But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:14-17

This afternoon I listened to a podcast where the host interacted with an atheist and a pastor/theologian discussing a book written by the atheist, who was once a Methodist pastor in England.

At some point during the podcast, the atheist made this statement – The Bible contains the word of God, but the Bible is not the word of God. I do not recall hearing that kind of statement before, In short, he valued parts of the Bible and rejected the other content as man-made and the mediator of what is true or not is his perspective, nothing else.

In the passage above, Paul encourages his protege, Timothy to continue to lean into the power of Scripture in his own life, valuing the point that Scripture is “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”

The bottom line for the believer is dependence on Scripture as God’s revealed word to us. When we begin to pick and choose what is true according to our own “wisdom” faith will usually unravel over a period of time, little by little as we put ourselves in the place of God.