Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.39 – October 2008

 

The Reformation’s Greatest Legacy – by Rev. Dr. Steve Voowinde

Reformation Sunday Sermon 

Text: 2Timothy 3:16-17

Scripture Readings: 2 Peter 1:12-21; 2 Timothy 3:1-4:8

 

Beloved people of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Introduction

What would you like to be remembered for when you die?

What mark would you like to have left on the world when you are gone?

What will be your legacy to the next generation?

These may not be questions that we think about often enough. They may not always be comfortable questions, but they were certainly questions that exercised the mind of the apostle Paul. Here he was at the end of his life. He was sitting in a cold, dark prison cell in Rome. The murderous Nero was emperor at the time, and Paul knew that his own chances of survival were rather slim. So he pens this letter to his young friend Timothy in faraway Ephesus, and it is the last letter that we have from his pen. It is the apostle’s swan song. And what is the great theme to this last letter of Paul’s? What title would you give it? I would suggest simply this: Paul’s legacy.

And what was that legacy? What did Paul want to pass on to Timothy more than anything else? What did Paul want Timothy to hang on to more than anything else? It was the gospel, the message of Scripture. When you read 2 Timothy you can’t miss it. He comes back to it time and time again. Think of the many ways that he refers to the message of Scripture or the gospel in this letter:

1. It is “the pattern of sound words” (1:13).

2. It is “the word of God” (2:9) and “the word of truth” (2:15).

3. He also reminds Timothy of it as “the treasure which has been entrusted to you” (1:14) and “the things which you have heard from me” (2:2).

4. And these things were securely anchored in what in our passage he calls “the sacred writings” (3:15) and “all Scripture” (3:16).

From beginning to end this was Paul’s theme — the gospel, the Word, the Scripture. This was his legacy to Timothy. And what a wonderful legacy it was. Over time it transformed the ancient world. That gospel for which Paul was suffering imprisonment in Rome would eventually change the entire Roman Empire. Its influence would be so profound that whole religions would die out. I mean, when did you last meet someone who seriously worshipped Zeus or Apollo or Juno or Diana or Mercury? No wonder Paul was so adamant about leaving the gospel as his legacy. He knew that it was the only power in the world that could change the world.

But even a world that has heard the gospel can become resistant to the gospel. Even a culture that has the Bible can bury that Bible. It can lie buried under a heap of traditions or it can be entombed in a language that most people don’t understand. And that’s precisely what had happened in the medieval church. The gospel had been buried beneath layer upon layer of church tradition. The Bible that was used was in Latin, a language that had not been spoken by the common people for the last thousand years. The Dark Ages had obscured the light of the gospel. Christendom had lost the plot and was under serious threat.

The Ottoman Turks were the superpower of the day. In the middle of the fifteenth century their armies had surrounded Constantinople, the last bastion of Christianity in the East. Although the city appealed for help from the Christian West it was more or less left to its fate and it fell to the Turks in 1453. As a result they conquered most of south-eastern Europe and by 1529 they were laying siege to the city of Vienna. Would Christianity survive? Here it was, confined to a relatively small corner of the world — northern and western Europe — and doctrinally and spiritually it had seriously lost its way. How could it possibly be revived?

In the providence of God the answer came with the Reformation. And at the heart of the Reformation lies the rediscovery of the gospel, the basic message of the Bible. What the Reformers did more than anything else was to take their Bible, blow away the cobwebs, dust it off and put it back in the hands of the people. And they did this by translating it into the common languages of the day. Luther’s translation of the whole Bible into German during his confinement in the Wartburg castle in 1522 has to have been one of the most significant events in European history. Luther’s translation transformed the German language, it changed the face of Europe, and it altered the course of world history. After more than a millennium the Bible was once again available in a language that ordinary people could understand.

