2 Timothy 3:14-17
All Scripture Is God-Breathed
14But as for you, continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, since you know from whom you have learned them.
15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul has been describing people who cannot be trusted. Now he turns to Timothy and tells him where to stand, and the reason he gives is not the reason most of us would reach for.
continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, since you know from whom you have learned them.
The reason is people. Stay where you are, Paul says, because you know who handed you this. Not because the arguments are airtight, and not because you have thought it through further than anybody else. He treats the fact that it came through somebody Timothy can name as a thing to stand on rather than a weakness to apologize for.
From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
From infancy pushes the start of it back behind anything Timothy ever decided. Paul does not say who taught him or how it was done. What he says is that these writings were already in the boy's life before there was any plan for it, and that these are the writings able to make a person wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
That claim is careful about its own edges. Not wise generally, and not wise about everything. Wise for salvation, and through faith in Christ Jesus, which is where the whole sentence is pointed.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
God-breathed says where it came from. Then four uses, and the list does not stop where you might expect it to. Instruction is being told what is true. Conviction is being shown where you are wrong. Correction is being put right. Training in righteousness is doing a thing over until it holds without your having to think about it. A house that opens the Bible only to find things out has stopped at the first item on a list of four.
The end of it is not a well informed person. Complete, and fully equipped, which is the language of getting somebody ready rather than the language of teaching them. The verse says what the readiness is for, and it is every good work.
How We Know
The instruction in verse 14 rests on people, and this letter has already named some. At 1:5 Paul recalls a sincere faith that first dwelt in Timothy's grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. What that verse names is faith rather than teaching, and it is not joined to 3:15 for us.
Paul does the same thing with himself at 3:10, where the ground he offers Timothy is a life Timothy watched at close range rather than an argument.
So the letter twice points at people as the reason to keep standing, and leaves the reader to hold both halves without spelling out the join.
Questions
1 Paul gives Timothy a reason to keep going. What is it?
AnswerThat he knows from whom he learned it. The reason Paul gives is the people it came through rather than the strength of the case, which is not usually how any of us would argue for staying put.
2 What does from infancy do to the story?
AnswerIt moves the start of it behind anything Timothy chose. He knew these writings before he could have had an opinion about them or a reason of his own for holding them, and those are the writings Paul now says can make him wise for salvation.
3 Paul lists four uses for Scripture. What happens as the list goes on?
AnswerIt moves from being told what is true, to being shown where you are wrong, to being put right, to being trained until the thing holds. A Bible opened only to find things out has stopped at the first of the four.
4 What is all of this finally for?
AnswerA person complete and fully equipped for every good work. Not well informed, and not merely convinced. The verse puts the work at the end of the sentence, which tells you what all the instructing and correcting was for.
What This Means for Us
God breathed out these writings and aimed them at making people wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, which is a long way past information. He is doing the instructing, the convicting, the correcting and the training, and the Bible on the table tonight is his instrument rather than ours.
Before anyone says anything else, thank him for whoever first put his words in front of you, and ask him to use them on this house the whole way down that list of four.
Prayer
Father, thank you that your word does more than inform us, and that you use it to convict and correct and train us even when we would rather it did not. Thank you for whoever first read it to us. Make this family ready for whatever you send us to do. Amen.