2 Timothy 3:10-17 - All Scripture Can Be Trusted
Serving Our City and Moving Forward Together
It is so good to be with you tonight. For those of you who missed Serve Fresno, you missed a heck of a time! As you saw in the video, it was so much fun just diving into neighborhoods—perhaps neighborhoods you haven’t been up close and personal with before. Some of you got a little more personal with things than you cared to be, cleaning up alleys and whatever else, but we were serving parts of our city that are neglected and unreached. I hope you were deeply encouraged by that. If you missed it, our Life Groups are going to be serving throughout the year. We are ratcheting up our “Serve Faithfully” component, and every Life Group is going to have an ongoing service element. So if you missed Serve Fresno, the good news is you will still have plenty of opportunities to get out there and serve our city.
Also, before we get into the text, a couple of weeks ago I unofficially threw out an idea we’ve been toying with: the concept of “open groups.” The idea is inviting people to come to tables at midweek, where people can enjoy a little worship, a short message, and then some small group discussion time around the tables. We said we were going to need some folks to help pull this off, and I just want to encourage you with how many cards came in. There were so many folks who said, “Man, I’ll do that! I’ll serve with kids, I’ll rotate, or I’ll lead an open group.” If that intrigues you at all, and you would be interested in taking that step into service with us, we will walk with you. We will train you, coach you, and stand with you; we aren’t just throwing you out there and saying, “Good luck.” It’s an idea that is gaining real traction, and we are likely looking at a January launch. If you would like to be a part of that, grab one of those welcome cards and drop it in the back on your way out.
Living as Light in a Broken World
Turn with me to 2 Timothy. Tonight, we are going to dive back into 2 Timothy and continue our journey through Paul’s second epistle to his young protégé. We are asking and answering a crucial question: How does the Bible show a believer how to stay on track in a crazy world?
One of the themes repeated like a broken record through both 1 and 2 Timothy is this warning: be careful about false teaching. Be careful of false teaching, and then again, be careful of false teaching. If you look at 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 2 through 5, you see the devastating fruit that false teaching produces.
2 Timothy 3:2-5 (NASB)
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
I don’t know if Paul was reading tomorrow’s newspaper, but you can look at our culture today and clearly see the results of false teaching. It looks exactly like that list. As believers, we need to be careful not to get distracted by false teaching, and we need to be spiritually prepared. As we continue to follow God, live out the Scriptures, stand with the gospel, and hold fast to what the Word of God calls us to hold to, we are going to look very, very different from the world around us.
I know some people get a little “Chicken Little” when they look at our culture and cry, “Oh, it’s all going crazy!” But I believe God has everything right where He wants it. What God longs for more than anything is for His people to be light in a dark place. We should not be surprised if following Jesus makes us stand out and take a little heat.
John 16:33 (NASB)
‘These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.’
We know that as believers, we are going to experience tribulation and hardship. In many ways, it is to be expected, because light naturally stands out in the darkness. A believer will look radically different in a world consumed by chaos.
That is the backdrop for verse 10. Paul writes to Timothy and says, “You have followed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, and my perseverance.” Timothy was well aware of the persecutions and sufferings Paul had endured.
2 Timothy 3:10-11 (NASB)
Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, [and] sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium [and] at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!
Paul mentions the persecutions that happened to him in Antioch—where he was run out of the city in Acts 13. He mentions Iconium in Acts 14, where a hostile mob was stirred up to stone him and leave him for dead. And he mentions Lystra, where a bizarre scene took place: the crowd thought Paul and Barnabas were the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes and tried to offer sacrifices to them, only to turn violent shortly after. Paul says that out of all these persecutions, the Lord rescued him.
Now, it is worth noting that when Paul says the Lord rescued him, it does not mean the Lord kept him from ever suffering. It meant the Lord carried him through the suffering. Sometimes when we read passages like that, we pray, “Yes, Lord, rescue me from this! Get me completely out of this difficulty!” But that is not necessarily how the Christian life works. We are never promised that following Jesus will exempt us from hardship.
Those of you who are parents understand this. If you could save your children from every bump, bruise, and heartache, your instinct might be to give them the most charmed life possible. But we all know what happens when a child never faces adversity: they turn into spoiled brats who have zero perseverance, zero endurance, and no capacity for long-suffering. When Paul says the Lord rescued him, he is speaking not of deliverance from suffering, but of God’s sustaining presence in the midst of suffering.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NASB)
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Whatever momentary afflictions and hardships you are facing, they are doing a profound work in your life. If we are gut-level honest, it is rarely the easy seasons that produce spiritual growth; it is the trials and hardships that produce something deep and beautiful within our souls. Hardship is the standard road the believer must walk. Suffering is not evidence that your walk with God is failing. To believe that loving Jesus guarantees you will never get sick, never face cancer, never lose your job, and always be wealthy is the prosperity gospel—and it is a complete falsehood. The true gospel teaches that in the midst of whatever life throws at you, God grants you the power to persevere.
