2 Timothy 3:16

I once watched an episode of Everybody Love's Raymond where Raymond's older brother Robert, a newlywed, was giving marriage advice to Raymond.  Raymond had been married a lot longer and felt a little miffed at the idea that someone still in the honeymoon phase would be handing out marriage advice.  Later on in the episode Amy, Robert's wife, decided to give a marriage book to Deborah (Raymond's wife).  At some point in her discussion with Deborah, she said something along the lines of "you may not like everything, but you have to accept everything."

That little tidbit bring me to my title and the subject of this post.

(I'm a King James girl, but I know most of you aren't so I'll put this in a version you are pretty much all familiar with.)

2 Timothy 3:16 says "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

I'd simply like everyone to keep that in mind.

I hear something so often now that I have finally decided to challenge the thinking.  "Jesus never said...."  This can apply to a whole host of things.  Considering that the Bible is 66 books, and the words of Jesus take up about the equivalent of four and a half of those books, Jesus didn't speak on a lot of things.  His actual length of ministry was about 3 years.  In those three years His main goal was, as He Himself stated in John, to save the world.  His actual birth and ministry is covered in the first four books of the New Testament, what we call the Gospels, and the very beginning of Acts.  (The other place His words appear is in Revelation, but by that time his earthly ministry was over and He was pronouncing from Heaven.)  

When well-meaning Christians (and I have to believe they are well-meaning), approach a controversial subject with "Jesus never said anything about that", I start to shake my head.... because of the title of this post.  2 Timothy 3:16.  ALL Scripture is God-breathed.  

However, for these well-meaning Christians, I think I need to go down their rabbit hole a little further.   When they are pointed to Scripture that wasn't written in red, they say things like "well, Paul wrote that, or John wrote that, or David wrote that."  Here's a tiny little secret.  The Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they were not written by Jesus.  The beginning of Acts was written by Luke.  The beginning of Revelation was written by John.  If we are talking about the physical recording of Scripture, neither God nor Jesus physically took a pen or a chisel or whatever, and put those words on paper.  That's why 2 Timothy is so important.

You see, we have nothing other than 2 Timothy to point us to how the four disciples knew what to write down, or that they were actually writing down what God wanted them to write down.  As a matter of fact, without 2 Timothy we couldn't even be sure that those are ACTUALLY the words of Jesus.  For all we know the four of them got together and made the whole thing up....except 2 Timothy 3:16.  Paul wrote 2 Timothy 3:16, because God wanted us to know that ALL scripture is God-breathed.  ALL scripture, not just four and half books written in red.  God-breathed means they are the words God wanted recorded.  They come directly from Him.  Jesus was God incarnate.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

If all Scripture is God-breathed, and Jesus is God, then by extension everything, in all 66 books, is what Jesus said.  To unceremoniously toss out anything that isn't written in red, makes what IS written in red absolutely meaningless.  Those words came to the Bible in exactly the same way everything else did.  God-breathed.