Let me quote what Luther himself had to say on the subject: “No greater mischief can happen to a Christian people, than to have God’s word taken from them, or falsified, so that they no longer have it, pure and clear. God grant that we and our descendants not be witnesses of such a calamity.” ( Table Talk , 6)

Soon others took up Luther’s challenge. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1525. A whole spate of translations followed that included the Great Bible of 1539 and the Geneva Bible of 1560. Finally this tradition culminated in the publication of the beautiful King James Version of 1611. The Bible was once again available in languages that everyone could understand and the world would never be the same again. This was the Reformers’ greatest legacy — the word of God in the language of the people. It is a legacy that lives on today, as more and more people around the globe can read the Bible in their own language.

And it is that Bible that I want to preach about this afternoon, and I want to do so from a text that gave great inspiration to the Reformers and that was the legacy that Paul passed on to Timothy:

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Here Paul says three things about Scripture:

1. The nature of Scripture: “All Scripture is God-breathed”.

2. The use (or the usefulness) of Scripture: It “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

3. And the purpose of Scripture: “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

So there you have it. There you have the nub of it, or should I say “the nup of it”? N-U-P is the nature, the use and the purpose of Scripture. Now nup’ is of course just a nonsense syllable. So maybe you can turn it around and get the word pun’. You can do what you like, so long as you remember these three points. If I bump into you in the street this week, you should be able to say to me, “Ah yes, you preached on the nature, the use, and the purpose of Scripture.” If you can say that next week I’ll be a very happy man. If you can still say it at Christmas it will be even better!

So let’s begin with the nature of Scripture — it is God-breathed.

Now it needs to be said that here the NIV has an excellent translation: “All Scripture is God-breathed.” Most older translations say that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” or “is inspired by God.” This gives the impression that God breathed into it. The idea seems to be like a glassblower blowing into the molten glass and giving it a particular shape. But that is not quite the picture. It is not so much that God breathes into something but that he breathes out. And what is that we produce most often when we breathe out? We breathe out when we speak. If you hold your hand in front of your mouth when you speak then you will feel constant little puffs on your hand. And that is the picture we have here of God. All Scripture is God-breathed. In every passage we have God speaking. Every word is produced by the very breath of God. It was this high view of Scripture that gave the work of the Reformers such authority and that gave their preaching such extraordinary power.

When God speaks, things happen. When God breathes, things happen. In Genesis 1 he spoke, and the universe came into being. In Genesis 2 he breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living being. And the same theme keeps recurring throughout Scripture:

Ezekiel 37:9, In the valley of dry bones God said to the prophet: “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live’.”

So when God breathes and when he speaks, things happen. The creation comes into being. Man is given life. Dead people are revived. But what happens when he speaks through his word? What do the God-breathed Scriptures bring about? Paul reminds Timothy what these Scriptures have done in his own life. They have made him “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Because of those Scriptures Timothy had been brought to a saving knowledge of Christ. He had learned to trust in Jesus Christ and him alone for his salvation. He had come to realise that he could come to God only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And as a result his life had been transformed. The God-breathed Scriptures had spoken to him and he had received new life.

And let me tell you quite categorically, the same thing is still happening today. Let me give you a very current example (2008). At the Reformed Theological College we have a residence called Barkley Hall. It houses about forty students. Many of them are internationals from Deakin University. There are also a handful of our own RTC students. Early this year these students decided to start a Bible study group for any others who were interested. Since that time they have led a group studying Mark’s Gospel. They just opened their Bibles, taught them about Jesus, discussed what he said and answered questions. It was a very simple method and it worked. Those who joined the group were from a variety of different countries and several different religions. The only thing they seemed to have in common was that they were not Christians!

A week ago one of the older members of the group returned to China. He was a thirty-eight year old PhD student and a family man. Before he left he came to say goodbye to me and told me that he had become a Christian. “I have joined the Christian team,” he told me. It was delightful news. Here was a man whose life had been changed because he simply read and studied the Bible. Some of our students were kind enough to explain it to him and quite undramatically he was converted. Six months ago he came to us as a non-Christian. Now he has returned to China as a believer. Twenty years ago never in my wildest dreams could I have believed that students would come from Communist China, live at the RTC and return as believers in Christ. How could all this be happening? Because of the God-breathed Scriptures! When God breathes, when he speaks, things still happen. It was so in Paul’s day. It was so during the Reformation. It is still so today. And I am sure there are many of you here who could testify to that from your own personal experience.

