September 3, 2017
Context
- 2 Timothy 3:10-17
- Jon Graybeal
When I said “yes” to being with you this morning, I looked at our calendar and realized that this morning doesn’t fit in any of our teaching series. Last week Scott wrapped up our study on Philippians and next week Jerry will kick us off into a new series in the book of Acts and that leaves us here, this morning. And so I get to talk about whatever I want. So I began to think…..our students are off this week because of the holiday weekend and we’ll be starting a new teaching series next week we are calling Context where we’re going to look at the ways in which we approach this book, or this book of books or library of books which is probably a better description. And in an effort to work smarter and not harder and to kill two birds with one stone as they say, I thought, “Hey, students aren’t the only ones that should be talking about this context thing.” Soooo, this morning you guys are going to get a glimpse into the next series for our students and I’ll have worked ahead so I’ll get to take it easy this week. So we’ll jump right in with our text, 2 Timothy 3.10-17, so if you have your Bible or the Bible app on your phone you can follow along or it’ll be on the screens as well.
2 Timothy 3.10-17 // NRSV
Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
The Message translates those last two verses this way:
Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped for the tasks God has for us.
As I mentioned, we just finished up a series on Philippians and in that series we actually talked quite a bit about Paul and his reality while writing the letter to the Philippians, which is all context, context that’s crucial to us understanding what’s going on. Well here in 2nd Timothy things haven’t gotten any better for Paul. Most scholars agree that this was Paul’s last letter before he was killed. So Paul, having been imprisoned for some time now and most likely knowing that his days are numbered writes a letter to a younger Timothy reminding him that this, this book, this book of books and letters and poems is important. This library of books deals with loss and anger, with money and fear and joy and doubt and grace and healing. Beyond that, these words show us truth, these words show us what redemption and restoration look like, these words show us how to love and how to live, these words lead us to a Jesus that saves us.
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time and what I find interesting is that the Bible is the best-selling book of the year……every year. Conservative estimate is that in 2015 Americans purchased some 29 million Bibles and spent nearly a half a billion dollars. The Barna Group, an evangelical group that does all kinds of polls and gathers statistics says that 91% of American homes own at least one Bible and the average household owns 4 which means that the Bible publishers sell 29 million copies a year of a book that almost everybody already has. And not only do we have them, we have them any way we want them. I spent a little time looking at Bibles on Amazon.com and these are just a few:
The Men of Integrity Devotional Bible – that good, geared toward men, God knows us men need us some Bible
The Beautiful Word Bible – has this really great artwork to highlight certain verses
for those that don’t want others coloring their verses for them there’s the Beautiful Word Coloring Bible
keeping with the color theme there’s the Rainbow Study Bible that highlights Bible passages by theme
here we have the Soul Surfer Bible with notes and quotes by Bethany Hamilton, the girl that had an unfortunate run in with a shark
this is one of my favorites, The 2:52 Boys Bible – finally a Bible just for boys and I know that’s hard to read cause the image isn’t great but there at the bottom the first bullet point says, “Discover gross and gory Bible stuff”
not to leave out the girls, we have the Revolve: Complete New Testament which apparently also has some great life applications such as, “Are you dating a godly guy?” or “Beauty secrets you’ve never heard before”
Woman, Thou Art Loosed Bible which at first glance seems strange to me because the name on the front is of a 60 year old man.
For the kiddos, we have the Adventure Bible – now in full color
Not to be outdone there’s Psalty playing a mean tambourine on the Psalty’s Kids Bible
The Bible Promise Book for Women
The Bible Promise Book for Men
Bible Promises for Life
And better yet, The Complete Personalized Promise Bible in which if you send them some of your general info, name, where you’re from/live, the will print the Bible just for you, with your name in it so that when God promises something it reads, “God promises Jon or God promises (your name here)”
And just in case that’s too general for you there’s also:
The Complete Personalized Promise Bible for men, for women, on financial increase and on health and healing
I’m not making this stuff up folks. Please hear me, I’m not saying that any of these things are bad. God’s word, no matter the frame you put it in is still God’s word. What I am saying is that all of these options are telling us, not audibly, but they are sending a message loud and clear that we can have it our way, however we want it and it’s that very mentality that gets us in to trouble when we’re reading this book.
