A Worker Approved by God (2 Tim 2:14-26)

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you, please turn it to 2 Timothy 2:14-26.

As you turn there, let me refresh your memory as to where we are in the text. So far in 2 Timothy, we’ve seen Paul make multiple exhortations to Timothy that have all been rooted and grounded in the Gospel itself. Because the Gospel presents salvation in Jesus Christ alone, Paul tells Timothy that he ought to be willing to not just suffer for the Gospel, but even be willing to die for the Gospel. That ideology is what then laid the foundation for what we talked about last week—that Timothy needs to be strengthened in God’s grace, that he ought to entrust other faithful men to teach the Gospel to others, and that he needs to endure the sufferings that would occur as part of being a soldier of Jesus Christ.

As Paul continues, his exhortation still comes on top of the foundation of the Gospel itself. And what he does in vv. 14-26 might seem a little unusual—it seems like he’s just laying out a bunch of commands and thoughts, but what he’s actually doing is this: he’s telling Timothy to not be like the false teachers around him. Contextually, meaning within the context of Ephesus, Ephesus is filled with false teaching—there are those who are worshiping the false god Diana (also known as Artemis), there are those who are worshiping the emperor himself, and then you have folks who claim to be Christian in Ephesus, but they are preaching and teaching a message that isn’t Christian. Some are what we call Judaizers who had taken the idea of the Gospel and then added the Jewish law to it; others had tried to integrate the worship of Artemis or the emperor into Christianity, which are all clearly significant problems concerning false teaching.

So, in 2 Timothy 2:14-26, the idea is that there are certain ways that the false teachers act that are anti-Christian and Timothy needs to do his best to stay as far away as possible from the way they act and be faithful in his conduct not for his own sake, but for the sake of the Gospel.

Keep this in mind as we read 2 Timothy 2:14-26 together.

2 Timothy 2:14–26 ESV

14 Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19 But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” 20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. 22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) Resist False Teachers and False Teaching (14-19) and (2) Be Faithful in Conduct (20-26). Both sections point at this idea that Paul calls Timothy to do something--to “present [himself] to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” The whole idea is that Timothy needs to be approved by God and the way that Timothy is to do that is by rejecting false teaching and separating himself from false teachers even in the way that he behaves in contrast to false teachers.

Prayer for Illumination

Resist False Teachers and False Teaching (14-19)

Paul starts this section of the passage by telling Timothy to “remind them of these things.” And already we have a few questions:

Who is the them that Paul is referring to and what are the things that he is to remind them of?

The them is answered in v. 2 of last week’s passage. When Paul says, “2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

When Paul then refers to the them in v. 14, he’s calling back to the faithful men in v. 2.

The men that Timothy is to find and train them to proclaim the Gospel to others.

Paul is telling Timothy to remind those who are genuine believers in Jesus, who are faithful, and will be trained for the proclamation of the Gospel of certain things.

The things that Timothy is to remind them of is found in vv. 11-13, “11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”

The idea that Paul is telling Timothy to keep on their memory is that there will be suffering and persecution on behalf of the Gospel.

And yet, it is worth suffering for Jesus; it is worth bearing persecution for the Gospel.

Really, what Paul is telling Timothy to do is to continuously remind them of the Gospel itself.

In addition to reminding them of these things, Paul tells Timothy to then “charge them before God” to not “quarrel about words.”

And just to clarify, this isn’t the idea of actually determining the meaning of words, but rather arguing about the minutia of detail.

It’s really a condemnation of how early philosophers treated their teaching responsibilities and you can see this if you read ancient philosophy.

It’s common in philosophy to strain at gnats—it’s the idea of pontificating on issues that don’t really have an answer.

What Paul is stating is that the same type of straining at gnats isn’t beneficial in the church—again, not that we aren’t seeking to know the actual meaning of the words of Scripture, but rather, when it comes to issues that really don’t have an answer, we aren’t seeking to spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to explain those details in a local church setting.

