2 Timothy 3:10-17
The Man of God and the Word of God
10 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Timothy was a faithful disciple who imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 4:16, 11:1) as demonstrated in the life of Paul the apostle before his watchful eyes as he ministered the gospel with him. This man set the example for us to follow just as he did with his mentor so that we find and serve with another older in the faith to learn biblical doctrine and how to live it out faithfully to the Lord. We also learn to imitate the purpose of serving Christ in the gospel and those we make disciples of ourselves (2 Timothy 2:2) as we learn vibrant faith and patience in suffering adversity and health issues as we love others unconditionally while refusing to give up the work for the gospel because the lives of souls and God’s glory are at stake. We learn through afflictions that the Lord does deliver us through the persecution and trouble as we remain faithful to Him and the good works we have been created and called (Ephesians 2:10) to do. We are assured that suffering is part and parcel of following Christ if we do so in a godly manner of faithfulness. All who desire to rightly live for Him will absolutely suffer some sort of affliction to some degree, some more than others. We are not promised a safe life and pleasant circumstances and are certainly not promised to be kept from suffering for living godly lives. Quote the contrary; we suffer (Romans 8:17, Philippians 1:29) because our Lord suffered, and we are no better than He to expect anything less. The false teaching that we are to have happy lives based on health, wealth, and trouble-free circumstances is unbiblical and harmful to our spiritual health which is eternally more important than the temporal physical. Those who teach otherwise are promoting evil instead of good and are deceiving those who buy into self-serving teachings. We are reminded to join Timothy in learning the truths of scripture and living them out with complete assurance and confidence in the verity of the tried and proven doctrine according to scripture by the faithful teaching of true Christ followers who discipled us. We acknowledge that all of scripture from Genesis to Revelation is breathed out by God who moved godly men to write down His words to us for life and godliness. His word keeps us on track though sound doctrine, alerting us when we stray form it, correcting us when we realize our errors and turn to follow rightly once more, and to learn the true living righteousness in Christ. This is how we become all we should be as Christ followers and obtain all we need to serve in the good works sovereignly prepared for us by the Lord before our feet even left the womb and walked this earth. These instructions and exhortations are to make us men and women of God according to the word of the Lord given us to follow sound doctrine that enables sound living for His glory, honor, and praise. If we have based our lives on sound doctrine then we have sound godly living as a result.
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