2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. NAS

I thought I thoroughly understood this verse in 1976. It was clear to me then that it meant each verse was designed to impart a specific truth I needed in order to live a godly life. I believed if I would study and memorize and obey those individual verses that I would become a progressively better Christian. That is the point of living. Isn’t it?

I think I have fuller appreciation of these verses today. I don’t think what I believed was false; I just believe those early convictions were incomplete. That all scripture is inspired (breathed out)  by God also means that the narrative as a whole (not just individual verses of books) is inspired. You might be asking yourself if there is really any big difference between studying the verses and the larger comprehensive story.  I believe there is.

Taking in the narrative connects the reader to the times and circumstances and the other personalities with all their varied motives in a way verse-study can’t do.  I believe its possible that some of our spiritual anemia may be a by product of us missing the narrative, particularly the gospel narratives.

The bulk of western christians have looked at Jesus in the gospels and have rightly seen that He is God Incarnate – the Lamb who came as a sacrifice. The efficacy of the atonement achieved by the unblemished Lamb was our salvation which we have mostly thought of as an upgraded life after death where suffering will cease and all our tears will be wiped away.  Again, a truth, but a very truncated one.

Modern western Christianity often skips from the virgin birth to the cross. Consequently our sub-abundant existence turns out to be little more than an effort to manage our sinful natures (with a sprinkling of good works) until the day we are called home. If this was the point, why did God inspire four writers to leave narratives of Jesus’ miracle-laden life, telling about His every-day-walk-around adventure? Was that just for the sake of proving He was the Son of God?  Was Jesus’ life story important chiefly because historical details must be known about a religion’s founder?

I believe if we can slow our pace down and wrench our attention away from our myriad distractions, we will find our hearts have the capacity to refocus on the story with Jesus as the Son of Man, who did the Father’s will as a human being like you and I.  Those big chunks of the gospel between Bethlehem and Calvary were breathed into the story for our benefit not only to reveal Jesus’ divinity but to highlight His life as our example. Jesus wasn’t a divine historical anomaly. He was our reference point for the abundant life He promised us.

We are not going to facilitate a spiritual revolution through our cognitive mastery of the Bible. We can only recognize and involve ourselves in what God is doing and has always been doing, something that the narrative of the bible as a whole reveals. His original intention was to create a race of people in His image who would live in a loving eternal community. While the bulk of the bible story chronicles the breakdown of this plan, the new and latter part (the New Testament) captures the beginning of God’s restoration process, the process that is underway beckoning for us to come along.

Jesus came announcing the kingdom of God, telling us it had come in Him, implying that it was then and is therefore now; and that, astonishingly, it was in us who believe. While getting saved and going to heaven is good news, the kingdom truly is the ultimate mind-bending, wonderfully great news. He never told us to get saved, go to church and hang on until you die. He said, “As I am in the world so are you. Look at My life and go do as I did. Reread the narrative children. Live out the story I am breathing into Your life. It was good that I went away not just so I could prepare an eternal residence for you but that you, as My residence on earth, could go and do greater works than I did.”

We get saved and often leave Jesus behind, moving on to Paul who seemed to be the primary spokesman of the New Covenant with God. Most evangelicals consider Paul’s precise doctrinal discourses to be the prime cuts of gospel meat, yielding their nourishment to those with the best study skills. I wonder if Paul were living today if he wouldn’t be throwing up his hands, writing letters of correction to us. And I wonder if Jesus wouldn’t say,

You have studied my word but I have this against you; You have not yet discovered how to live out out of My life – a daily life of walking in My Spirit.

I so appreciate my friends who have encouraged me to see the gospel in the context of God’s kingdom and not the other way around, to see my life in the context of the larger biblical narrative, where God’s original intentions will not be thwarted, where all things are being restored to Christ, through Christ in us. This has some large implications for us beyond some holding pattern until we die or experience a rapture.

Again, Paul might say, “Its no problem for me to remind us,

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.” MSG

Father, thank you for your word. Help us to fall deeply in love with this indispensable God-breathed story into which we have so mercifully been included. Continue to awaken our hearts to the whole council of scripture that paints us into an ever increasingly beautiful pallet of color and grandeur. So be it Lord.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. NAS

I believed I thoroughly understood this verse in 1976. It was clear to me then that each verse was designed to impart a specific truth which I needed in order to live a godly life. I believed if I would study and memorize and obey those individual verses that I would become a progressively better Christian. That is the point of living. Isn’t it?

If you read on today in MwM you will see why I believe a commitment to becoming a better Christian (as honorable as it might sound) can doom us to a mere existence as opposed to an abundant life such as has been promised to us by Jesus.