September 29 – 2 Timothy 3:10-16

Main focus: Following the divine Word (Jesus) means centering our lives on God’s word (the Bible).

Over this series we’ve looked at various practices of the Jesus-following life: place, worship, rest, silence and solitude, and fasting. This week we turn to the sixth: Scripture. The sermon text was 2 Timothy 3:10-16, but for discussion we’ll turn to John 14:15-31 to see the intimate way in which God uses his word to relate us to himself.

In John 14 we’ll pick up in the middle of Jesus’s Final Discourse, the last bit of teaching he gave to his disciples the night before his crucifixion. You’ll notice this passage dances across a handful of subjects; the whole final discourse is like that. Surely Jesus had a lot on his mind, and a lot he wanted to leave his disciples with. One of the main topics of this discourse is the Holy Spirit, who Jesus announced would come to his disciples after his death and resurrection (see Acts 2). In fact, John 14-16 contains the majority of the Bible’s teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the passage you’ll also see God’s word resurface over and over, perhaps most evident in Jesus’s discussion about keeping his commandments (his “commands” and his “word” are equated in v.23), but also involved in receiving the truth (v.17), being taught (v.26), and most importantly, relating to the Triune God in love (v.15, 23-24). Notice how God’s word and God’s Spirit are intimately tied here since, as Jesus describes, God’s Spirit brings God’s word to God’s people. In fact, the whole Trinity is involved in this word-bringing, since the word originates with the Father (v.24) and comes through the Son (v.24) by the Spirit (v.26; cf. 16:13).

So we’ll start discussion by kicking around all that Jesus describes about God’s word here. While God’s word includes more than just commandments (ex. something like 66% of the Bible is narrative), Jesus’s commands figure prominently here much like they do in the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20). Jesus has a lot to say about what God’s word is meant to affect in our lives. In particular, God’s word is intimately involved in our right relationship with God.

You’ll see that the third discussion question gets at this connection between God’s word and our relationship with God. Much of this comes to a head in verse 23, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” In this we should see how grave a mistake it is to treat Bible reading and study as an end in itself.

That is by far the biggest thing we need to take away from our discussion this week. Bible reading is not just a discipline of personal growth, a journey of life-long learning, or a regular rehearsal of interesting stories (though it includes these things). We cannot treat Bible reading as something that makes us feel okay by fulfilling religious duties, or gains us Christian social standing through increased knowledge. No—as Jesus puts it, our engagement with God’s word and the molding of our lives around it are all about loving Jesus and having him “make his home” with us. If we miss loving and knowing the God who the Bible tells us about, we miss the point of the Bible entirely.

With this crucial point being made, we can then discuss how to go about reading and studying the Bible more effectively by addressing those things that most often stand in our way. Since the goal is relationship with the Triune God, we can see how most often our problems are relational ones; for example, we don’t connect with the Scriptures because it doesn’t seem relevant to our lives, or we fail to make time because of other needs or desires. All this speaks about what ways we are successfully or unsuccessfully relating to God.

Finally, we’ll ask how we can be of help to one another. Don’t skip this question, or resort to easy answers. What would it legitimately look like for our group to be involved in, even championing, each other’s engagement with God’s word? Should we all read through a book of the Bible in the mornings and text about what God’s showing us? One week at community group, what if we just read aloud from the Psalms or Philippians? Or could we memorize 1 Corinthians 13 together? Come up with your own ideas together and consider how God might use his word to make his home among you.

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