Matthew 5:13-14 (NASB)
’You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty [again]? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. ’You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
We are light shining in darkness, and we are salt preserving against decay. Both metaphors assume close proximity to darkness and death. That is the calling of a believer. But entering into the dark and decaying places of the world comes with a cost. There is an inevitable friction and suffering that comes with following Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:12 (NASB)
Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
Why will you be persecuted? Because you stand out. You look different, live different, think different, believe different, and behave different. Why? Because the Bible is what drives your life. You are not seduced by the false teaching of the world that says, “If you want it, go take it,” or “If you feel passionate about it, it must be right.” Instead, you say, “No, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
It reminds me of Daniel and his three friends—Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—in Babylon. The Babylonians essentially told them, “You are in Babylon now, so you are going to become fully Babylonian. You will learn our history, dress like us, talk like us, and eat our food.” To modern ears, eating the king’s food might not seem like a big deal, but Daniel and his friends knew that the food had been sacrificed to idols. They drew a line in the sand and said, “We can learn your history, we can wear the clothes, and we can speak the language, but we will not defile ourselves with the king’s food.” Daniel asked the chief official to test them, and after ten days, God made them thrive and stand out above all the rest.
That distinct holy living causes people to look at us differently. Have you ever experienced a situation where, because of your faith and how you put the Bible into practice, you stood out—and people threw a little shade your way?
I remember when I was twenty-one years old. I had recently trusted Christ while living in a college fraternity house. Living in a fraternity is not typically the ideal environment for sobriety, but I was a new believer, and I had decided I was no longer going to live the way I used to live. My fraternity brothers told me, “Man, when your twenty-first birthday comes, we’re taking you out! It’s going to be wild!” I said, “That’ll be great, but just so you know, I’m not going to drink.”
They looked at me and said, “Oh… well, we’ll call you.”
My twenty-first birthday arrived. I was sitting at home, dressed and ready to go, and nobody called. I finally tracked down where they were and showed up. I said, “Guys, what’s the deal?” They looked at me and said, “Well, you said you weren’t going to drink, so we didn’t invite you.” It was my twenty-first birthday, and they threw shade at me because I was following Jesus. That is a small taste of what happens when you follow Christ. Paul is telling Timothy that this dynamic is entirely normal.
Grounded in the Sacred Writings
Paul gives another solemn warning about the world around them.
2 Timothy 3:13 (NASB)
But evil men and impostors will proceed [from bad] to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
False teachers want to lead you astray. They want you to buy into the world’s lies, adopt the world’s lifestyle, and view the Word of God as merely a helpful recommendation rather than the supreme authority in your life. They want you to live by your feelings. At the end of the book of Judges, there is a line that represents one of the most terrifying descriptions in the entire Bible: “In those days everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” God help us if our ultimate guide in life is simply our own fallen passions!
Paul contrasts that cultural drift with a direct command to Timothy.
2 Timothy 3:14-15 (NASB)
You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned [them], and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Think about that for a moment: What were the things Timothy had learned? When Paul wrote this, there was no bound New Testament Bible yet. What sacred writings had Timothy known from childhood that gave him wisdom leading to salvation?
He had the Old Testament scriptures. As Paul mentioned in chapter 1, Timothy had learned the Scriptures from his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois. They were Jewish women of profound faith who trusted the God of Abraham, looked forward to the promised Messiah, and recognized that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament had foretold. They faithfully passed those sacred writings down to Timothy.
God-Breathed: The Purpose and Power of Scripture
This leads directly to Paul’s monumental statement in verse 16 about the nature of Scripture.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB)
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.
Why is the Bible so essential? Because it is not an ordinary book. The Bible reveals God’s heart and will for us in a world full of confusion. Paul says Scripture is inspired by God. In the original Greek, that word is theopneustos, which literally means “God-breathed.” The Scriptures are the very breath and voice of God.
Yet, God uniquely chose to breathe His Word through human authors. The Apostle Peter gives us a companion passage that serves as an essential bookend to Paul’s teaching on inspiration.
