Scripture – Profitable For Doctrine (2 of 4)

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV

(We are doing some very important teaching with this passage in a short Devotional series because it is the core foundation our faith is built on. As we know, a foundation built on sand may be seemingly strong at first, but will eventually start to fail. So we are going to be replacing this sand with a much stronger one, that when we get tested by the winds of the world, we’ll stand firm on the Rock!)

We started this series with the first part of this passage, that Scripture is inspired (God breathed) and without a doubt, profitable. If you haven’t read it, there is no need to review it first, but you can go back if you chose. Titled Scripture – Inspired & Profitable.

Now every church has their Doctrines or By-Laws. I’m not here to argue who is right or wrong, or what I believe. I’m just sharing and everyone must follow their convictions with what they feel led to follow, and sometimes you may be led down several paths. I have changed denominations several times when I first came to the Lord as my spiritual growth and knowledge of God’s word warranted. So to say that I have an answer for the different teachings and sets of beliefs in the world would be insane. There are too many variables involved for everyone to have exactly the same core of beliefs, that’s why we can’t depend on religion to guide us, we must KNOW what Scripture says.

Sometimes for us to know, we first have to unlearn some things we were taught to get on the path God has for us. For us to do that, we are going to have to read God’s word for ourselves. For me, that was an extremely hard thing to do because I was brought up and taught not to read the Bible because there were so many interpretations. But my convictions, and the church I started attending, encouraged us to read and what I found out is most the Bible was easy to understand. Yes, there are some passages we’ll need help with, and some we won’t comprehend until we get more matured in His word, but we are not forbidden at all to read it and are blessed with what we can understand.

Titus 3:9 says to “avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law (Scripture); for they are unprofitable and useless”. They are unprofitable and useless because more than likely we will never convince the other person of our beliefs, and they probably really don’t want to hear ours, they just want to argue and impose theirs. So by avoiding these kind of disputes and contentions, we are going to solidify our beliefs by leaving no room for confusion and doubt. Profitable conversations are those that are birthed in love and in the Scriptures, not the ones that impose beliefs.

Lastly, every church has or should have their Doctrine available for everyone to read. And it definitely should have a lot of Scriptures to back everything up. If they believe in water baptism for example, they should have the portion of the Bible they base it off of. If they believe in the Holy Spirit filling people today – Scripture to back it up, and so on. This way everyone is united and there is no division among them. So not only is Scripture profitable for doctrine, it is imperative for us and the churches to be firmly established on the solid ground of His word, and not let man’s ideologies or religious traditions put cracks in the foundation of our beliefs.

(In the rest of this short Devotional series, we’ll cover the rest of this passage and go deeper into the profits of knowing God’s word).

Blessings!
Elder Steve Smith