The sermon preached at the Annual General Meeting on 14th June 2003 by the Rev. John Thackway. 

‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works’ (2 Timothy 3.16-17).

Let us turn to 2 Timothy 3. Paul and Timothy enjoyed a very special bond. Their hearts were knit together when they met at Lystra during Paul’s missionary travels. As the years went by, the spiritual union deepened and they were like father and son. Looking at the history of these things, it is clear that the Lord ordered this. Timothy was meant for Paul. Nurtured by a Jewish grandmother and mother he was ripe for converting grace when Paul first preached the Gospel at Lystra. By the time the Apostle was back in these parts two years later, Timothy was well reported of by the brethren. Paul, needing a replacement for John Mark, took Timothy as his understudy, and he was one of the Lord’s best gifts to Paul. More than a son in the faith, he was like a human son.

Paul was also meant for Timothy. The young man, lacking a Godly father figure at home, found in Paul that figure and the best influence to help him with his shy, timid, and oversensitive nature. Paul entrusted his young delegate with a number of special missions and Timothy grew in experience. He was to carry on the work when Paul departed—a daunting thing for a man with Timothy’s disposition, yet this was an excellent preparation for him.

These facts explain much of the content of 1 and 2 Timothy. In them we read Paul exhorting Timothy to be strong in the Lord, to remain unashamed and steadfast in the faith and to have full confidence in the Word of God. Here in 2 Timothy 3 we have examples of that, particularly in the well-known words of verses 16 and 17, ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works’. Now, what is this Bible that Timothy would have had when Paul was no more? What is this Bible that we, as supporters of the Trinitarian Bible Society, believe in and support, that we endeavour to circulate in this country and into all the world, this Authorised Version, with its preserved texts and the best translation into English? What is this Bible? I want us to answer that question from these two verses here, 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17.

Let’s look first of all, dear friends, at the origin of this Bible: ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God’. Then we will look at the benefit of this Bible: ‘and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’. Thirdly, we will examine the consequence of having this Bible: ‘that the man of God may be perfect’.

The Origin of the Bible

God originated the Bible: ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God’. It would be important for Timothy to be assured that what he trusts in for his own strength and what he declares to others really is the Word of God. Here we are told first of all, that the Bible originates in God; it was ‘given by inspiration of God’. Theopneustos: one word in the Greek which literally means ‘breathed out by God’. This one word declares that Scripture emanates from God. It is an extension of God. A man speaks, his words flow out on his breath; God has spoken, God has breathed out His complete Word. Now it was exactly like that, the Scripture tells us, when God made all things at the beginning. Psalm 33.6 says, ‘By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth’.

Here is an important parallel. The same God who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning has created a Bible for us. As surely as ‘by the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth’, so also by the Word of the Lord was the Bible made and all the books of it by the breath of His mouth. This is saying that creation and Scripture have the same Author because both creation and Scripture are about revelation. In creation we have general revelation or natural revelation and in Scripture, special revelation. God has given us both, that by these we might know Him. In creation we have the impress of Almighty God everywhere, and in Scripture we have the spoken and then the recorded details, including the record of His dear Son. God originated the Bible. ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God’.

Now we can go further and say that God also wrote the Bible: all scripture or ‘writing’. For this to have been literally so, God would have had to produce the Scriptures as He produced the Ten Commandments, written with the finger of God. Of course, we know He did not do that although He did it with the Decalogue. But God did something which came really to the same thing. God used selected men as scribes to produce what He would have written if He had been using the writing instrument Himself. These human authors were the penmen of God, and in that sense God wrote the Bible.

Inspiration

We use the word inspiration to describe that process: the breath of God, God the Holy Spirit coming upon specially prepared and chosen men. In 2 Peter 1.21 it says He acted through these men to write His Word, not by the will of man: ‘but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’. It should never cease to amaze us, the marvel and the miracle of the way that God the Holy Spirit worked through these men, causing them to write down the very words He wanted them to write just as surely as if their writing implements were in His own hand, ‘not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth’ (1 Corinthians 2.13). It was the Lord revealing and dictating His Truth and the men writing it down according to their individual writing styles.

