By Mike Chaffin
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16, NIV
Some of my favorite things are reading, exercising, playing with my grandson, chocolate, and anything God-breathed. Which brings me to today’s verse. Scripture is God-breathed. This means the verses in the Bible were given to us by God. He spoke to the writers, and they wrote His words down. Since God is perfect, this means the Bible is infallible. You can rely on it.
According to our verse, the Bible is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Proverbs 1:7 states, “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” This isn’t fear like being afraid of the dark. No, this fear refers to the reverence and awe we should have for God. When we humble ourselves and look to God for answers, He supplies. The fool referred to is a morally deficient person. Read the entire third chapter of 2 Timothy to see what defines a morally deficient person.
For a Christian, the fear of God means to learn from, lean on, look to, walk humbly with, seek out, work for, and trust Him with an attitude of gratefulness and contentment knowing God provides, perseveres with, and protects His children. Through His Word God teaches us, rebukes us for the sins we commit, corrects us as we do our children, and trains us to be mature Christians. He is our Heavenly Father and He is perfect.
The Bible shows us how to live, love, and lead others to the path toward Heaven. It teaches us how to discern good and evil. It helps us to distinguish between godly teaching and the devil’s imitation. The entire third chapter of 2 Timothy tells us how much the devil wants to deceive us and lead us astray. Thankfully, God gave us the directions to follow to be able to stay on the journey to our mansion in glory.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for the Bible. Open it up to me so I can understand it better. Help me find the time to read it on a daily basis. Keep me from being deceived by corrupt teaching. Show me the way to live and help me to do Your good works. Amen.
* There is a website that conducted a search for Bible verses. They compiled a list of the verses in order of the magnitude of hits they got in their search. Some of these verses qualify as ‘people’s favorites’, while others might be on the list because they are some of the most important and most teachable words of God.