For instance, this is the difference between getting a basic understanding of the end times and then spending multiple months in church trying to figure out the exact details of the end times.

Or, for those that know what these words means—it’s the difference of understanding that people have different understandings not of how we get saved, but how God saves us or arguing for Arminianism or Calvinism when we’re supposed to be worshiping together.

Or, it’s the difference of trying to argue for supra or superlapsarianism—whether God acts in foreknowledge or omniscience when He made His decrees from before creation, when we’re supposed to sing praise to Jesus together.

While there is a time and place for trying to make sense of those issues, what Paul is saying is that in the local church, while we’re in worship services, this is not the time to strain at gnats and argue about words.

Why does Paul make that statement? Because the arguing about minutia during our times of worship, “does no good, but only ruins the hearers.”

There is no discipleship value behind making these arguments while we’re supposed to be worshiping the Lord. Nor does it do any good for those that hear these arguments.

Again, not that we should never speak about these issues, but rather, we shouldn’t make it a part of our regular worship of the Lord.

Rather, what Paul tells Timothy to do is found in v. 15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed.”

This brings back the point that these sorts of issues aren’t concerning the issue of trying to understand the Word of God, but rather, they concern issues that don’t pertain to the study of Scripture.

Paul tells Timothy that he needs to work to present himself as approved to God without a need to be ashamed—the question is, how is Timothy to do this?

The answer is at the end of this verse, by “rightly handling the word of truth.” How is Timothy, as the pastor of the church in Ephesus, to be approved by God in this instance? It all has to do with how he handles God’s Word for the people in Ephesus.

It’s all about whether he, as a preacher of the Gospel, as one who is charged with leading the church there, handles God’s Word with accuracy or not—and it makes sense because again, he is the one who leads the church in Ephesus and thus, he is the one who is charged with proper teaching and preaching within the church.

To be approved, he needs to handle the word of God with all diligence and accuracy and to do what v. 16 continues with, to “avoid irreverent babble.”

The idea at hand continues in the train of thinking already presented—we’re still talking about false teaching. And what Paul refers to as irreverent babble is translated in other translations like this, “worldly and empty chatter” (NASB), “profane and vain babblings” (KJV), “godless and empty chatter” (CSB), or “worthless, foolish talk” (NLT).

What Paul is referring to is the strain of false teaching that doesn’t actually point people to Jesus, but rather points them at the world.

It points people not at the one who saves, but rather at the one who deceives and because it points people away from Jesus, it leads them further into sin and degradation—it leads them into ungodliness.

And the type of irreverent babble that leads people into ungodliness will spread like gangrene, or poison, or cancer.

Paul gives some examples of this found in the people represented by the names Hymenaeus and Philetus. Paul says that they have “swerved from the truth” and that they’ve swerved from the truth by “saying that the resurrection has already happened.”

By this, they mean not Jesus’ first resurrection when he was crucified, buried, and raised again, but rather the resurrection that’s spoken of in Revelation. When those in Christ will raise and meet Him in the air.

No wonder it has upset the faith of some—essentially, what they’re teaching is that Jesus had already returned and these folks missed it.

Likewise, it doesn’t take much to find people who make the same blasphemous and heretical claims today—there are plenty who have claimed the end of the world only for us to continue along God’s providential timeline for mankind.

And there are plenty who have made claims to speak on behalf of Jesus, only for it to be proven otherwise.

The reality, according to Paul is that “God’s firm foundation stands,” regardless of the false teaching that upsets some. The reality is that regardless of what people purport to say about God or supposedly on behalf of God, “God’s foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’”

Or put differently, what Paul is saying is that the true Word of God, which isn’t filled with false teaching, bears the same mark that it has always had.

That God knows His people and that He calls His people to live holy lives because He, Himself is holy—any message that claims to be Christian but doesn’t insist on at least these truths are sub-Christian at best and anti-Christian at worst.

