Scripture
2 Timothy 4:2 – 4 – preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Observation
Paul is exhorting Timothy to a call for bold gospel endurance. Verse 2 of 2 Timothy 4 begins with “preach the word”. That is all Paul tells Timothy to preach and teach. Timothy must be prepared to confront false teaching as people will want to have teaching molded into their own passions and away from the truth of the gospel.
Application
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. God’s word is divinely inspired and inerrant. There is nothing else that can be added to or taken away from God’s word. Once we edit the word, we are shaping it to be something we want and diminishing the saving power of the gospel. In order to have a level of discernment regarding false teaching, in need to be in the word. The word is the truth and when we stray from the word, we are turning our back on God to fulfill/satisfy our own sinful desires. We don’t have to look or think very hard to see that we are in the time that Paul is warning Timothy about. If something is not in scripture, we are called to reprove it rather than go along or just say this is another interpretation.
Prayer
Father,
Thank you for the truth in your word. Let me be grounded in scripture to encourage others in the clear gospel of Jesus Christ. May I live life according to your word and have the boldness to patiently and lovingly share the gospel.