What Does All Scripture Is God Breathed Mean? Part Four
Remember, we are seeking to understand in context the meaning of all Scripture is God-breathed.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 says,
All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
In Parts 1-3, I have attempted to provide the historical background of 2 Timothy so we can understand what Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy that all Scripture is God-breathed.
Let’s pick up in 2 Timothy 3.
It is important to know that before Paul began writing the verses contained in 2 Timothy 3, in previous verses he was addressing false teachers who opposed the truth of the gospel. Paul hoped through the kind and gentle teaching of Timothy, whom these false teachers opposed, the false teachers could see the truth of the gospel of grace (the word of truth) and escape the control of the devil who had taken them captive, using them to speak against the message of righteousness by grace (grace is Jesus taking our sinfulness on the cross and freely offering us his righteousness as a gift – see Romans 3:21-25) through faith in Jesus apart from works.
In 2 Timothy 3:8-9, Paul writes about the false teachers opposing Timothy and the truth of the gospel of grace. Paul writes to Timothy,
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
Paul writes about Jannes and Jambres, two men from Jewish tradition and history who Timothy would have known about. These two men, though not mentioned in the Jewish Scriptures, were widely known among Jewish people as two men who opposed Moses.
Based upon Jewish written history and oral tradition, these two men were Pharaoh’s magicians who opposed Moses. Jewish tradition says these two men called for the killing of the male Jewish children, which prompted Moses’ mother to place Moses in a basket to spare his life. They were also known as the magicians that opposed Moses when going before Pharaoh to convince Pharaoh to free the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery.
Finally, according to Jewish tradition, Jannes and Jambres are believed to have persuaded the Jewish people to make and worship the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the law. It is said they escaped Egypt by blending in with the Jewish people, eventually leading them to rebel against Moses’ leadership.
By comparing the false teachers infiltrating the church in Ephesus to Jannes and Jambres, Paul was telling Timothy that just as these two men opposed Moses and the giving of the law, the false teachers were now opposing the message of Jesus and the gospel of grace. Additionally, the false teachers were denying that Jesus was the Christ descended from David (Jewish Scripture says the Christ would come from the line of David and would rise from the dead), as Paul taught (see 2 Timothy 2:8; see also Romans 1:1-5; 16-17).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:10-13, contrasted himself with the false teachers in Ephesus who opposed the teaching about Jesus being the Christ, his work of grace on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. Paul suffered for teaching these truths.
Paul wrote to Timothy telling him that he (Timothy) knew all about the persecution and suffering Paul endured in the cities of Galatia (Antioch, Iconium and Lystra – see 2 Timothy 3:11 and Acts 13-14 – Timothy was from Lystra – Acts 16:1) as he shared the good news about Jesus being the Christ, his death, and his resurrection. In these Galatian cities, once Paul established the identity of Jesus as the Christ using the Jewish Scriptures, he exhorted people to believe in Jesus for justification (forgiveness, righteousness, salvation, eternal life), which many Gentiles and a few Jews did (Acts 13:14-52).
This message of Jesus being the Christ and the message of believing in or having faith in Jesus for righteousness was opposed greatly by the Jewish leaders in the Galatian cities (Acts 13-14). It was now being opposed by Jewish teachers in Ephesus, which is the reason Paul sent Timothy to Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3-7).
The minds and teachings of the false teachers were under the control of the devil (2 Timothy 2:25-26), much like the Pharisees and teachers of the law who opposed Jesus as the Christ, prompting Jesus to call them the offspring of the devil (John 8:44). The false teachers were deceiving people by convincing them to reject Jesus as the Christ and to reject the message that righteousness comes by grace (Jesus taking our sinfulness at the cross and freely offering us his righteousness as a gift) through faith in Jesus.
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:10-15, exhorted Timothy to not be like the false teachers who were deceiving people in Ephesus. Rather, Paul exhorted Timothy to continue in what he had learned from Paul about Jesus and the gospel of grace (2 Timothy 1:13), as well as what he had learned in infancy from his mother Eunice (Paul mentions Eunice in Acts 16:1) and grandmother Lois (2 Timothy 1:5).
Timothy’s mother and grandmother taught him from the Jewish Scriptures about the coming of the Christ through the line of David. From the Jewish Scriptures, they taught him salvation would come through the Christ (2 Timothy 3:14-15).
Paul taught Eunice, Lois (Acts 16:1), and Timothy that the Christ is Jesus, and through faith in Jesus, forgiveness and righteousness is received (we see Paul’s message of justification in Acts 13:14-39; see also the message of the purification of heart through faith in Jesus and salvation through faith in Jesus, Acts 15:9-11, which Paul also taught in Galatia - Acts 16:1-6).
After Paul writes to Timothy about continuing in what he (Timothy) had learned from his mother and grandmother from the Jewish Scriptures about salvation through the Christ, and after learning from Paul the Christ is Jesus, and through faith in Jesus one receives forgiveness of sins and righteousness (justification and eternal life), he then writes the following to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
In Part Five, we will examine what Paul meant when he wrote those words to Timothy.
Click Below For Part Five.