So, I think you can already see this contrast between false teachers and what true genuine teachers are supposed to be like in all that Paul has spoken to Timothy, but this passage of Scripture doesn’t end here. In fact, Paul keeps going with more practical encouragement for Timothy in vv. 20-26. Let’s look at those verses:

Be Faithful in Conduct (20-26)

2 Timothy 2:20–26 ESV

20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. 22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

In vv. 20-21, Paul gives a short illustration that he uses to illustrate the church itself. That there are vessels that are meant for honorable uses, vessels that are meant for dishonorable uses, and these vessels find their uses based on what material that they’re made of.

In the metaphorical illustration being utilized by Paul here, he’s speaking of a local church—meaning, a gathering of people in which there is a mix of people within the local church.

There are some who are considered honorable Christians who are set apart to be utilized for every good work.

There are others within the local church who aren’t honorable because they haven’t been cleansed and so, they’re still doing dishonorable things—in context, they’re teaching false things within the local church and it’s their teaching of false things that brings about dishonor.

George Knight, “Therefore, gold and silver vessels are esteemed as honorable because they are used for honorable functions. Similarly, wood and earthenware vessels are regarded as dishonorable because they are used for garbage or excrement and are sometimes thrown out with their contents. The implication is that there may indeed be vessels like the false teachers in the professing Christian community, but their activity indicates that they are dishonorable.” (George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992), 418)

Now, in the way that things are worded in this text, the idea is that those who were once dishonorable can be made honorable by cleansing.

With that in mind, those that teach false things can be cleansed from their false teachings—of course, it would be like any other sin issue in which repentance, salvation, and following Jesus would be an integral part of that cleansing.

It also infers in the Greek text that those who aren’t necessarily teaching false things need to be sure that they’re cleansing themselves of false teaching.

Again, George Knight says, “The condition is that one cleanse oneself from the defilement of fellowship with “these” and the effects of their teaching and actions” (George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992), 418).

As Christians, we are to be about cleansing ourselves from the defiling nature of false teaching.

The last five verses then gives a contrast that is meant to help Timothy determine what exactly he is to do with false teachers and their false teachings. Vv. 22-23 gives some negative commands for him to do—to avoid and to flee and vv. 24-26 give positive commands for him to do—to not be quarrelsome, but to be kind, be able and willing to teach and correct with the hope that these false teachers will come to their sense and repent. Let’s quickly take a look at these verses before we jump into our application.

Paul tells Timothy that he is to flee youthful passion.

In context, the idea concerns the confrontation of false teachers and false teaching—as a young man, the tendency when dealing with false teachers and false teaching (or really, the tendency when dealing with anyone that disagrees with you as a younger person) is to go on the attack.

It is to argue, bicker, and fight—to shout and try to force people to change their ways.

The issue with this is two-fold: (1) it rarely ever leads to changed minds, but (2) it isn’t reflective of what it means to be a Christian.

Paul tells Timothy to flee this youthful desire to argue, bicker, and fight or war against false teaching in an unbiblical way, but rather, he is to “pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

Meaning, rather than responding with unrighteous anger, arguing, bickering, and fighting, he is to pursue the fruits of the Spirit.

In addition, Timothy is to “have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.”

There are some things that aren’t even worth trying to confront—we might say it this way, “that there are some hills that aren’t worth dying on.”

And the reason for avoiding these issues isn’t because those issues are right, but rather because all it will do is cause further trouble.

It’s the idea of learning when the person asking the question is actually wanting to hear the truth or if they’re just trying to rile you up.

It’s discernment in knowing whether your conversation with someone is worth having or if they’re just trying to cause problems.

A good example of this is found in those who try to debate die-hard celebrity atheists—at some point, you need to realize when it’s time to stop trying because instead of actually winning that person to belief in Jesus, you’re just breeding quarrels.

Rather, “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”

Sometimes when the Bible utilizes the term servant of the Lord, it’s referring to all believers, but in this instance, it’s specifically referring to those who are called into eldership.

We know this because of that phrase wedged in the middle of this sentence, “able to teach.” The only people in the church that are required to teach are those who serve as elders.