This was not a mechanical thing, it was an organic thing. The Lord directed them to write exactly what He wanted them to write and yet they were free enough to express this God-given truth in their own particular and individual styles. We read, for instance, that ‘the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake’ (Acts 1.16), and yet David said the words. Thus you see that God was the writer in effect and yet David was the one who expressed it in his own form, different from the writing styles of the other authors of the Bible, and this produced Scripture. Such a marvellous, seamless interface between the Sovereign work of God and the very real work of His chosen penmen produced Scripture. It was not simply that the men were inspired, but their writings were inspired. Thus Scripture is Divine and Divinely-authoritative. So God wrote the Bible, the Scriptures.

Let’s see one further thing here. God gave the entire Bible: all Scripture. Now it could be argued that all this verse means is the entire Old Testament because, if you go back to verse 15, Paul reminds Timothy ‘that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus’. It is very likely that this refers to the Old Testament Scriptures that were part of Timothy’s nurturing. Therefore, some say Paul cannot be referring to the New Testament as well when he says ‘all scripture’.

An answer to this was pointed out by B. B. Warfield. It is not the extent of Scripture in verse 16 that is being referred to, but the nature of Scripture. We have seen that Scripture has God for its Originator and God for the One who instrumentally wrote it down. If the New Testament could be termed ‘Scripture’, then it would qualify to be included in this ‘all scripture ... given by inspiration of God’. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is called Scripture in this sense. If you turn to 1 Timothy 5.18, you find Paul writing to his young friend concerning the material support of the elders in the churches; ‘for the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward’. Both these are called ‘Scripture’. The first, ‘thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’, is from Deuteronomy 25.4. But when he goes on to say that ‘the labourer is worthy of his reward’, he is quoting our Lord’s words from Luke 10.7 in the New Testament. So, as far as Paul is concerned, the New Testament qualifies as being Scripture as surely as the Old Testament.

Another passage is 2 Peter 3.16. Here Peter refers to the Apostle Paul’s letters: ‘As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction’. Peter sees Paul’s writings as ‘Scripture’ along with the Old Testament. It seems quite clear that when the Apostle writes ‘all scripture’, he is including the emerging New Testament in that term; in fact, most of the New Testament Scriptures were written by this time. So God gave the entire Bible.

Putting these things together, we have no reason to rationalise and try to explain how it was that God actually brought the Scriptures into being through human penmen. Neither do we have anything to do with degrees of inspiration, to suggest that the writers were inspired but the actual Scriptures they produced were not. ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God’: we believe in the Bible’s own doctrine of inspiration: verbal, every word, plenary, full and complete. It is as Dean Burgon once said,

The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it is the direct utterance of the Most High ... The Bible is none other than the Word of God. There is not some part of it that is more, some part of it less, inspired, but all are alike the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the throne: absolute, faultless, unerring, supreme.¹

Thank God for the origin of this Bible! We trace it up to Him Who is in heaven, the God of Truth who has given the Word of Truth.

The Benefit of the Bible

Let us look secondly at the Bible’s benefit: ‘and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness’. Now God has given us His Word to do us good. Here is the truth of the inspiration and authority of Scripture applied to us, and woe betide us if we only hold this as a doctrine. Woe betide us if we only support the Trinitarian Bible Society because it circulates our favourite Bible version and little more. God in giving us His Word intends that what we believe about this Word is applied to our hearts and applied to our lives, and that it transforms us by the renewing of our minds to prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (cf. Romans 12.2).

Profitable for doctrine

Let us see now something of the application. The Bible is ‘profitable for doctrine’. The essence of the Reformation, the essence of Protestantism, is teaching, and teaching from one source, the Scripture of Truth. Real religion is knowing and feeling the things that are in Holy Writ. Rabbi Duncan said that the Bible is the great medium through which we know God on earth. As we grow in grace as Christians we find that the teachings of the Bible, all the various doctrines in it, are almost like piecing together the parts of a jigsaw puzzle. We commence the Christian life and experience knowing a little, and as we grow, more pieces are fitted in and we have fuller, clearer views of truth. Before long the scheme of things becomes clearer and clearer, but even now, with many of us, those who are most elderly among us would say that we are still receiving more light and more truth from the Word, still fitting pieces into place, the whole picture becoming still clearer and clearer. As the blessed Spirit teaches us, so these precious truths are illumined and become more and more delightful to us: ‘profitable for doctrine’. If we bring a teachable spirit, a tender heart and a submissive will to this Book, we will be taught of the Lord. It informs our faith, it enriches our knowing God and it promotes our growth in grace.

