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 NIV)

We are to walk through this life with the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ. We also are to walk though this life with the Written Word of God, the Bible. Paul writes to his student, fellow follower and servant of Jesus Christ showing him the purpose of the Written Word which is to equip the believer in all God’s good works. The servant of God is not just to be basically trained, he is to be thoroughly, totally trained.

Paul understood this training. He had gone from a persecutor of the church to a leading teacher of the church, which even Peter was trying to understand. “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16b) Peter was grateful for Paul, his conversion and what God had taught him. “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.” (2 Peter 3:15)

The Scripture is filled with the wisdom which God has given. This is because it is “God-breathed.” Peter would state it this way. “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21)

Being trained through the Scriptures involves four basic ways used in our training. First, it is filled with what we need to be trained. It is our textbook. It is filled with the teaching we need. Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 5:24) While we are being trained through the Word, we find stability in our lives no matter what we go through. “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 5:25)

The next step in our training is rebuking. As we learn, we find ways that we are doing it wrong. Just like a teacher or a coach, who, when they see that we are making mistakes, point them out to us. Peter thought he was ready as Jesus was preparing the apostles for His coming death. Peter was still in training when he said to Jesus, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus would rebuke him by saying the next day when the rooster crows you will have denied Him three times. God does show us as we grow, that we are not there yet.

The beauty of the next step is that we are also corrected. We are not left with a rebuke, we are given the gift of how to change. Hear Jesus as He is correcting of Peter.

 “When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again, Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. (John 21:15-17)

Jesus knew where Peter had failed. He also knew what was before Peter as he would lead the disciples as they would start the building of the church after the resurrection.

We go now from teaching to training. We have a new life in Jesus Christ when we come to Him by faith. We have had a problem because we come to Jesus as sinners, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) “There is no one righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10) Jesus has come to change us through what He did on the cross and in the power of the resurrection. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Our training, putting into practice what we have been taught, rebuked and corrected all for us to learn how to live in the righteousness of God. Jesus is now teaching us to live as He lived.

As learners and followers of Jesus Christ, Paul would offer this prayer: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9-11)

In the Love of Jesus,

Michael Block