“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 3:16–17 · ESV
Many men who would like to disciple someone hold back for one reason. They do not think they know enough. They picture a younger believer asking a hard question and themselves with nothing to say. So they wait for more training.
Paul’s last letter speaks to that fear. He is in prison, near the end of his life. He could have left Timothy a new strategy. Instead he points him back to the Bible he already had. “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed,” he writes, and he reminds Timothy that the sacred writings he had known from childhood “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Then comes the sentence above. All Scripture is breathed out by God. It comes from his mouth, so it carries his authority. And it is profitable. It teaches what is true and reproves what is wrong. It corrects what has drifted and trains a person in righteousness over time. The goal is a man of God who is “complete, equipped for every good work.” Paul does not say Scripture plus something else.
Notice who taught Timothy first. Earlier in the letter Paul recalls the sincere faith that dwelt first in Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. They were not apostles. They opened the Scriptures with a boy, year after year. That is disciplemaking in miniature: an ordinary believer, an open Bible, and someone watching how you handle it.
Here is what this means for the man who thinks he does not know enough. You are not the curriculum. Your Timothy does not need you to be the source of wisdom. He needs you to take him to the source. When he asks what to do about his marriage or his temper, you will be tempted to hand him your best advice. But your advice is only as reliable as you are. The Word God breathed out can keep teaching and correcting him long after your meetings end.
This also guards the disciplemaker from a quiet kind of pride. If everything rests on your insight, your Timothy learns to depend on you. If it rests on Scripture, he learns to depend on Christ and knows where to go when you are not in the room. Timothy would not have Paul much longer. He would always have the Word.
It is one reason DMM uses Operation Timothy, a progressive Bible study, in one-on-one relationships. Its job is to keep both of you in the text. You need to know where to look and keep looking there together. Read the passage. Ask what it says and what it shows you about God. Ask what obeying it would look like this week. Then trust the Word to do what God breathed it out to do.
This Week
The next time your Timothy brings you a hard question, will you open the Bible with him before you offer your opinion?
Go Deeper
Taking God at His Word
Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). A short, readable case for why the Bible is knowable, necessary, and enough, and what that means for ordinary Christians.
One-to-One Bible Reading
David Helm (Matthias Media). A simple guide to reading the Bible with one other person, with practical frameworks for getting started.
Biblical Sufficiency
Tabletalk, Ligonier Ministries. A brief devotional on 2 Timothy 3:17 and how God’s Word supplies both what to believe and how to live.
Next week: Repentance and Faith Are Lifelong. Discipleship as ongoing turning.
You are not the curriculum. Keep the Book open between you.
Lee Truax
President, DiscipleMaking Mission