Thus, in this case, Paul’s focus is on those who are elders or pastors and he says that those who serve in this capacity aren’t to be quarrelsome.

Which, just as a side-note, means that those who are intentionally quarrelsome, really aren’t qualified for eldership.

In addition, elders are to be“patiently enduring evil.”

That’s not that they’re partaking in evil, it’s that evil is said and done against them. I told a church planter in Brookville this past week that ministry in a small town almost always entails being slandered by people, being attacked by other pastors in the community, and having evil done against you.

We patiently endure because we’re hoping to be able to point people to Jesus. In the case of 2 Timothy, the idea is that elders are to patiently endure evil while choosing not to be quarrelsome with the hope that we could gently correct our opponents with gentleness.

And in this gentle correction with kindness and the enduring of evil, the whole hope is that those who teach false things “may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.”

The goal is to act like a Christian leader ought to act with the goal of pointing people to Jesus and the hope that they will repent of their false teaching.

Which leads us this morning to our application. In this case, our text is best understood in one large chunk, so let’s do just that:

Application

In 2 Timothy 2:14-26, Paul is calling Timothy to be a worker that’s approved by God. In this text, the primary means of Timothy showing himself as a worker approved by God is in the way that he handles God’s Word and in the way that he deals with false teaching and false teachers. Now, this is, of course, primarily directed towards those that teach and preach God’s Word publically and it is, of course, primarily directed towards those who are elders within the local church, but that doesn’t absolve the regular, everyday Christian and church attender of any sort of responsibility concerning this. In fact, I would argue that the same principles given to Timothy really apply to everyone in this room who claims genuine belief in Jesus Christ. There are really two applications that come out of this text:

Resist False Teaching and False Teachers (14, 16-26) — this idea of resisting false teaching and false teachers is the primary point of the text. In Ephesus, there was a significant problem with false teachings coming out of the worship of idols and false gods that not just infiltrated the church, but warped the church’s doctrine.

In first century Ephesus, there were issues including the idolatrous worship of Diana (also known as Artemis), there was worship of the emperor; and then there were those who were trying to integrate false ideas into the church like the Judaizers, the gnostics, and people like Hymeneus and Philetus.

Paul doesn’t go into too many details as to what exactly the false teachings in Ephesus were, but knowing that this is what was going on in the first century within and outside of the church gives us a fairly decent understanding of what all these false teachings could include.

The worship of Artemis involved significant adultery and fornication. The worship of the emperor was a literal worship of Caesar as a god. The Judaizers were saying that you become a Christian not just through faith in Jesus, but also by following the Old Testament Law. The gnostics were saying that believing in Jesus is ok, but there’s special knowledge that you could have if you follow us. Hymeneus and Philetus were teaching that Jesus had already made his second return.

All of these false ideas were infiltrating the church at least a little and it’s actually rather interesting, but we have very similar ideas that attack the church all the time.

In the modern church, in the United States—we don’t necessarily have the exact same issues, but we have issues within the same vein. So, for instance,

We don’t necessarily have an Artemis cult that worships through adultery and fornication, but we do have those that think church is all about themselves and how they feel—so regardless of whether they’re sinning or not, they choose to dig into their sin because it makes them feel good. If a local church is content to allow their people to continue in sin so that their people feel good, it isn’t a good church.

We would probably never say that we worship our politicians as gods, however, I think it’s abundantly clear that there are plenty of people within the church that have placed their hope and trust in politics rather than in Jesus. And, in doing so, they’ve elevated politics and politicians above God and have turned politics and politicians into an idol. If a local church is focused on politics rather than Jesus, then it isn’t a good church.

The first century had the Judaizers who were trying to tie salvation to the Old Testament Law. We have churches today that will tie salvation to legalistic ideology—meaning, unless you dress a certain way, listen to a certain style of music, or come to every church service, you can’t be saved. If a church says that you need to do anything beyond repenting from your sin and believing in Jesus for salvation, then it isn’t a good church.

