“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.”
2Timothy 4:1-3
Dan M. is filling in for Pastor Dan this week.
If you been following along with last week’s devotion, I was attempting to lay a foundation for our confidence in the Word of God. A confidence that our enemy is constantly trying to undermine. Someone might say “all that is fine but what is meant by “all Scripture” in 2Timothy 3:16? That’s a valid question. Did Paul simply mean the Old Testament scripture? In verse 15 Paul tells Timothy, “that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures…” the word for Scriptures is “gramma” and is obviously a reference to the Old Testament. The word “Scriptures” in verse 16 is different than the word in verse 15. It is the word “graphe.” When Paul says “ALL Scripture” is verse 16 he is referring to the Old Testament scriptures plus additional writings. What are these additional writings? Previously in 1Timothy 5:18, Paul writes “For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.” He quotes two Scripture passages to back up his point. The first is from Deuteronomy 25:4 but the second quotation is from Luke 10:7. Paul is recognizing the inspiration of Luke’s writings and puts them on the same level with the Old Testament as authoritative. In 2Peter 3:15-16, Peter refers to Paul’s writings and includes them with “the rest of the Scriptures,” recognizing Paul’s writings as inspired by God. We are told by the uncircumcised of heart that these men had no idea that what they were writing would become the New Testament defined by men centuries later. This is simply not true. By calling certain writings “scripture” are they not automatically excluding all other writings as not scripture? These men recognized as they were writing that they were, as Peter puts it, “moved by the Holy Spirit,” 2Peter 1:21. By the same Holy Spirit they recognized each other’s writings as God breathed.At the risk of being technical I want us to see that with a New Covenant comes an expectation of a New Testament (the words “covenant” and “testament” are the same word in Greek). Therefore when Paul tells Timothy to “preach the Word” you not only means the writings of the Old Covenant which is able to make you wise unto salvation, but also the writings of the New Covenant, that is Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and who IS salvation. The New Testament is the perfect completion to the Old Testament expectation. All that we need to be convinced of, rebuked of, exhorted to and taught is bound up the 39 books of the Old Testament in the 27 books of the New.