Essential of the Bible

2 Timothy 3:16-17

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

What can the Bible do?

Teaching

1.    It gives us the correct information.

•    Everybody needs teaching, not just believers or Christians or disciples, but everybody.

•    For Jesus has come for the sinners, not for the righteous.

•    We gain knowledge when we are taught.

•    That is why we never regretted not going to school when we are young. The ability to read and write that we have learned, we appreciate its usefulness today.

Rebuking

1.    It repairs our wrong ways of thinking.

•    Most of the time, we always think we know about how something works. Sometimes we got it right, sometimes we got it wrong.

•    The Word of God is the way that God points out to us about our wrong thinking, but it is up to us if we want to repent or not.

•    For example, we won’t know if it is okay to drive straight through red lights at the traffic lights, unless we study about the laws and regulations.

Correcting

1.    It corrects our character.

•    Routine becomes habit, habit becomes character. Therefore, bad habit causes us to end up with bad character.

•    We want our character to be good, not bad or just useless.

•    Like an open book test, we only get the correct information from the book to answer the questions in the test. Of course we will avoid writing down the wrong answers or answers that are not related to the questions.

•    When we open up ourselves to be corrected, we grow more in maturity.

•    The enemy can use the Word of God against us too, just like how Jesus was tempted.

•    If we know the Word of God deep enough, we can correct our thinking, even when the enemy uses it against us. This is demonstrated when Jesus was tempted to turn stone into bread.

Training in Righteousness

1.    It trains us to be ready to make the right choices and decisions.

•    God allows us to be tempted, so that we know how strong we are against temptations.

•    When temptations come, knowledge about the ways of God allows us to be able to stand firm in righteousness.

•    When we have decided to be a disciple of Jesus, following His ways and abandoning our old ways, we need to take the initiative to train ourselves.

•    It is like signing up for gym and make effort to exercise to build up our bodies.

•    Jesus said in Matthew 7:24-25 – 24Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

Why do we need the Bible?

1.    We need a guideline to be prompted.

•    Do we want to build our lives based on just what we think is enough, or do we want to build it to the highest standard available?

•    The Bible tells us which lifestyle is the best for us.

2.    We are yet to reach God’s standard.

•    Our standard of “perfect life” is way too low compared to the God’s standard of life.

•    Things that we think is “alright” may not be alright after all.

3.    We lack of gratitude.

•    When we received a blessing, we thank God.

•    But when we face problems, we question God about His promises to keep us away from all sufferings.

•    God never promise days without pain, laughter without tears, and light without darkness.

•    But in the days of pain, He provides us with the strength to carry on; in the days of tears, He provides us with joy for us to be thankful; in days of darkness, He provides us His hand to guide us through the darkness.

•    He provides everything so that our faith will grow if we choose to trust Him.

4.    We do not understand the importance of the Word.

•    The result of following the Word of God is only seen after we put them into practice for some time.

•    When we look at those who fully follow the commandments of God, we may think that they are trying to be holy.

•    But we will never understand it unless we do the same. Matthew 13:13 – 13This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”

•    Only when our lives are totally changed by following the teachings, we will realise the importance of the Bible.

5.    We have not apply the teachings fully.

•    We can know the Word of God, but still sin intentionally.

The reasons for God to give us His word

1.    John 17:17 – 17Sanctify them by your word, your word is truth.

•    All the things written in the Bible are true.

•    No one can prove the Bible wrong.

2.    It is to change, to mould and to remake us.

•    So that we can grow.

•    G – grounded with the word of God

•    R – routine in prayer

•    O – open for corrections

•    W – worthy of God’s calling on the appointed time

•    We are made in the image of God, but sin has destroyed that image.

•    This is the reason we don’t see the glory of God when we sin.

•    We have to build up our image to be like Christ, and the very manual to do so, is the Bible.

3.    Forgiveness is only found in the Bible.

•    Our sins are forgiven when Jesus gave His life on that cross and we accept Him as our Lord and Saviour.

•    John 3:19-21 – 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of the light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

•    When we confess our sins to God, we will be forgiven. The weight in our hearts are lifted up, we won’t be carrying the weight of our sins anymore, because Jesus will be carrying it for us.

•    But, we also need to live by the truth, which is the Word of God.

Reasons to put Bible into our life

1.    We need to know the importance of the Word of God.

•    John 1:3 – 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

•    Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth

•    The Bible teaches us the way to avoid committing a sin.

•    We are not sinless, but we can sin less if we train hard.

2.    The Bible shows us our sins.

•    In the morning, our room is dark.

•    When we pull open the curtains, sunlight comes in.

•    Then we realised the air is full of dusts.

•    Our sins are like the dusts in the air, there is so much of it that we lost count. They are hidden in the darkness. Until we open up the curtain for Jesus, the ray of bright light, to show us our sins, we will never realised how unhealthy we are when we breath in the air full of dusts.

3.    The Bible helps us to build a good life.

•    In fact, it is the best life.

•    Normally we choose the course we want study because we believe we can enjoy a wonderful and fruitful life with the knowledge that we gain. This is because we know the knowledge will benefit us.

•    The same goes for the Bible. We build an even better life by studying the Bible.

Conclusion

The Bible is made out of paper and ink, we can easily destroy it. However, the knowledge that comes behind the paper and ink is the Word of God, and it is indestructible. Those who treasure the Word of God will find their true treasure of life, outside the wealth of this world.