2 Peter 1:20-21 (NASB)
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
There was a divine co-authorship at work: human authors were moved and carried along by the Holy Spirit to write God’s exact truth. That is why the four Gospels can describe the life of Jesus from four distinct perspectives and writing styles, and why Paul’s letters carry a different tone than Peter’s. God utilized their distinct personalities and vocabularies while ensuring every word was divinely inspired.
Notice that all Scripture is profitable for four vital things: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. In our teaching team meeting this week, Melissa DeNisi, who leads our women’s Life Groups, made a brilliant observation. She said, “Teaching shows you the right track. Reproof alerts you when you are off track. Correction shows you how to get back on track. And training shows you how to stay on track.” That is exactly what the Word of God does in our everyday lives!
Notice the scope of Paul’s claim: he does not say some Scripture is inspired; he says all Scripture is God-breathed. That includes both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is amazing how many Christians have Bibles where the Old Testament pages are still practically stuck together because they think, “I don’t know what’s going on over there, so I’ll just stick to Jesus.” When I was a brand-new believer, the first Bible I was given was just a New Testament with Psalms. I loved it and wore it out before I realized there was a whole other major section of the Bible waiting for me!
Can the Bible Be Trusted?
If all Scripture is inspired by God, it brings us to a fundamental question: Can the Bible really be trusted? After all, weren’t these texts written thousands of years ago by dozens of ancient people? Can we trust the authors? How do we know what was originally written was accurately preserved across centuries and translated into English from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek? How did we even get our Bible?
Let’s walk through the evidence.
The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew and was known as the Tanakh—an acronym representing the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah (the Law, Genesis through Deuteronomy), the Nevi’im (the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the Writings). The Old Testament formed the foundation of the Jewish faith. For followers of Jesus, we recognize that Christ is the fulfillment of everything the Old Testament pointed toward. By the time Jesus walked the earth and Paul wrote to Timothy, the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament canon—the recognized standard and rule of authoritative Scripture—were already settled and solidified.
The reliability of the Old Testament is supported in two primary ways: internal support and external confirmation.
Internally, the Old Testament is directly quoted or referenced in the New Testament over three hundred times. There is a seamless continuity between them. Jesus Himself affirmed this connection.
Matthew 5:17 (NASB)
’Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
There is a popular trend today where people say, “Well, the Old Testament isn’t meant to be taken literally; Genesis is just an allegorical myth.” But if you remove the historical reality of Genesis, you have a massive theological problem, because Jesus Himself quoted Genesis as historical fact. If the Old Testament is merely mythological, then the New Testament collapses with it. When you read Scripture, you interpret it according to its genre—recognizing historical narrative as history, and poetic imagery as poetry. When Song of Solomon says a woman’s hair is like a flock of goats descending Mount Gilead, it’s poetry, not an insult! But by and large, the Bible says what it means and means what it says.
Externally, archaeology continuously affirms the historical accuracy of the Old Testament. The Bible speaks of the magnificent gates of Babylon, the Ishtar Gates—and archaeologists unearthed them, and you can see them reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin today. The Bible records King Cyrus of Persia conquering Babylon—and the Cyrus Cylinder in the British Museum describes that exact conquest. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran proved that our modern Old Testament texts match the ancient biblical manuscripts with breathtaking precision.
What about the New Testament? How did those twenty-seven books come together?
The New Testament began with the eyewitness testimony of the apostles. In the first century, the four Gospels were written and quickly received by the early church. Paul wrote thirteen epistles that were circulated and recognized as Scripture almost immediately. In fact, Peter explicitly refers to Paul’s letters as Scripture.
2 Peter 3:15-16 (NASB)
and regard the patience of our Lord [as] salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all [his] letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Peter admits that some of Paul’s writings are deep and complex—so if you have ever read Romans and felt your mental hard drive freeze up, take comfort knowing you are in good company with the Apostle Peter! But Peter places Paul’s writings on the exact same level as the rest of the inspired Scriptures.
By the end of the second century, the vast majority of the New Testament was universally recognized. The early church applied rigorous criteria before recognizing a book as canonical:
- Apostolic Authority: Was it written by an apostle who walked with Jesus (like Matthew and John) or an associate who recorded direct eyewitness testimony (like Mark recording Peter, or Luke’s careful historical investigation)?
- The Witness of the Spirit and Theological Consistency: Did it exalt Jesus Christ, and was it entirely consistent with the rest of Scripture? The golden rule of interpretation is that Scripture interprets Scripture.
- Affirmation by the Body of Believers: Did the broader church recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit in the text, fulfilling Jesus’ promise in John 16:13 that the Spirit would guide them into all truth?
- Widespread Acceptance: Was the letter universally read, copied, and applied across the early Christian communities?