Thank God if we can say here this afternoon that we belong to a church from whose pulpit goes forth the pure Word of God in its doctrine as we delight to hear it proclaimed to us. Sadly, not all Christians these days are so convinced about the need of belonging to a church and sitting under a godly ministry in order that they might receive the pure Word of God and nothing else. The story is told of a farmer who had a herd of very sleek and plump pigs and his success with rearing these pigs was renowned all over the place. He reckoned it was because he had the right feed in the trough, the best he could get. His practice was that, when feeding time came for the pigs, he would stand by the metal trough with a stick and crack, crack, crack on the side of the trough, and the pigs from all over the field would lift up their snouts and with squeals of delight would lumber over to the trough; in would go the snouts and they would eat greedily of this feed. So the pigs were so sleek and plump. Then some woodpeckers came to live in the dead trees in the field, making their rat-a-tat-tats on the wood. The outcome was that when the pigs heard the rat-a-tat of the woodpeckers, they thought it was the farmer’s crack, crack, crack on the feeding trough and so they made for the nearest dead tree only to find nothing there. They went to the next dead tree and there was nothing there and they spent all their time going from one dead tree to another so that they became lean and scrawny.

That is sadly the way with so many Christians. They go from one dead ministry to another; they don’t get the doctrine that builds them up and that feeds their souls and makes them strong in the Lord. They are impoverished; they are dealt with so unfaithfully and their trust is betrayed. Thank God if we can go to a church where we hear the man say to us, ‘I give you good doctrine’. If you do not go to such a church, make every effort to find one without delay because your soul needs the pure Word of God. It is profitable for doctrine; God has given it and entrusted it to the church and made it available to us. May we not despise this wonderful provision! I know that some people have to travel a long way to get to a place where there is a godly ministry and gracious, sound doctrine. It is worth the travelling. May God help us in these days and raise up many more preachers who will give good doctrine and not deprive the people of God!

Profitable for reproof

Timothy was to preach the Word like that, as Paul says in chapter 4.2: ‘be instant in season, out of season; reprove’. When was the last time that you heard a sermon in which God unmistakably put His finger on an area of your life? You knew it was reproof and you felt convicted, and when you got home you got alone with the Lord and repented of that thing which you have come to see now as sin. It was reproved and cleansed from your life, and grace and virtue were strengthened and promoted in you instead. Even this negative aspect of the Word is important; it is as a friend when it reproves. We should by grace esteem it so and respond accordingly. Thank God that we are exercised, we are convicted, things are shown up, the very secrets of our hearts are exposed by the Word. We are not allowed to be wholly comfortable under a sound and pastoral ministry, otherwise we would be blissfully unaware of the things that are wrong. The Lord in His kindness does not leave us like that, but instead He speaks to us in reproof.

God can use His Word for the reproof of unbelievers as well. We have some very good friends down in the county of Hampshire. These dear friends display TBS Scripture posters on the front and on the gable end of their chapel. Some years ago there was a little farm produce shop that was operating opposite the chapel. For many years it had not opened on the Lord’s Day. But the new owners decided to open it on the Lord’s Day. One of the Scripture posters on the front of this chapel facing this little shop read, ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy’. A little while afterwards, the shop shut on the Lord’s Day. About that time, the pastor was giving a lift to the owner of this shop. They happened to be talking about general things and the pastor asked why the shop no longer opened on the Lord’s Day. The owner admitted that it was because of that poster on the front of the chapel.

We should thank God for such evidences of how that He still reproves unbelievers today through His powerful Word. May God bless the TBS posters at railway stations and wherever the Word of God is displayed! The Bible is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword; it can restrain evil. It can also be, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, the means to reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. A single Scripture can be the Spirit’s Word to the unconverted; it has been the means of quickening that dead soul into life. It has benefit for reproof of Christians and non-Christians alike because it is the Word of Truth; it comes and deals with us in our need.

The Bible is for correction

Thirdly, the Bible is for ‘correction’, to reform us, to restore us to uprightness, to put us right: a more positive side. The Word breaking over us will smooth our rough edges, will straighten out our perversity and will mould us into the likeness of Jesus. It will produce a beautiful array of gracious fruits that will make the world sit up as the doctrine is adorned in our lives. We will never go wrong when we are being corrected by the Word.