So that’s the nature of Scripture. It is God-breathed — the whole lot of it and every bit of it, every chapter, every passage and every word. And because it is God-breathed it can do what nothing else can do — it can give life, new life.

And now we come, secondly, to the use of Scripture. As Paul says, it “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

Let’s think about the four uses of Scripture that Paul lists here. He begins with the doctrinal use of Scripture. The order is important. Doctrine is the basis for life. We cannot act on what we do not know. We cannot practice what we haven’t been taught. We cannot behave in accordance with what we do not believe. So of necessity doctrine comes first.

There is a positive side and there is a negative side to this use of Scripture.

Positively, there is teaching or instruction. This raises an obvious question: How well taught are you? How well do you know your Bible? How well grounded are you in Christian doctrine? You might say, “But I belong to a church that has been vacant for a while. We haven’t had any systematic Bible teaching for some time. As a result my Bible knowledge has slipped.” These are not fair comments, are they? With all the resources we have nowadays that has to be a bit of a lame excuse. With the books and study materials and online courses, that is a cop out, you’d have to admit. How will you be when you get to heaven and you bump into some of the human authors of Scripture. What are you going to say to the prophet Obadiah when he asks, “What did you think of my little book?” Or what if you run into Jude and he says, “I know my letter was only short, but how did it help you? I’d like to know.
So how well do you know your Bible?

Then on the negative side of the doctrinal ledger there is rebuking. Wrong views need to be challenged. This seems to have been a big part of Timothy’s work in Ephesus. Again, if you are going to do that effectively, you need to know your Bible well. This becomes especially important if you are an elder. In fact when Paul writes to Titus he lists this as one of the qualifications for eldership: The elder “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (1:9). Luther seems to have been particularly good at this. I must say that he was helped by a photographic memory, but he really was good at refuting his opponents from the Scriptures. In fact, he said so himself: “A theologian should be thoroughly in possession of the basis and source of faith — that is to say, the Holy Scriptures. Armed with this knowledge I confounded and silenced all my adversaries; for they seek not to fathom and understand the Scriptures.” ( Table Talk , 3).

How are you when it comes to refuting the wrong views of others? Could you hold your own, for example, in a doctrinal discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon?

This brings us then to the practical or ethical uses of Scripture. This time we start with the negative:

If rebuking has to do with wrong beliefs, correcting has to do with wrong behaviour. A legitimate use of Scripture is for the moral improvement of those for whom we are responsible. Now it has to be said that we live in a social climate today where neither rebuking nor correcting are very popular. You just don’t do that sort of thing these days. And yet if we are faithful to Scripture we should be prepared to do both. If called to do so, we should be prepared to confront people with their wrong beliefs and wrong behaviour. Now let me use a very controversial example. In early 2008 the Australian media were dominated by Sheik Al Hilaly’s comments comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat. It was a crude comparison and the comments were totally insensitive and inappropriate. And yet it did leave me with an uneasy feeling. The Bible does have something to say about this delicate subject — the way women dress.

In his first letter to Timothy Paul said this: “I want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God” (1 Tim 2:8-10). The apostle Peter wrote to Christian women in a similar vein: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Pet 3:3-4). If a younger woman came to your church dressed too seductively or an older woman came dressed too ostentatiously, would there be someone to gently correct her? When was the last time you heard a careful pastoral exposition of these passages? I’d have to be the first to admit that I have never preached on either of these passages, but then I’ve never heard anyone else preach on them either. Do we hesitate to tackle them because it would not be the politically correct thing to do? Is it just too politically incorrect to correct?

