All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (II Timothy 3:16-17)
I
have kept journals for years but reading them is frustrating and disappointing.
The things I whined about years ago are what I’m whining about now. How
can I be such a miserable failure that I somehow never learn? Shouldn’t I be past
that by now? I mean, come…on… Oh, there are some things that I seem to
be past, but they seem inconsequential compared to the stuff I just can’t learn.
I
have a school mentality of learning. You
learn that 2+2=4, and chances are that even if you forget it you can figure it
out. The capital of the United States is Washington, DC. Got that. Somewhere in
the records, I earned my diploma and two degrees.
To
make things worse, there are “alternative education facilitators” out there who
want to sell us the three steps needed to power, love, peace, self-control,
or something else that looks good. They might even give us a certificate, but
then life does what life does, leaving us with no idea of what to do when what
we learned doesn’t work, and they’re either nowhere to be found or holding out their hand for payment, again.
What
today’s passage tells us is that Scripture is a handbook that we get to keep. In
any circumstance, we can find something that will do the following:
Teach: Show or
explain to (someone) how to do something.
Rebuke:
Express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their
behavior or actions.
Correct:
Free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.
Train:
Teach (a person or animal) a particular skill or type of behavior through
practice and instruction over a period of time.
Put
another way… Here’s how to do it. Here’s what it looks like.
No,
that’s not right.
This
is what you need to change and how to change it.
Let’s
try it again.
The
nice thing is that there’s something that’s not included: “You’ve failed….”
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