Group Consciousness

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  2 Timothy 3:16 Scripture – “But that’s how you read it, not how I read it.”  Ever heard that complaint?  Engage in virtually any controversial theological argument and somewhere along the way you’re bound to encounter the “this is what it…

Copying the Bible

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16 NASB By God – Text and transmission.  It seems as if the crucial issue about the authority of the Bible comes down to these two words.  Who wrote it and how did it come to us? …

Put on Your Thinking Cap

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  2 Timothy 3:16  NIV Is useful – No, we’re not going to spend any more time investigating the meanings of “Scripture” or “God-breathed” or any of the participles of action that follow.  We’ve been over that ground time and again.  What…

We Just Can’t Get Away

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB All Scripture – How many times have we investigated the nuances and implications of this single verse?  A dozen?  Two dozen?  It seems that Paul’s statement in a letter to a pupil just…

Practical Application

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Teaching/ rebuke/ correction/ training – Paul tells us the purpose of “inspired Scripture.”  He’s quite deliberate about it, but did you notice what is strikingly absent?  Let’s see. Scripture is useful for “teaching.”  Didaskalía, that…

Text and Transmission

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Inspired – Paul’s choice of the Greek word for “inspired” leaves us hanging.  Why?  Because the word isn’t used anywhere else in the apostolic writings.  Theópneustos literally means “God breathed,” but that leaves a lot…

Don’t Get Me Started (rewind from September 2018)

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Scripture– Let’s follow up on yesterday’s lengthy (I apologize) description of the Bible as a book about human encounters with God. Peter Enns adds some important insight: Seeing God as a character in the story who…

Once More Around the Block (rewind from September 2018)

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Scripture– “I wrote that when I was stupid.”  So said David Flusser when questioned by one of his students about an article he published years before.  That’s how I feel today.   If you ask me…

Paul’s Paradigm

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Scripture – What does Paul mean when he uses the Greek term graphḗ?  Before we can answer that, we need to know something about the wider meaning of the term in the first century.  graphḗ…

Which Bible?

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB Inspired – Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m not trying to poke holes in your favorite English Bible translation.  But I do want to point out that there might be a great many…