Then finally we move to the positive practical use of the Bible, which is “training in righteousness.” Now when you hear the word “training” what image does that bring to mind? Don’t you immediately think of sports people and athletes putting their bodies through the wringer, pushing themselves to the limit, and doing their daily workouts? They don’t just wake up one morning and discover that they are Olympic champions. But away from the crowds, sometimes even before dawn, they are putting themselves through their paces, giving themselves a hard time so that they can be at their athletic best. Think of the discipline that it takes. Think of the sacrifice. Think of the exertion. As Christians can we afford to do any less? Has our age of affluence and comfort produced flabby Christians? Are we as self-disciplined as we ought to be?

At this point let me make a very practical suggestion. If you are not already doing it, may I challenge you very specifically to set aside half an hour every day to get to know your Bible better. That’s about as long as it takes to watch the evening news. Just dedicate half an hour a day to reading your Bible, studying it, memorising it, meditating on it. Let God speak to you. Let him challenge you, shape you and mould you to be the righteous person he wants you to be. You don’t just wake up one morning and discover that you are a mature Christian. It takes discipline and it takes effort.

And that brings us to Paul’s third point — the purpose of the Bible. As he says in verse 17, “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

When Paul is speaking here of the man of God then he is thinking most directly of Timothy himself. In the opening verses of chapter 4 he reminds Timothy what the good works are for which he is to be so thoroughly equipped: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction” (vs 2). That was Timothy’s task and it is also the task of several of you who are here this afternoon. There are others here who are preparing for this task — and what a great and glorious task it is.

But I don’t think we can confine Paul’s words here to the gospel ministry. When he says, “that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work,” then he is casting his net as widely as possible. He is not only thinking of preachers and pastors and theological students. He is also thinking of mothers and fathers, of teachers and businessmen, of plumbers and pilots. Whatever your situation in life, there are good works for which you need to be equipped. None of us is exempt from the challenge of this passage. God is sending us all into the world with a mission to perform, with good works to do.

But to do those good works, to fulfill our mission in life we need to be thoroughly equipped. To be able to meet all the demands that are placed upon us, we need to be equipped. To do the job that we have been called to do, we need to be equipped. Earlier in this letter, back at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul has compared Timothy’s work to that of a soldier, an athlete and a farmer. Now I want you to imagine these situations:

• A soldier is sent into battle without weapons. He is unequipped. How can he possibly survive? In no time he will be at the mercy of the enemy.
• Or think of an athlete who goes into the contest without running shoes. Is he any match for the others who are equipped with the latest aerodynamic footwear?
• Or think of the farmer who goes into the field without his implements. How is he to sow or plough if all he has are his bare hands? How can he expect a crop if he goes to work unequipped.

I am sure now that you can see where these illustrations are heading. You get my drift. How can you possibly hope to live the Christian life in our complex world if you are not thoroughly equipped? How can you do the good works that God has called you to do if you are not thoroughly equipped? How can you be the kind of righteous person that God expects you to be unless you are thoroughly equipped? And how can you be thoroughly equipped if you are not thoroughly familiar with the Word of God? If you don’t know your Bible, if you don’t make it a habit of studying the God-breathed Scriptures, then you know what you are like, don’t you? You are like a soldier who is defenseless against the enemy. You are like an athlete running without shoes. You are like a farmer working with his bare hands. And you know what happens to people like that, don’t you?

• Unequipped soldiers get killed.

• Unequipped athletes drop out of the race.

• Unequipped farmers go hungry.

But God doesn’t want us to be like that. He has given us his Scriptures so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Conclusion

Paul left a wonderful legacy to Timothy. He referred to it as “the treasure which has been entrusted to you” (1:14). The Reformers have left a wonderful legacy to us, and it is exactly the same treasure that Paul entrusted to Timothy. It is the Bible in our own language. What are you doing with the legacy that has been entrusted to you? Do you treasure it? Do you value it? Do you know it well?

Before the day is out, before you put your head on your pillow tonight, will you promise the Lord that you will spend at least half an hour a day in his Word? If you do, then the Lord may yet answer the greatest crying need of his church today. More than anything else in our world today we need churches that know the Bible, churches that love the Bible and churches that live the Bible!

Amen.