Thinking Christianly

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

The Bible can do four things for everyone who reads and believes it. First, it will teach you: it is useful for teaching. The Bible will instruct your mind about things that no one, except God, knows anything about. It will tell you things about yourself that only God knows. Everybody wants to know these things. For instance, everyone wants to know what lies beyond death. People are hungry to know that lies beyond, asking Is this all there is?. The human mind has been questing in that area all through history. But there is only one Book that will tell you the answer to that question. It tells about One who came back from the grave and told us what is beyond. This Book is a reliable guide in areas we know nothing about.

Second, the Bible has the power to rebuke. The word is really convict. How many have had the experience of reading the Bible and becoming aware that something you had been doing all your life, something you did not think was wrong at all, was the reason why you yourself were hurting or were hurting others? The Bible suddenly made you aware that, in order to be free, you had to change, you had to commit yourself to a different direction. That is called conviction. The Bible has tremendous power to point out to us the areas of wrongdoing in our lives.

Third, the Bible never does this without correcting you and making you walk in ways that lead to life. The amazing testimony of this Book is that, when taken seriously, it leads people to freedom and to life; while those who engage in practices that this Book warns about are always led to degradation, to enslavement, to a narrowing and limiting of the joys and the beauties of existence. That is a marvelous record that is universally true.

Finally, the Bible is for training in righteousness. The Bible has the power to finely tune you, like a skillful coach, to enable you to walk day by day in a more righteous way. So the Bible is able to train us, to lead us along into ever-expanding experiences of righteous living.

All of this is for a purpose: so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17). This Book is sufficient to do this. It does not need psychology or philosophy. Although these things can supplement some of the things the Bible teaches, they can never replace it. The Bible does not need any of that in order to produce a man or woman who is whole. That is what this Book is provided for. It is the instruction Book that will work out all your kinks and quirks, and enable you to be a whole person as God intended you to be, through faith in the Lord Jesus whom the Book reveals.

Father, thank you for this amazing Book. I confess how infrequently I open it and let it speak to me. Help me to let this Book minister to my heart and mind through Christ; that I may know him before whom one day this whole world will stand. Amen.