Summer Scripture - 2 Timothy 2:15

2 Timothy 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
· When I first read this passage, I thought it seemed pretty straight forward, but the more I tried to memorize it, the more confusing it became to me. Like, how are you supposed to “present yourself to God", and what exactly does “approved”? I asked those same questions to a lot of the volunteers this weekend, and the general consensus was that you present yourself to God with how you choose to live your life. I think that's exactly what Paul was trying to tell us, for sure, but I found that there was another way to present yourself to God that most people overlooked - Prayer. When you pray to God, you're presenting yourself before Him and trying to grow closer to your creator and your savior. I think that's important to mention because the ones that are "approved" are the ones who are tryign to do exactly that - grow closer to God and in hopes of pleasing him. A famous bible scholar named Adam Clark suggested that this meant to study the bible to cultivate and improve your heart and mind so you can be above reproach.

· The other question I asked was how should we “correctly handle the word of truth”? The Greek word “orthotomounta” is what is translated as “correctly handles”. It literally means to “cut straight”, like if you were to cut a board or a piece of paper into equal parts. Other translations rendered this word “rightly divided”. It's also important to notice that the "Word of Truth" is one used several times in Paul's letters to refer to the scriptures, what we would call the Holy Bible, and not just the gospel of Jesus. Wait - that made it more confusing didn't it?

Paul isn't telling you to cut your Bible in half. Just before this verse, Paul talks about sin as though it were a sickness or defect that would result in amputation. Some books render these words as cancer or gangrene, a sickness that often results in hands and feet having to be cut off to save someone's life. When you tie all this together, Paul is simply telling Tim to use the Bible as his measuring stick to determine what is right, what is good, and what God wants to see in him and live that out! As he compares himself to this example, however, Paul is encouraging Tim to cut the sin and temptations out of his life so that he can be an effective tool used to further God's kingdom.

All of the volunteers agreed that's some advice that we need to practice. The ways to practice it are straight forward, too! Read the Bible! How can you handle the word of truth if you're not learning it? Present yourself to God, both in the way that you're living and by praying, and lastly, set an example that would make you proud to be called one of God's

1Tim 6:20&21

“Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you.”

What are the things that have been entrusted to your care? There are a lot of things you’ve been entrusted with. Your school work, your family, and your friends were all examples that I heard last weekend. In this chapter, though, I think Paul was talking about two things specifically. First, he was talking about the first church at Ephesus. Several times in the 1 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy how important it is that he stay there and keep spreading the gospel. So, one of the things he’s been entrusted with are the people of the city who may not know about Jesus yet. The second thing would be the message of the gospel.

That second part about Godless chatter and “opposing ideas” were people saying that Jesus isn’t the way to salvation. Paul was talking about Tim being entrusted with the gospel and keeping the message of Jesus pure from corruption. At that time in history, only about 50 years after Jesus had been resurrected a religion called Gnosticism was starting to surface in Ephesus. Gnosticism was an early heresy (that’s a religion that takes a little bit of one religion, but completely changes it) that taught people we’re saved by knowledge, not the grace of God. The word Gnosticism comes from the Greek work “knowledge”. You see what he means when he says “ideas of what is falsely called knowledge”?

Do you think this is something we still need to resist today? You betcha! There are a lot of ideas and ways of thinking that try to take God and Jesus out of the way you view the world or how things work. Turn away from that nonsense, and guard the thoughts and people that are most precious to you.