The first century gnostics had an idea that you could get special knowledge by following them (by the way, this is what Scientologists believe). There are plenty of churches that do this, particularly when it comes to issues of the end times. They make it out to be that they’ve received some sort of special message from God and that you need to follow them to obtain that special knowledge. If a local church claims that they have additional knowledge beyond what Scripture tells us, then it isn’t a good church.

Probably the most dangerous false teaching that we have in the United States is that of the prosperity gospel, which has been propagated for decades by people like Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Todd White, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joseph Prince, and really just about 80% of the people you see on TBN. I could go on and on. And what they’ve done is that they’ve elevated prosperity, health, and wealth above the true Gospel message and thus, they’re really teaching an anti-Gospel message. It turns the message from being about Jesus to being about you.

The problem is that in the American church, most people don’t even see these issues as issues of false teaching and since a lot of these groups will claim to be Christians, they just accept what they’re saying, when the reality is that they’re teaching something different than what the Bible teaches.

The Bible warns against following our feelings and our emotions because our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things.

The Bible warns us against elevating political leaders to the status of idols because political leaders are simply human beings who are fallible and can sin and err.

The Bible warns against legalistic ideology because salvation is clearly through faith and grace alone, not based on our own works, but rather as a gift from God.

The Bible warns us against those who claim to have special knowledge and speak messages that tickle the ears. The goal is always to follow God’s Word, not man’s opinion.

The Bible warns us against the false teaching of the prosperity gospel by repeatedly telling us that life is filled with significant pain, suffering, and struggle.

We have to be clear when it comes to the truth; and we have to be clear when it comes to things that are false, but here’s the thing, you will never figure out what’s right and what’s wrong theologically, if you don’t stay clear from people who are clearly teaching false things.

And you will never figure out what’s right and what’s wrong theologically, if you continue to listen to, and read, and watch people who have been proven as false teachers—time and time again.

You need to firmly reject false teaching and false teachers—too many Christians get too close to the edge with false teaching. Stop playing with false teaching, it isn’t worth it—as soon as you realize it’s false, you need to reject it, you need to reject the false teacher, and you need to get your mind focused on what is true.

Which brings us to the second application. You need to learn to rightly interpret Scripture (15) — Part of the reason that false teachings spread so easily is because Christians are spiritually lazy.

That might offend you a little, but I think it’s necessary for you to know what I’m saying. The vast majority of Christians in the Western World are absolutely spiritual lazy.

They are content to not bother reading the Bible at home, they are content to not really labor in prayer at home, they are content to not really make any effort in their relationship with Jesus except for an hour and a half on Sunday and maybe an hour in the middle of the week at church.

And then when they get to church, they’re not really participating like Christians ought to in worship because they’re spiritually anemic and the only thing they can do is soak in the music that they like, listen to the preaching, and hear the prayers before they walk out and return to their spiritually lazy life.

Part of that issue has to do with how previous generations of pastors treated church—they treated church like it was a consumer product. You come here, you consume, and then you go home. Come back next week for more of the product. And thus, pastors didn’t really bother to teach people spiritual disciplines that would aid in their spiritual growth.

Part of this issue has to do with sin. Being spiritually lazy is a sin and it needs to be called out.

Because of this sin issue of spiritual laziness, the majority of Christians in the West have never bothered to learn how to read their Bibles, so on the rare chance that they actually read their Bibles, they don’t know how to read it, they can’t interpret it, and thus, to them, their Bible means only what it means to them.

I know this for a fact because when I was spiritually young, I did similar things—I didn’t understand how to read the Bible, so the few times that I would read the Bible, it would look like this: (1) I would pray for God to speak to me, then (2) I would open to a random page in the Bible, and (3) I would start reading from there.

Looking back, I realize how ridiculous doing that was. Would you do that with a novel? Or any sort of book for that matter?

It wasn’t until I started taking my faith really serious and I had a youth pastor and senior pastor in Ohio that took discipleship seriously that I started learning how Scripture ought to be interpreted.