Instruction in righteousness

Fourthly, it is profitable for ‘instruction in righteousness’. The word ‘instruction’ here is the same word which is found in Hebrews 12.5 regarding the chastening of the Lord. This instruction in righteousness is the same as the chastening of the Lord, or child-rearing and training. The Bible is what our heavenly Father uses to teach us, to reprove us and to correct us as His children. In Psalm 94.12 we read, ‘Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD’. How does He chasten us? ‘and teachest him out of thy law’. He brings us up to maturity by giving us the instruction we need, by nurturing us, by rearing us and helping us to grow. It is a very lovely thing when we hear our Father’s Word to help us to become His children in a more honouring way.

Again, turning to Hebrews 12.6, we find that there is not only the chastening—‘whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth’—but he ‘scourgeth every son whom he receiveth’.That second term, ‘scourgeth’, is a lot stronger than the chastening and means the blows of an instrument, a whip. What we are told is that the chastening of the Father by the Word comes to His children; this chastening is meant to help us to grow up and come to maturity and keep us in right ways. However, if that gentler application of chastening through the Word is resisted, then there comes the scourging which is far more severe and can be in the form of affliction, of adversity, of trouble upon trouble—things that will cause us pain and sorrow and suffering. It is quite a challenging thought that if the Word will not make us what the Lord calls us to be as His children, the actual rod of affliction will be used; by one or the other, the Lord will have His way in our lives. He loves us too much to allow us to be wayward, backsliding, lukewarm. If he speaks to us in His Word and we shut our ears, He may come down upon us with His rod to waken us and bring us back.

This is His great faithfulness; this is God loving us enough to take all these measures to do us good. This Word is profitable for instruction in righteousness, to prevent us knowing far harder dealings from the Lord. It is a blessed thing. Oh, let us heed the gentle discipline of His Word! May God drop it into our minds, melt our hearts through it, and cause our wills to be in submission so that we are changed and sanctified by this means! Oh, the use of the Bible—to teach us doctrine, to tell us when we are wrong in reproof, to put us right in correction and to nurture and to rear us up as His children, instructing us in righteousness!

The Consequence of Having the Bible

Let us see, lastly, the consequence of having the Bible. Verse 17 reads, ‘that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works’. This does not mean sinless perfection, of course, but it means that the Word has a perfecting effect upon us and fully equips us for everything that the Lord requires. This Word was all that Timothy would ever need, even when his spiritual father and leader Paul had departed from the scene. All Scripture would remain and eventually would supersede all the Apostles. So it is for us: all Scripture remains. The Word of God brings us to the God of the Word and it makes us Godly ourselves. Titus 1.1 calls this Word ‘the truth which is after godliness’. We are having less and less of the Bible these days, and that is why we prize the work of the Trinitarian Bible Society that keeps to the Authorised Version, the traditional texts, and the excellence of translation. What is happening today with this plethora of new English translations is that we are having less and less of the actual Bible. The text underlying modern New Testament translations gives us less of the New Testament by three per cent. The dynamic equivalence approach to translation means that the thoughts behind the words rather than the actual original words are considered, supposedly to make the meaning clearer; but thus we are one step away from a word-for-word translation from the original and man’s words are superimposed.

Less and less of the Bible seems to be being quoted because in the minds of the preacher or the teacher is the thought that ‘if I quote the Bible, I can’t be sure that I shall be quoting the very version that the hearer has got on her or his lap and is following’. So, perhaps for convenience sake, the Bible itself is not actually quoted and the listener is getting less and less of Bible quotations. It seems that preachers who use the NIV or other modern translations preach sermons which are not so filled with quotations of Scriptures. You do not get ‘Thus saith the Lord’.

That is a terrible loss; the Bible is being downplayed. We are losing quotations from Scripture. But when we keep to the Authorised Version, both preachers and hearers, there is that authentic ring which tells us it is the Bible that is being quoted. Thank God for the Authorised Version and for its circulation by the TBS because a reduced Bible will not produce men and women of God. Is it any wonder that the fall in Christian standards and the disappearance of real vital godliness from among us is commensurate with this upsurge and proliferation of these modern Bible translations? These things are taking away men and women of God from our midst. We need to have the Authorised Version maintained and restored and adhered to and preached and memorised and known and loved so that it goes into the warp and woof of our being and is lived out to the glory of God: our being perfected. This is much more than just a Bible versions issue; it has to do with godliness. It has much to do with a Bible that is verbally inspired and plenary in its inspiration, based upon the proper underlying texts and produced through true, exact equivalence translation.