Prepare yourself, the Bible wasn’t written to us. It was written for us, not to us. The 66 books of the Bible were written to people that lived at different times, in different cultures, in different places, spoke different languages, had different beliefs and values and faced different issues and challenges. Notice I’m not saying that we can’t learn from the Bible, we can. I agree with Paul, I think we find truth and grace and healing and salvation in this book. What can become a challenge for us as Americans, in central Indiana, in a me centered culture in 2017 is that we often read this book with our own agendas, with the misconception that we can pull whatever verse we want from whatever book or letter or poem we want and make it say whatever we want to make us feel good, we find scripture to support our own biases and beliefs all the while not even realizing it. Just a few examples:
Luke 11.9 – “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Name it and claim it gospel which treats the verse as an absolute. “Want that new car, just ask.”
To understand Luke 11:9, let us look to the beginning of the chapter. In Luke 11:1, Jesus' disciples ask Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In response, Jesus teaches them what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer, which serves as an example of how we are to pray. Nowhere in the Lord’s Prayer—the example of how to pray, given by God, Himself—do we see Jesus claiming a new donkey and cart, or piles of gold. It is a humble supplication, asking God to help us live the way He wishes us to live, and to provide for us as we need to be provided for in order to do this. This is God’s promise. This is what God guarantees us.
Jesus told His disciples, “Ask and it will be given to you…” after giving them the example of what to ask for—things like the forgiveness of sin, the coming of God’s kingdom, and the basic sustenance—our simple daily bread—needed to allow us to serve Him. Ask for these things, and they shall be given to you. Ask for a Cadillac, and receive the collective sighs of a thousand theologians.
Philippians 4.13 – “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” Scott mentioned this last week, this has become the go to verse when it comes to competition. It’s become the mantra for those who wish to climb the corporate ladder or for anybody who ever wished to score the winning touchdown, make the last second 3 pointer to win the game, hit the walk off home run.
The verse is about being content and persevering through hard times. So if you ever find yourself imprisoned or persecuted for your faith, it's appropriate to remember and quote Paul’s example, and his words in this verse. Shouting it at the church softball game in hopes that it will give your team divine power isn’t probably what Paul had in mind. Jeremiah 29.11 – “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” We use this verse to encourage every graduating high school or college senior, in hopes of encouraging them as they take steps toward their future, or we use this verse to console a family whose lost a loved one or generally to anyone who is suffering. This is a verse that we have to be careful with because it sets up unrealistic expectations. What if the cancer doesn’t go away, what if the grief is too much? Setting up unrealistic expectations is one of the worst things that we can do to a new Christian.
If we look just one verse earlier we see that Jeremiah is writing to the Israelites, promising a specific end to their exile in Babylon. God’s plan in verse 11 is specifically for the Israelites who have been driven from their homes and are forced to live in Babylon. This verse has more to do with God’s character than it is a general promise to all Christians.
This Bible isn’t a collection of quotes or one-liners, it is literally the word of God, when we open this book we are opening the story that God has been weaving from the beginning and we are finding our place in that story. How this book, how this story is read, how it’s communicated, how it’s taught, how it’s lived is pivotal to who we are as Christ followers and it’s crucial to how others come to Jesus.
That said, how many times do we misquote or misuse verses in the Bible often for our own benefit. For example, we might turn to the concordance or basically the glossary in the back wanting to find a verse on grace, we read the ones suggested, find a favorite one, and then start quoting away! It made me think of this video, called Lady at the mall who has a Bible verse for everything, check this out:
/ VIDEO // John Crist – Lady at the mall who has a Bible verse for everything /
We have to be really careful to avoid forcing scripture to fit and justify our own lives and our own circumstances, ‘cause it’s so easy to do.
When we open our Bibles, we’re reading words that are thousands of years old and we’re reading them with twenty-first century eyes. We’re reading words literally in some cases written on stone tablets on we’re reading them on tablets made of plastic and metal. There’s a huge gap there, huge gap in time, huge gap in culture and a huge gap in language. Basically, when we open this book, we have something we have to wrestle with right off the bat: we often times don’t know what that culture and time in history was like, so we often take things the wrong way. But with a little digging and scratching at the surface we can build some context and we begin to see this book in a whole new way.
So let’s apply this a bit. If you have a Bible turn to Matthew 27.45. Just a little context, Jesus has been arrested, he’s been beaten, he’d been paraded through the streets and he’s been crucified. Verse 45 – “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” When we read this at first glance it’s easy to see this as Jesus crying out, as Jesus saying that this is too much, as Jesus saying, “Dad, where are you?” And it’s easy to come to that conclusion because that’s literally what he’s saying. Now, let’s dig at it a little bit. Some of you might have a little footnote at the bottom of that page that leads you to another passage, Psalm 22. So we flip over to Psalm 22 and what do we find, verse 1 – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Well that’s interesting….the next question should be, why? Why is Jesus quoting the first verse of Psalm 22? Quick time out, we talked about this back in our True North series so I won’t go into a lot of detail, but if we dig a bit into the Jewish culture in the first century, at the time that Jesus lived and at the time Jesus was crucified, we find that at about age 6 a Jewish child would head off to school and from 6 to age 10 they studied the first five books of the Bible, the Torah and not only did they study it, they memorized it. At age 10 they would begin the next chapter in their schooling which included studying, learning and memorizing the rest of the OT scriptures. So by about age 14, they had the OT memorized, Genesis to Malachi memorized.
