sent it forth to do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.