The consequence then—‘the man of God’—who is made useful, perfect, ‘throughly furnished unto all good works’. Now that word ‘perfect’ and the phrase ‘throughly furnished’ come from the same root word which means limb or joint, and put together they mean fitted, complete, exactly right for the purpose. One of our elderly ladies in our congregation at Holywell thought she was going in for a replacement hip operation. She had fractured her femur high up, near the joint, while on holiday in Germany. She had to go to hospital there and the German surgeon put titanium pins in, making it right again. Eventually she came home, but when she saw the specialist in North Wales he said it would not last, that the pins would have to be taken out and the hip replaced. For a year she waited for this replacement hip operation. The very morning of the operation, after she was gowned and ready for surgery, the surgeon came and sat on the side of her bed. He said, ‘I am so very sorry, but these recent x-rays we have taken reveal that your fracture is knitted together and healed up completely, and you don’t need a replacement hip operation’. This dear lady now is walking on that leg just like with the other one. The wonderful thing is that it is fitted, complete, exactly right for the purpose: the joint has become knitted together and healed and strong. The Word of God helps us to become like that, enabled to walk in God’s ways and to be strong for whatever God calls us to do.

Scripture equips, motivates, and guides

Scripture equips us to serve God and serve others. It is blessed to us concerning ‘good works’; the Bible identifies these good works for us: ‘kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye’ (Colossians 3.12,13). It teaches us to use our homes for hospitality, our cars for giving lifts, some of our money for giving love gifts, our time for God’s church, our heart and hands for God’s saints and the dear friends who work for the Trinitarian Bible Society, that special calling, to help the work of the circulation of these precious Scriptures.

The Bible also motivates us to do these good works, teaching us that God’s glory is the overriding thing in all that we do. It does not matter about us, it is the glory of God that is the only thing that really matters. It strengthens us for these good works by teaching us to rely upon grace. Without Him we can do nothing, but ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me’ (Philippians 4.13). It comforts us in these good works through the promises in the Bible in that ‘God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister’(Hebrews 6.10). God will reward you, God will bless you, and on that day He will count everything that you have done unto others as done unto Christ. This will be your reward: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant’ (Matthew 25.21). When we go on our way wearily and are tempted perhaps to cease some of these works or do them in a mechanical way, in a perfunctory way, we are quickened by the thought that we are trusting in the promises and the good Word of God to keep us going because there is a blessed end to these things. God will give the reward and God will bless what we do. The Word exemplifies these good works as we think of our Saviour of whom we read in this Bible. He went about doing good and thus we pray, ‘Lord, help me to do my good works like the Lord Jesus did all His good works. Then my life and my work will not be in vain.’

The Bible is a guide for the believer that will never lead him astray, one that is sufficient even for today. It is hard to be a Christian in our day. It is hard to be a Bible-believing Christian in our day and it is hard to be an AV Bible-believing Christian in our day. So much of the tide and current is against us, not only in the world but in the churches as well. But the Lord knew exactly how things would be in our generation. When the Holy Spirit originated the Bible through His chosen penmen, He knew what conditions would be like today and He built into this Bible all that we need for our day. God has foreseen all that we would need. Here there is teaching, there are principles, there are promises; there are helps everywhere in this Bible to equip us sufficiently even for our day and for as long as this world lasts until our blessed Lord Jesus will come again.

The Bible will never fail us

This Bible will never fail us. We will never be left in the position whereby we say, ‘Oh, if only the Lord had been pleased to include something that could apply to this particular pressing modern problem’. It is all here, it is a sufficient Bible ‘that the man of God maybe perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works’. If this Bible needed to be supplemented in some way then we could not be men and women of God; it would not be perfect, we could not be perfected, we could not be ‘throughly furnished unto all good works’. Everything we need is in the Bible. When we sit under an adequate Bible ministry we feel satisfied that it speaks to us in our situation and there is something in it for us all to help us through. As surely as these good works were ‘before ordained that we should walk in them’ (Ephesians 2.10), so this Bible is ordained to help us to walk in these good works.

Let us contend for Scriptures’ Divine origin and for their benefit and for this blessed consequence. May the Lord own His Word among us today and to His Name be the praise and the glory! Amen.

First published in Quarterly Record 565. Edited for online publication, 31 May 2024. 

Endnote

¹ J. W. Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation: seven sermons preached before the University of Oxford … being an answer to the volume entitled ‘Essays and Reviews’ (Oxford and London, 1861).