As the great scholar F. F. Bruce noted, the New Testament books did not become authoritative simply because a council put them on an official list; rather, the church recognized them on the list because the body of Christ had already experienced their divine inspiration and authority for generations.
By the middle of the third century, Origen of Alexandria listed the twenty-seven New Testament books. Eusebius confirmed them, and in the fourth century, Athanasius listed the exact twenty-seven books we have today. Through church councils and historical affirmation, the sixty-six books of our Bible—thirty-nine in the Old, twenty-seven in the New—were recognized as the complete, God-breathed canon.
A Central Story That Whispers His Name
What makes this collection of sixty-six books truly miraculous is its unity. Written over a span of fifteen hundred years, across three continents, in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), by more than forty different human authors—from kings and scholars to fishermen and shepherds—the Bible tells one single, cohesive story from Genesis to Revelation: the glory of God revealed through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The ultimate hero of the Bible is not Moses, David, or Paul—it is Jesus from beginning to end.
John 5:39-40 (NASB)
’You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
Jesus told the religious leaders that Moses wrote about Him. On the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, Jesus opened the Scriptures and showed the disciples everything concerning Himself beginning with Moses and all the Prophets. In Acts 8, when Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah 53, Philip began at that very Scripture and preached Jesus to him. Jesus is on every page of your Bible. As one author beautifully put it, every single story in Scripture whispers His name.
When we look at the manuscript evidence, the reliability of our Bible is unmatched in human history. The ancient work with the second-highest manuscript reliability is Homer’s Iliad, written in the eighth century BC. We possess about three hundred ancient manuscript copies of the Iliad, and scholars estimate its textual accuracy at roughly 95%.
By contrast, for the New Testament, we do not have three hundred copies—we possess over thirty thousand ancient manuscript copies and portions! Textual scholars confirm that the New Testament has a 98.5% rate of textual purity. Of the minor variations that exist across manuscripts, the vast majority are simple spelling differences or word order variations that are easily reconciled mechanically. Less than fifty variations across the entire text have any significant bearing on meaning, and not a single one affects any fundamental Christian doctrine that is not clearly taught elsewhere in Scripture. The Bible is the most accurately preserved historical document on the face of the earth.
You do not have to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar to read God’s Word with absolute confidence. A reliable word-for-word translation—like the New American Standard Bible (NASB) or the English Standard Version (ESV)—faithfully puts the very Word of God directly into your hands.
Feeding Your Soul: An Invitation to the Word
David captured the unparalleled beauty of God’s Word in Psalm 19.
Psalms 19:7-11 (NASB)
The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward.
There is simply nothing like the God-breathed Word of God. It is inspired, inerrant, authoritative, and living. The person who can weather the storms of life, endure persecution, and stay faithful amidst cultural chaos is the person who roots their life in the Word.
Psalms 1:1-3 (NASB)
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree [firmly] planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.
The truly blessed life is not defined by how much money you make, the career you build, or the worldly passions you chase. The blessed life belongs to the one who delights in the Word of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. When trials come and culture shifts, that person remains firmly planted like a deep-rooted tree by streams of living water.
I don’t know what your personal time in the Bible looks like right now. For many in our fast-paced culture, time in the Word has become few and far between. I want to close with a simple, practical, old-fashioned invitation:
Starting tomorrow morning, try something simple. Wake up just ten minutes earlier than usual. Brew your favorite morning coffee or tea, sit down in a quiet chair, open your Bible, and spend ten unhurried minutes in God’s Word. If you don’t know where to begin, open one of the Gospels—read a single chapter from the Gospel of Mark or John. Don’t rush through ten chapters; just read one.
Before you read, simply pray: “Father, I am here. Your Spirit is with me. The same Holy Spirit who breathed these words lives inside my heart. Please speak to me, illumine this text, and teach me to delight in You.”
You might not see emotional fireworks every morning. You might not feel like your whole world instantly transformed in ten minutes. But I guarantee you this: your soul just ate. You just fed on the living bread of God’s Word. Do it tomorrow, do it the next day, and watch what God does in your heart and life as you saturate yourself in His truth.
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You for Your incredible Word. Thank You for Your faithfulness in inspiring and perfectly preserving the Scriptures throughout the generations. Thank You that we can hold Your God-breathed truth in our own language. I pray that as we open our Bibles, we wouldn’t just read the Word, but we would let the Word read and transform us. Use Your Word to teach us, reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness, so that we may be equipped for every good work You have prepared for us. Thank You that You have not left us in the dark, but have given us Your living truth. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.