“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16). Most of us already know this scripture and undoubtedly have heard more than one sermon dealing with it over the years, but today I want to concentrate on only the first word. The word, of course, is “all,” and I think it lays the foundation for the importance of God’s word to the reader.
Not long ago, I came across this quotation from a preacher on social media, “Christians are not expected to believe what we believe based on a collection of manuscripts written by men who never met each other over the course of hundreds of years in a time when everybody was superstitious, and everyone believed in the gods and here was not modern science….” Honestly, I had to listen to it more than once because I thought I had missed the context somehow, but sadly, I had not. I decided to look and see if this was an isolated case of a preacher deluded by wrong thoughts, but again, sadly, it was not.
Here is another quote from another preacher, “If we need to consult an ancient book to know what to do when a human is in front of us, I think we are screwed already.” These men stand in front of a congregation of people and quite literally insult the Word of God, but they are not the only ones to do so. There are even Christians who say something similar, if not as inclusive of all scriptures as the preachers mentioned above (although I hesitate to call the latter “preachers.”) Many Christians are quick to dismiss the Old Testament as a collection of meaningless old myths and tales that have no bearing our lives today, but that is simply not the case.
They claim that Jesus set us free from the burden of the Old Testament laws, but they are shortsighted. In support of their case, they will quote Col. 2:14, “…by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” While it is true that Jesus did free us from the OT laws, dismissing it as having no value discredits the hundreds of lessons available to us.
In NT Greek, the first word of 2 Tim. 3:16 is “pasa,” which means “all” or “total,” and certainly not “select,” “some,” or “none.” In fact, Paul will say precisely that in Rom. 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Who reads Genesis and does not see the value of its contents? Does it not give us a detailed history of the creation of the universe? That is one of the most important lessons to learn from the OT because, without it, we only have the deluded ramblings of people like Darwin, who believed that our distant grandparents were monkeys. What would verses like 1 Cor. 10:6-10 mean without the context of the Old Testament, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10. nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer
What does John 1:1-3 mean without Gen. 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” What would the NT mean without the plethora of OT references witnessing to its credibility by means of fulfilled prophecies? And what lessons do we learn from Psalms and Proverbs? Is there not much to learn from scriptures like Pro. 1:7-9, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8. Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, 9. for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”
Of course, we were freed from the Burdensome laws of the OT, and we are ever thankful for the sacrifice of our Lord whose death provided us that freedom, but dismissing the OT as useless information is clearly shortsighted in every possible way. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and the NT is invaluable for our salvation, but reading all of scripture provides history, context, witness, and many valuable lessons to live our lives by.
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