2 Timothy 3:16

‘Every scripture, inspired of God (God breathed) is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.’

By stressing that Christ is central we do not by it diminish the value of the Scriptures. Rather we enhance it. For while it is Christ Jesus the risen Saviour Who is undoubtedly pre-eminent, the Scriptures are all important in pointing to Him. They are the means by which, through prayer, He can be made known to men and women. They are our source of the truth about Him and what He came to do. For the Scriptures are ‘breathed out by God’, they are the very words of God, and are profitable for teaching men, and reproving men, and correcting men, and for instructing them in righteousness. They are thus the means by which Christ and His teaching can be brought home to the heart as they are received in prayerful faith.

We should possibly note here that while it is mainly the Old Testament which is in mind in Paul’s words, by this time the traditions concerning Jesus had taken on a fixed form, even probably a written form (Luke 1:1), and were being equally seen as ‘Scripture’, as were Paul’s letters (2 Peter 3:16).

Note also how the Scriptures are seen as meeting every spiritual need. They provide sound teaching. They reprove men for their sin. They correct men in their daily walk. They instruct men in righteousness.

One problem that arises here is as to whether we should translate as ‘every Scripture, being God-breathed, --’ or ‘all Scripture is God out-breathed --.’ Both are linguistically possible. In the first case the emphasis would be on each part of Scripture as being God out-breathed so that it can be used in order to speak to the heart, in the other the emphasis is on the Scriptures as a whole being God-outbreathed. But either way they are indicating that all Scripture is ‘God-outbreathed. To all who read Paul’s words in 1st century AD both would basically be saying the same thing. ‘Scripture is God-outbreathed and is in every part therefore profitable --.’ For no one in Paul’s day would have questioned the difference, nor have argued that only some of it was God outbreathed or profitable. Nor more importantly would Paul himself.

It is however, probable, that we should translate as ‘all Scripture is God-outbreathed’, for the contrast is not between different Scriptures, (this is not a dissertation on Scripture), but between the fact that the Scriptures are ‘God-outbreathed’ while the false teachers teach hot air, breath from their own mouth. They are ‘puffed up’ by their own breath (2 Timothy 3:4; 1 Timothy 6:4) and speak with vain babblings (2 Timothy 2:16). In contrast with that Timothy’s foundation in the Scriptures is sure, for that is ‘God-outbreathed’.

Other arguments that favour this translation are:

1) If it was not intended to be seen as a predicate theopneustos would come before graphe.

2) The habit of dropping the copula in the opening clause of the sentence was typical of the writer, compare especially the parallel construction in 1 Timothy 4:4. See also 1 Timothy 1:8; 1 Timothy 1:15 etc.

3) Early Greek fathers translated as ‘all Scripture is God-outbreathed’, and Greek was their native tongue.

All these arguments favour translating as ‘all Scripture is God-outbreathed’.