“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.”
(2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Sometimes, reading the Bible is an adventure in missing the point. 2 Timothy 3 has been a favorite passage of mine for years, but my focus has always been on those first four words; “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Now, I can make a good argument for why the focus ought to be on those words. After all, the inspiration of Scripture is of critical importance, and scholars wrestle with the meaning of almost every word in this clause. But if that remains our sole focus, we will miss the whole point of the verse. See, the point of the verse is not found in the first four words, but rather on those two small words that appear almost in the middle of the verse–the words, “so that.” Everything turns on those two words; and if we miss them, we miss the whole point. Contrary to what I grew up believing, Paul did not write this verse to talk about inspiration, but rather to communicate the clear purpose of the Bible. And that purpose is not so that we can know the Bible or master any exam on doctrine or recite Bible verses at will. The whole purpose is to train us so that we can live out God’s redemption. Instead of giving us information or healing us of our morning doldrums with an encouraging verse of the day, the Bible’s purpose is to teach us, rebuke us, correct us and train us in righteousness so that we may be “thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Bible’s purpose is not to inform us about God’s activity in the world, but to form us into the type of people God wants us to be. Jesus said it this way (Luke 6:46): “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” And here is the real kicker: If we aren’t growing in righteousness, then we aren’t reading the Bible properly.
Scot McKnight summarizes Paul’s point with two short maxims. He writes:
- “If you are doing good works, you are reading the Bible aright.”
- “If you are not doing good works, you are not reading the Bible aright.”
In other words, if we read the Bible and can explain all the mysteries of inspiration and can properly outline all of Paul’s theology and name each and every king of Israel and Judah, but aren’t living out God’s righteousness in everything we do, we have failed to read the Bible aright. We’ve misinterpreted the whole thing. How is that possible? Because the Bible is not given to us to teach us biblical facts. It is given to us to lead us into a relationship with God. And in that relationship, we hear God’s voice in the Bible; and as we listen to his voice, we grow wise so that we may know what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus in everything we do. Again, the Bible is given to us not to inform us about our past or future, but to transform us into the image of Jesus as we interact with it with our head, heart and hands. And this is possible because the Spirit who inspired these words as they were written is present with us as we read so that these pages become God’s living voice to us. Martin Luther said it this way: “The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold on me.” But Justin Peters did him one better. He wrote: “Want to hear God speak? Read your Bible. Want to hear God speak audibly? Read your Bible out loud!”
Now, we must be careful here that we don’t misconstrue what Paul is saying here. When Paul talks about “training in righteousness,” he is not introducing a series of commands that we are to unthinkingly obey. There are no hints of moralism or legalism here. Instead, he is calling us to live in “Jesus’ righteousness,” or more simply, to live in light of the greatest commandment: To love God and to love others.
Sadly, I didn’t grow up reading Augustine, but I wish I had. It would have saved me from a lot of misadventures of missing the point and (hopefully) would have driven me to focus on the “so that” parts of Scripture rather than the “Now, I know that” approach that I have mastered. In any case, in his book, On Christian Doctrine, Augustine underscored the need, not just to read the Bible, but to read it so that we can live it out. Augustine wrote (and this throws cold water on me and my commitment to get to the right interpretation above all else): “Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” And then he adds: “So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.” If you misunderstand what the author wrote, but you are compelled to love God more deeply and love others more richly, then you have done extremely well. But if you understand the author’s intent perfectly, but fail to move from the text to loving God and loving others, you have failed miserably. As I said, reading the Bible is often an adventure in missing the point (at least it has been for me).
If we are going to follow Jesus, we will need to open our hearts to God’s Word and invest ourselves in studying it–not to master it, but to allow us to be mastered by it. We need to read each word with the intent that, whatever it intends, we will seek to put it into practice in a way that demonstrates our love for God and our love for others. Kierkegaard was absolutely right when he said, “Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but rather a life to be lived.” See, it is all about the “so that.” And without the “so that,” our Bible reading is as bad as all that. Here’s the bottom line: We need to read to love God and love others. And that’s that.