While that’s impressive enough as it is, there is one book in the OT that received special attention and was recited and maybe more accurately, sung in the home and that’s the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms is a collection of songs and songs are a powerful thing. As kids we grow up and our parents have music playing, they teach us songs and we learn the tunes and the words become a part of us. As a kid my mom and dad often had music playing, my mom controlled the music in the house and my dad controlled the music in his car. My mom would be playing Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton and the soundtracks to all the show tunes, Sound of Music, West Side Story, you name it. Meanwhile in dad’s car I got to listen to Meat Loaf, Bob Seger, ELO and Steppenwolf.
And when you grow up around music, around song, you don’t really have to memorize the words to a song, you hear and you sing the songs over and over and the words become a part of who you are.
If you sing “Jolene” to me, I can jump right in with
“Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair”
Or if you start in with “Just take those old records off the shelf
I’ll sit and listen to ‘em by myself
Today’s music ain’t got the same soul
I like that old time rock n’ roll”
Maybe a more universal song for all of us if I say to you
“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound….”what comes next
“That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see”
The same was true for the first century Jew when it came to their songs, for them it wasn’t Dolly Parton, Bob Seger, or Amazing Grace, it was David and the Psalms. If you gave them the first line of the song, they would be able to fill in the rest, they’d immediately start the tune in their head and they would immediately be reminded of the words to the song.
So Jesus quotes the first line of Psalm 22 from the cross and who is there to hear him? The people that wanted him dead. There would have been a gathering of Jews there to make sure that this crucifixion that they had demanded actually happened. And to this crowd of Jews Jesus says “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” and the crowd begins to play the tune in their head, they’re reminded of that song, they’re reminded of Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far away? I cry out day and night, but you don’t answer.
Yet you are the holy God, ruling from your throne and praised by Israel.
Our ancestors trusted you, and you rescued them.
When they cried out for help, you saved them.
But I’m a worm, less than human, and I am hated and rejected by people everywhere.
Everyone who sees me makes fun and mocks me.
They shake their heads, mock me and say, “Trust the Lord!
If you are his favorite, let him protect you and keep you safe.”
From the day I was born, I have been in your care,
And from the time of my birth, you have been my God.
Don’t be far when I am in trouble with no one to help me.
Enemies are all around like a herd of wild bulls.
My enemies are like lions roaring and attacking with jaws open wide.
I have no more strength; all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like melted wax.
My strength has dried up and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Brutal enemies attack me like a pack of wild dogs, tearing at my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones, and my enemies just stare and sneer at me.
They took my clothes and gambled for them.
When I cried out, You listened and did not turn away.
Everyone on this earth will remember you, Lord.
In the future, everyone will worship and learn about you.
People not yet born will be told, “The Lord has saved us!”
Jesus, with many of his enemies there to watch reminds them of a song, a song where the words are describing this very moment. As the crowd scrolls through the words to the song in their head they are seeing the song play out before them, they are seeing the crowd tempt Jesus as they sing the very words, they are seeing men gamble for Jesus’ clothes off to the side as they sing the words, as they come to the words “tearing at my hands and my feet” they look up to Jesus crucified, strung up to a chunk of wood by his hands and his feet. They are reminded of these words and they come to the end and are reminded that “The Lord has saved us”. Jesus with his last few breathes takes the opportunity to one more time tell people that he is who he said he was, that he is their God, in flesh and blood, and I can only imagine in that moment that there were many Jews who played those words over and over as they saw the song play out in front of them and I imagine that some began to walk away, ashamed, sad and maybe full of grief over what they’d done and what they wanted, but they also may have walked away realizing for the first time that they’ve seen their God, that they’ve seen the Savior that they’ve been waiting on, that they’ve seen God and God’s grace, that they’ve seen God and his restoration, that they’ve seen God and his redemption and his love.
In the same way that Christ revealed himself through a song 2000 years ago to those that had come to see him die, he is still revealing himself to us 2000 years later. Revealing himself through his church, through each other, through love and through grace and even through this book of books. And it’s when he is revealed and together we recognize him for who he is that we come to this table, remembering what was accomplished and remembering that his story continues through his church, through us and through you.