Discipleship based on God's Word

As a bondservant of Christ, who or what has authority to give you instruction in godly living?  Simply put, the only authority is from the Word of God.  It should not be based on philosophy, psychology, bestselling authors, TED talks or the opinion of your pastor.  The Bible is the only source we should be receiving instruction from in terms of godly living as a follower of Jesus Christ.  Too often, Christians sit in services at their church and listen to sermons that are little more than homilies with nice thoughts meant to encourage and nurture.  And among today's Christian communities, that is what people want and seek.  They prefer to walk away feeling good about themselves rather than challenged to take up their cross daily and follow Jesus.  The church is more and more reflective of Paul's warning in 2 Timothy 4:3, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires."  The intention of this website is to instruct believers to be followers of Christ based on the Word of God.

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

Means oneness, wholeness, totality and should be translated "all," not "every."  The same construction appears in Matthew 28:18, for example, where Jesus said, "All authority has been given to Me."  This does not make sense to translate it "every authority."  In the same way of interpretation, 2 Timothy 3:16 should be translated "all scripture."

Literally means "a writing" and refers to a text that had been copied over and over in order to preserve it; texts that remained popular because readers kept asking for them, discussing them and referring to them.  The Greek γραφὴ is also singular, and should be translated Scripture, not scriptures.  It is referencing a collective representation of the most reliable knowledge of a people group that slowly settled into a recognizable image of God - the Old Testament writings, the law, the prophets and the wisdom writings.  In Matthew 21:42 Jesus uses γραφὴ and then quotes Psalm 118:22-23; in James 2:8 James uses γραφὴ and then quotes Leviticus 19:18: Paul would have known how the word γραφὴ would be understood by Timothy when writing his letter - the law, the prophets and the wisdom writings, the Old Testament.  The Greek γραφὴ appears in the New Testament 51 times always in reference to the Bible.  In 2 Peter 3:16 Peter labels Paul's writings as Scripture, demonstrating their early acceptance and authority.  The entire New Testament was not written when 2 Timothy 3:16 was recorded, but because all of the present NT books were included in the canon they can and should be included in this verse.

Means God-breathed or divinely inspired. At the time he wrote this verse Paul was referring to the law, the prophets and the wisdom writings that make up the Old Testament.  In order for a collection of knowledge to exist over time an incredible level of cooperation across a vast region must be in place.  One can view the Bible as a "miracle," as divinely inspired, because the text in its entirety was copied and passed on from generation to generation by people across vast regions so that the history, knowledge and teaching would not be lost or forgotten.  The Bible as we have it now has persevered and persisted over the passage of time and is a demonstration of divine inspiration, God's inspiration, that His Word is complete, intact and available today.

It is important to note that it is the γραφὴ that are God-breathed, not the authors.  God breathed out the Scripture and guided men as to what to write through the Holy Spirit.  God is a Person who can both speak and write.  He spoke directly to men through the Holy Spirit and guided them as to what they wrote.  The writers were not the subject of this adjective.  The γραφὴ are inspired, God breathed, not the authors.

this is a connective and should be translated "and" in this context, not "also"; Paul is stating that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable

this is an adjective that derives from the verb ophelio meaning to profit, to enrich, to be profitable in the sense of furthering the accumulation of desirable things

the act of teaching; a thing being taught; a method of teaching; the root of this word comes from the verb didasko which is understood not as copying and pasting data from one brain to another, but the biting off and chewing of it so that it can be digested and lived off of; teaching and learning in Judea stood at the heart of their society and was founded upon the wisdom tradition and was as central to their society as the news media or entertainment industry is to ours; sound knowledge was viewed as the source of prosperity and peace

the godly man; someone who is dedicated to or devoted to God, so this can refer to a bondservant of God; a person that God has chosen for a certain task who then gives himself to that task

virtuous and beneficial work