Every word breathed out by God

Introduction

I am going to speak to us this morning about “Every word breathed out by God”.

I’m going to start with you by sharing the story of Dr. William Evans.

Dr. William Evans, who pastored College Church from 1906–1909, was an unusually accomplished man. He had the entire King James Version of the Bible memorized as well as the New Testament of the American Standard Version. Dr. Evans also authored over fifty books. His son, Louis, became one of the best-known preachers in America and for many years pastored the eminent First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. When Dr. William Evans retired, he moved to Hollywood to be near his son, and when Louis was away he would substitute for him.

One unforgettable Sunday Dr. William, as he was affectionately called, spoke on the virgin birth. All were amazed when he raised his Bible and tore out the pages that narrate the birth of the Lord. As the tattered scraps floated down toward the congregation, he shouted, “If we can’t believe in the virgin birth, let’s tear it out of the Bible!” And then as he drove home his point, he tore out the resurrection chapters, then the miracle narratives, then anything conveying the supernatural. The floor was littered with mutilated pages.

Finally, with immense drama he held up the only remaining portion and said, “And this is all we have left—the Sermon on the Mount. And that has no authority for me if a divine Christ didn’t preach it.” After a few more words, he asked his listeners to bow for the benediction. But before he could pray, a man in that vast and sedate congregation stood and cried, “No, no! Go on! We want more!” Several others joined in. So Dr. Evans preached for another fifty minutes.

Do you have the same appetite for the word that, that congregation had that day? Do you have an appetite that says that the words of this book are so precious, so beautiful, so life giving that I would beg to hear more of them?

St Timothy

One of our readings this mornings this morning was taken from 2 Timothy

As you know this is the second letter which the apostle Paul wrote to his mentee and friend Timothy - a young priest.

The letter is very general in it’s content.

Paul is most likely aware that he is soon to be executed and some regard this Letter as St paul’s final will and testament. The content of the letter is mostly pastoral and encouraging.

Paul knows that Timothy has the weighty task of preaching the word of God, to the second generation of Christians. In a time when heresy in the church is spreading.

Paul however doesn’t like to focus too much on the negatives and so most of this letter is speaking light into that situation and he does this by putting at the forefront the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

Just before what we heard this morning Paul says in vv12 and 13

English Standard Version Chapter 3

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

It’s a strong warning to Timothy

That he is going to be battling in his ministry against false preachers, false teachers

The New International Version Chapter 3

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures,

It’s going to be tough out there Timothy BUT… continue in what you have learned and become convinced of (that’s the gospel of Jesus).

Continue in what you have learned about Jesus why?

What is the reason Paul is going to appeal to here.

I think it is somewhat surprising.

The reason ultimately as he goes on to say

The New International Version Chapter 3

Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

So the reason is ultimately Jesus

But I find the route Paul get’s there to be interesting

The New International Version Chapter 3

because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures

Timothy had 3 amazing Bible teachers in his life

The first two were his mother, Lois and his Grandmother, Eunice.

Timothy was raised and taught the scriptures by these two amazing women. The final of this 3 is of course the apostle Paul who came and preached Jesus to Timothy

The foundation he had in the Old Testament when he was able to see and be convinced that Jesus is the fulfilment of the messianic promise.

But Paul isn’t just appealing to the context of Timothy’s knowledge but to the character of those who taught him.

It wasn’t simply that Lois, Eunice and Paul were good teachers. They were faithful to God. Paul is appealing in this way Remember who taught you these things not just anyone but people who you love, people who you trust, people who lived these things out. Your mum, your grandmother and me your closest friend.

Scriputre

So what does Paul have to say of scripture to timothy.

Well as I quoted earlier

English Standard Version Chapter 3

which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

We started with Dr William tearing the pages from the bible

“And this is all we have left—the Sermon on the Mount. And that has no authority for me if a divine Christ didn’t preach it.”

The first purpose of scripture is so we can know the person of Jesus and Christ be saved from our fallen and sinful nature and be brought into everlasting life.

The bible contains all sorts of things - from the 10 commandments to the sermon on the mount. But don’t reduce it down to simply a book of morals.

Every word of this book is pointing you aligning you to Jesus Christ.

If Jesus wasn’t born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem and crucified and raised in Jerusalem. I don’t want the sermon on the mount.

The life, death and ressurection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith without it the 10 commandments are simply a dead list of morals. Without the ressurection of Jesus the prodigal son is the ramblings of another dead rabbi

Without the ressurection of Jesus none of us can be saved. Thanks be to God that he lives. Because he lives and reigns all that come to him can have confidence that he saves and redeems and restores. Come to him

AND the only reliable place where we can know this… is in the scriptures.

