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Within the context of the local church there are several pieces that can, and should, encourage the spiritual growth of the believer. Those things can range from the pastoral leadership to the people you sit next to during the service to the appearance of the facilities, inside and out.
While it is certainly healthy to have all of those “things” being just right, the reality is that the pin-point aspect that should encourage spiritual growth, and thus being seen through all of the peripheral items mentioned above, is the Word of God itself.
The Bible speaks much about the value of itself but we will focus only a few key passages in this post. In 2 Timothy 3: 16, the Apostle Paul states that “All scripture is profitable….” In making this statement, Paul is most definitely including the writings of the Old Testament (the Law) in conjunction with the writings of the New Testament.
No matter how you attempt to translate what appears in our English Bible as “All Scripture” you will find that “all” means all and “Scripture” is referring to the writings found within the canonical Bible.
As we follow this idea to the next step, we need to explore what these writings are profitable for. Paul’s statement continues by saying that it is profitable for “doctrine [teaching], for reproof [rebuking], for correction [adjusting], for instruction [training] in righteous-ness.”
Thankfully Paul does not stop at this point but he continues on to tells us for what purpose these things are profitable. In verse 17 he tells us that they are profitable in order to guide the man of God to be “perfect [proficient], thoroughly furnished [equipped] unto all good works.”
This plays out in a number of different ways in the local church today but John 17:17 provide some great insight here that helps us see exactly why it must be central. The words of Jesus Christ read “Sanctify them [make them holy] through thy truth: thy word is truth.” This verse provides a concise view of what medium must be used in order to see growth in the body of Christ. The Word of God is the only medium that will not change and is profitable for many things (2 Timothy 3:16).[¹]
Paul, in Ephesians 4:15, exhorts the reader to be “speaking the truth in love”.
When true lives are married to love, the Spirit is free to do his work, and the result is wonderful.” [²]
The sufficiency of Scripture must be relied upon in both the life of the teacher and the life of the student (all believers). If this reliance is not found on one side of this equation the effectiveness of the medium of growth greatly diminishes.
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[¹] Not only is God’s Word profitable for instruction in righteousness (which is what we all love about it) but it is also profitable to reprove and correct us when we make those wrong turns that we are all prone to make in life.
[²] R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Ephesians, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1990), 136.
©2013 Mark Davis
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