Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 51 · February 20
What It Is For
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”
When did Scripture last tell you something you did not want to hear, and you let it stand?
Paul writes to Timothy: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." People often quote the first half about where the Bible came from and stop there, but the rest is a list of four jobs. "Profitable" simply means useful, so Paul is telling a young pastor what the Bible is for.
Walk through the four, because the Bible shows each one at work.
Doctrine means teaching. On the road to Emmaus, two followers who had given up hope met the risen Jesus, and "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." They already owned that book, and now He opened it for them.
Reproof means being shown you are wrong. Nathan came to King David with a story about a poor man's lamb and let the king pass sentence on the rich man who took it. Then he said, "Thou art the man." David knew God's law well. What he needed was someone willing to point it at him.
Correction means being set right again. While the temple was being repaired in King Josiah's day, Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law, and it was read to the king. "And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes." Tearing your clothes was a sign of grief. From that one reading, Josiah led the whole nation back to God.
Instruction in righteousness is the slowest of the four, the training of a whole life. Paul has just pointed to it in Timothy himself: "from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures." Earlier Paul named the women whose faith came first: his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice.
One honest note: when Paul wrote "all scripture," the Scriptures Timothy had known since childhood were the Hebrew Bible, the books we call the Old Testament. The verse we often use for the whole Bible was written first about those books.
So come back to the opening question. Most of us enjoy teaching, and we are used to instruction. Which of the other two, reproof or correction, have you let in this year? Who in your life is allowed to be your Nathan? God still uses His word to set His people right, and every correction from Him is meant to lead you back to Him.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 51 is Dwelling in Love (1 John 4:16).