God-Breathed Scripture –Part 4
Paul’s assertion that “All Scripture (graphē) is inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16) follows his reminder to Timothy that he had known “the sacred writings” from “childhood” (2 Tim 3:15), so it is natural to understand graphē here as a reference to the Old Testament writings. Wesley reminds us that “These only were extant when Timothy was an infant”, and Wayne Grudem points out that graphē “occurs fifty-one times in the New Testament and … refers to the Old Testament Scriptures in every one of those occurrences” (Systematic Theology). Accordingly, in 2 Tim 3:16 and other passages, Paul joins Moses, Jesus and the prophets in affirming that the Old Testament is “the product of the creative breath of God” (Part 3).
However, while Paul’s immediate reference here is to the Old Testament, it is clear from other passages that the New Testament writers placed their teachings in the same category as those of Moses and the prophets. For example, speaking of Paul’s letters, the apostle Peter warns that “the untaught and unstable distort (these) as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16, emphasis mine). Warfield explains the significance of the apostles’ words:
Thus, the apostle Peter, writing in A.D. 68, speaks of Paul’s numerous letters not in contrast with the Scriptures, but as among the Scriptures and in contrast with ‘the other Scriptures’ (2 Pet.3:16) – that is, of course, those of the Old Testament. (The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament).
First Timothy 5:17-18 provides further evidence “that very early in the history of the church the writings of the New Testament began to be accepted as part of the canon” (Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology). Here, Paul appeals to “scripture” and quotes Deut 25:4 (“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain”) along with Luke 10:7 (“The laborer is worthy of his wages”). Grudem tells us that Paul uses “exactly the same words (as Luke) in the Greek text.” Thus, “the apostle Paul combines, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke under the common head of ‘Scripture’” (Warfield). In short, while 2 Timothy 3:16 primarily refers to the Old Testament, Christians have the New Testament’s self-attestation that it too is God-breathed, and as such, a lamp to guide us in a world of darkness.
Rex
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