It wasn’t until I stopped being spiritually lazy that I started to learn how to read my Bible and I started to learn how to interpret it properly.

Now, I will say, it takes a lot of effort to read the Bible properly and interpret it properly. Proper interpretation of the Bible, which is called biblical hermeneutics, requires effort and practice because you have to train your mind to treat Scripture as God’s Word and not like a magic eight-ball.

And I will say that there is a lot to be learned about biblical interpretation; and the primary way I can prove this is because Bible colleges and seminaries have multiple classes about this topic, but that doesn’t mean that the average Christian in church can’t learn to interpret Scripture properly.

All that means is that you will need to work on this and it means that I cannot give you a comprehensive understanding of biblical interpretation in that last few minutes of this message, but let me help you with a quick crash course in biblical interpretation:

First, when you read the Bible, don’t treat it like a magic eight-ball and turn to random pages. The Bible is a collection of 66 books. Read the whole book in context.

That means that when you read something in Scripture, don’t just read one verse, don’t just read one sentence—read the whole thought.

While you’re doing this, there’s two things in particular you need to keep in mind—(1) you need to keep grammar in mind and (2) you need to keep the historical context in mind—you need to make the effort to read the text as the original author intended to say it to the original audience.

Keep it in its immediate context (the verses around it), keep it in its book’s context (if it’s a psalm, read it like a psalm, if it’s an epistle, read it like and epistle, etc.), and keep it in the overall context of the Bible (the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, so if you read something in 1 Peter that seems like a contradiction to Romans, you’ve misunderstood, try again).

Context in biblical interpretation is king—until you understand the context, you cannot apply it to your life today because you don’t actually know what the text means.

Second, when you read the Bible, keep an eye on the Christological meaning of the text. The Bible is a collection of 66 books all pointing at Jesus. Read the whole Bible understanding that it has something to do with Jesus—whether it points to Jesus, speaks about Jesus, or reminds us of Jesus.

That means that when you read something in Scripture, if you don’t understand how the passage connects to the Bible’s overall storyline of the Gospel, then you don’t understand the passage.

This also means that when you read something in Scripture, it’s ultimately not about you—it’s always about Jesus.

And third, when you read the Bible, you always want to practice what’s called exegesis. Exegesis is the idea that you are trying to understand the passage and draw its meaning from itself. It’s opposite is called eisegesis, and eisegesis is when you read Scripture and you make it say what you want it to say.

The primary way that you can check whether you’re practicing eisegesis or exegesis is by asking a question—am I trying to figure out what the original author said to the original audience or am I trying to figure out what this text means to me?

If you’re trying to figure out what the original author intended to say to the original audience, you’re exegeting. If you’re trying to figure out what the text means to you, you’re eisegeting.

Eisegesis will almost always lead you the wrong direction (I say almost always because there’s a slim chance that you might get it right). Exegesis will always point you towards a contextual, Christological view of the passage.

Now, I can give you other resources if you want more help in interpreting Scripture, but these concepts will help get you started—keep it in context, keep it Christological, and never read your own ideas into the Bible, always try to get what Scripture intends to say.

You, as a Christian, need to learn how to interpret the Bible properly—you need to learn how to read Scripture in way that you learn what the original author intended to say to the original audience before you try to apply it to your life. You need to learn how to see all of the Bible for what it is, a book that points to Jesus and His Kingdom.

Only then can you be a worker approved by God.

Only then can you actually hear and see and read false teaching and understand that it is false. You need to learn how to understand the Bible so that when you hear things that are false, you don’t fall into it, you reject it and you reject false teachers.

Put simply, what 2 Timothy 2:14-28 teaches is two-fold: (1) you need to become a worker approved by God—this happens when you learn to interpret the Bible how it was meant to be interpreted (with a grammatical-historical understanding that accounts for its context); and (2) you need to boldly and firmly reject false teaching and false teachers.

Become a worker approved by God by learning how to read your Bible and interpret it properly. Get prepared to defend the truth from false teaching and false teachers.

Pastoral Prayer