This is a foundational Christian belief and it is also a foundational anglican belief. The anglican church is a bible based church...

The sixth article of our anglican doctrine is this

“HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”

Paul Continues

The New International Version Chapter 3

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God p may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So what does Paul mean by “all scripture”?

Well let’s start with what is most obvious.

The New Testament doesn’t fully exist yet - clearly Paul is still writing it.

So obviously means the entire Old Testament.

Paul writing to Timothy in his first letter says this

1 Timothy 5:18 ESV

For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

The first quote do not muzzle an ox - that’s from the book of deuteronomy

But “the worker deserves his wages”. Who said that?

Jesus

Now clear that can’t be an Old Tesament quote. That is the gospel of Luke

Let me read what Paul said again

1 Timothy 5:18 ESV

For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

Paul considers a verse from Deuteronomy scripture no one would have disputed that but amazingly he includes the words of Jesus as recorded by Luke just as much scripture as the Law of Moses

Elsewhere St Peter says

2 Peter 3:15–16 ESV

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

So Paul considers Luke’s writing to be scripture. Peter considers Paul’s writing to be scripture.

When Paul says “all scripture” it is safe to assume he means “all scripture”. Old and New Testament.

Let’s read on

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Breather out by God

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—To Guard the Deposit Continue in the Gospel Because of What Scripture is (vv. 16, 17)

You can hear the meaning in the transliteration of the Greek word Theopneustos (God-breathed—Theo = “God” and pneustos = “breath”). More literally, “All Scripture is breathed into by God.”

To say scripute is breathed into by God means that by a holy mystery the words on the page though written down by Paul, Peter, Luke or Moses are actually God’s words.

Are these Paul’s words? Yes

Are they God’s words? Also yes

As D A Carson would say: Both are true one is more profound.

That’s why you can rely on this book.

Every word of this book are intended to be there by God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Thats why it’s the only book which we can truly rely on. It’s only book we can trust for the knowledge for how to build our lives because ultimately in this book we get to read of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said this

Luke 9:26 NIV

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

You can’t have Jesus without his word.

Preach

Knowing that scripture is so glorious, so wonderful, so powerful.

Paul tells this young priest Timothy to do the next logical thing - Preach

2 Timothy 4:1–5 ESV

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

We live in a time of itching ears, inside and out side the church

We live in a time where people want to write their own bibles take out the bits they don’t like and add their own doctrines which they do.

What is God’s solution to this? Preaching. Solid biblical preachers.

Some people say to me I don’t like sermons, why do we have to have sermons?

Or perhaps they say “i don’t like YOUR sermons”

Preaching is fundamentally flawed if you think about it. This isn’t a good way to communicate. A one way short talk once a week.

However, preaching is a beautiful God ordained thing. The theologian Michael Horton calls preaching a sacrament. Just as we take ordinary bread and wine and God uses them in the most extraordinary and profound way so to as he ordained the ministry of preaching.

The he can take my ignorant, poorly formed words and use them in such a way that souls get saved, that lives can be transformed.

Paul finished his letter with commending Timothy to preach in and out of season.

I want to finish by commending to you that you pray that God would raise up a generation of bible believing, truth expounding preachers. To feed that hunger and thirst that I spoke about at the beginning

I pray we will see Bible teachers like Paul and Timothy, like Lois and Eunice.

One of the greatest bible teachers of all time was the reformer, John Calvin...

T. H. L. Parker, commenting on the content of Calvin’s preaching, “On Sunday he took always the New Testament, except for a few Psalms on Sunday afternoon. During the week … it was always the Old Testament.”7 He took five years to complete the book of Acts. He preached forty-six sermons on Thessalonians, 186 on Corinthians, eighty-six on the Pastorals, forty-three on Galatians, forty-eight on Ephesians. He spent five years on his harmony of the Gospels. That was just his Sunday work! During the weekdays in those five years he preached 159 sermons on Job, 200 on Deuteronomy, 353 on Isaiah, and 123 on Genesis.

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—To Guard the Deposit Continue in the Gospel Because of What Scripture is (vv. 16, 17)

All this because of what Calvin believed about the Bible. He believed that the whole of Scripture was the Word of God and must be mined by exposition. “We must not pick and cull the Scriptures to please our own fancy, but must receive the whole without exception,” wrote Calvin.

So may you have a hunger and a thirst for the word of God, may you believe that the bible is God’s breathed word, the only reliable way to know Jesus Christ and may you pray that in this time of itching ears God would raise up an army of preachers like Paul, Timothy, Lois, Eunice and John Calvin. Amen.