TODAY’S SCRIPTURE 2 Timothy 3:14-17
“When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” Those words were used in television commercials in the 1980s for E. F. Hutton & Co., a powerful stock brokerage firm. The idea was that Hutton was highly respected in his field, and people would hush to hear every word he spoke.
When God speaks, He wants His people to listen. His qualifications are evident, and His authority is apparent. He “speaks by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6), creates beautiful things, and gives meaning to life as its author.
When God’s Words are written down, the process is often called inspiration. Inspiration is the process of God’s guidance through His Spirit, leading to a text that expresses His mind in a given context for His people. Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” This means that the reader encounters what God spoke.
God guided His people to write the Bible as a sweeping narrative. It is important to understand that the Bible has a plotline that extends from the beginning of creation to the return of Christ. So, God inspired His people to record His words so His truth would be available throughout history.
God inspired His Word for a reason. Those words “are able to make you wise for salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). So, it is designed for salvation. Inspiration is the movement of God in a text so that through that text a person might be saved.
Paul records what God’s Word does to a reader: It is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (vs. 16). It gives teaching God wants known. It tells what a person is doing wrong. It corrects on how to live right again. And it gives God’s standards for living in His will. What inspiration is really all about is transformation of the reader to be more like Christ. It moves the reader from selfishness to the will of God.
Today, I will…read 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and ask, “Does my life revolve around my will or Thy will?”