God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 3:16-17 Part 2

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, July 8, 2026

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be fully qualified, equipped for every good work.

We have seen now where Scripture came from. Now we move on to its primary uses, for which it is absolutely useful. The first of these is teaching. The Bible instructs us in things that are unknown in nature, most especially the gospel. For not only are we blind and ignorant in matters of true knowledge (especially about our salvation), but we are also rash and prone to thinking up all sorts of wild stories and opinions, and also to embracing the wild opinions of others.

All of Scripture is also useful for rebuking. We are inclined and constantly leaning toward sin. Therefore, the Scriptures proclaim the law, which identifies sin, exposes it, and carries God’s holy threats to punish sin with death and eternal damnation. It is also “sufficient for refuting heresies and is the perfect norm for deciding controversies” (Gerhard). The doctrines of the true church are presented by and proved by the Holy Scriptures; these doctrines cannot be countered or changed using Scripture. Before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Johann (John) Eck was the Pope’s representative against the Lutherans, and he confessed in public before the Duke of Bavaria there, “The Lutheran confession cannot be refuted from the Scriptures.” Heretics often try to use Scripture to defend themselves, but this is always overcome by Scripture. When the devil quoted Scripture to challenge and to tempt Christ, the Lord used only Scripture as his defense and proof (Matthew 4:6-10).

What is the difference between rebuking and correcting? To rebuke someone is to call out a sin or a doctrinal position that is in error and that someone refuses to drop. Paul also told Timothy that if an elder (that is, a pastor or other church leader) has sinned, and there are two or three witnesses, he is to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning (1 Timothy 5:19-20). If he repents, this is good and the word of God has done its work. If not, he may wander off into all sorts of terrible sins. What separates us from the Aztecs is either the lack of or presence of one righteous teacher armed with the word of God.

To correct someone is to more gently use the Scriptures to show what God says about a subject or how he answers a question that someone has shown to have the wrong idea about. This is more a question of being uninformed rather than being caught in an open sin. For example, when I was a little boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, I had the habit of praying that God would forgive the devil. I thought that perhaps everyone in the world was so afraid of the devil, or so very angry at him for being so terrible and wicked, that no one had even once thought of praying to intercede on his behalf. But when I spoke with my pastor about this, he pointed out (very calmly and gently) that the devil can never be forgiven; there is an eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Therefore it is not our place to pray on his behalf, but for one another. I needed to be corrected about this, and I stopped those prayers at once. In retrospect, I could have been accused of a terrible heresy; I could have been seen as someone trying to circumvent the atoning sacrifice of Christ with my prayers, since I was, in a sense (and without realizing it) trying to solve the problem of sin, death, and the power of the devil on my own, apart from Christ, with my innocent and youthful prayers. But this was not a position I took a stand on; I only needed to be corrected, not rebuked, and I freely admit the error that I made.

Luther offers another example of the way that Scripture corrects us. When Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Egypt, he could have, as we would say, “thrown the book at them,” that is, he could have accused them and convicted them of the terrible and murderous things that they had done to him when he was younger. But he didn’t. “Instead,” Luther teaches us, “he even kisses and embraces them. You would not find another example in which there would be greater kindness and sweetness of disposition and ways than in Joseph. He does not make mention of the murderous crime of his brothers, but everything is swallowed up in the boundless sea of his mildness, friendliness, and love… For the Holy Spirit, who has committed all these things to writing, testifies abundantly that God takes great delight in those trivial and carnal matters, which, to be sure, seem to be insignificant and contemptible but are most precious in the eyes of God, since they are done in the spirit and in faith.”

Finally, there is also training in righteousness. When people do not know what the Bible says, there is nothing but trouble. It is the ignorance of Scripture that causes heresies, as Jesus proclaims: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). False teaching does not come from reading the Bible, but from twisting and corrupting the Bible. As it is said, “A bee sucks from a rose and makes honey. A spider sucks from the same rose and makes poison.” Correct teaching should begin in the home, as Luther says at the beginning of each part of the Catechism: “As the head of the family should teach in the simplest way to the members of the household.” This instruction should continue for one’s whole life. I learn from the Scriptures and from reviewing the Catechism every day. I am not the master of it all, but I am always a student of it all. As Israel’s king said, “I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 1:13).

The two duties of preaching are these: First, to teach the people what they do not know. Second, it is to proclaim what they do or should know so that they will live by it and not forget it. “We are flesh and blood, therefore, it cannot be preached too much. This is also seen in the Holy Scripture, which is always preaching one and the same doctrine using different words. God knows that the sly old man, the old Adam, is weak and lazy. Before long he is letting the pure and true doctrine be taken away from him and is letting himself be persuaded to accept false, misleading inventions of men.” Therefore faithful shepherds must take their flocks into the best pasture and feed the lambs and guard against wolves so that the flock will flee from strange voices and separate the precious from the vile. We pray that they will gather around to give attention to the words of the Scriptures (Nehemiah 8:13).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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