In Touch - 3rd Quarter 2020

Feature
Do your best
Jacob Vince
In his second personal letter, Paul instructs
Timothy to, ‘Do your best to present yourself to
God as one approved, a worker who does not need to
be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth’
(2 Timothy 2:15).
Another word for correctly is accurately.
If we take the example of numbers, just think what
would happen if we did not use them accurately.
Well, the Bible is far more important than numbers, so
we need to make sure we handle it accurately.
Neither is Paul asking Timothy something
unreasonable. He simply asks him to do his best.
Recently we remembered 75 years since the end of
the Second World War. In his speech describing what
he called Britain’s greatest day, the country’s leader
Churchill said,
“In all our long history we have never
seen a greater day than this. Everyone
man or woman has done their best”
(Winston Churchill, 8 May 1945).
It is within the grasp of everyone to
do their best. To end the war, it was
a combined effort toward victory.
In the context of the Bible, we are
asked to ‘do our best’ to handle it
accurately.
If we are encouraged to handle the
Bible accurately, this must mean there
is a temptation to handle it incorrectly or
inaccurately.
This is exactly what happens at the beginning of
the Bible. God gives very clear instruction to Adam
and Eve. They are granted the opportunity to eat
of every tree in the garden apart from one, the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s enemy
immediately questions what God has said.
“Did God really say?” (Genesis 3:1)
Next, Eve repeats what God said but adds to it. She
says God said that they were not able to eat of this one
tree nor touch it. There is no record of God saying
they should not touch it. The result is that Eve is
deceived, ate of the fruit and gave some to Adam who
also ate of it.
In case we think Eve is responsible, Adam was there
all along and didn’t intervene or take responsibility
himself. Not only that, but he sought to place the
blame on Eve, who in turn placed it on God’s enemy.
In the event, both were held responsible and suffered
the consequences firstly of doubting God’s word and
then acting against it. This illustrates well for us and
all humankind the importance of accurately handling
the word of God. The rest, as they say, is history –
literally!
We all know the term manuscript for music, or script
for a drama. In both instances musicians and actors
need to handle it accurately to perform it properly.
Paul describes the word of truth as Script-ure. Like a
script in drama and a music manu-script, we need to
get to know it, practice it and use it properly.
Look at the status Paul gives the Bible-script or
scripture. Paul writes,
“All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work”
(2 Timothy 3:16-17)
First scripture is introduced as
God-breathed or in another word
‘inspired’.
Some people struggle to see God as
three persons and at-one, but from
the very start of the Bible, all three
are there, at-one with themselves.
There is God who speaks his word,
Jesus who is God’s eternal word, and
the Holy Spirit – the breath of God – all
in perfect relationship.
Having described scripture, the Bible, as ‘Godbreathed’,
Paul writes that it is useful for four things,
‘teaching, rebuking, correcting and training’, which seem
to work well in that order.
It first needs to be accurately taught, this in turn
shows up faults which need recognising, then
rebuked, next these faults need correcting. Finally,
the corrections need to be trained into us.
For over 2,000 years we have had the completed Bible,
which is authoritative and our primary source. Over
the years it has been misunderstood and mishandled.
Our generation has the great privilege to do our best,
in God’s strength to rectify this.
We can all pray and play a part to this end, so that
the message God wants to communicate to all, to and
through both Israel and the Church, in word and
deed, becomes a reality today.
4 IN TOUCH • 3 rd Quarter 2020