Sermon Central
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The Importance Of Studying God's Word Series
Contributed by Patrick O'loughlin on Dec 5, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: This was a sermon that I gave to help launch a church wide Bible reading campaign
Text: 2 Timothy 3:14-17
Title: The importance of studying God’s Word
Introduction
Today we want to look at the importance of studying God’s Word; the Bible.
Our text is found in 2 Timothy 3:14-17
What we are about to read here in 2 Timothy 3:14-17 are some of the Apostle Paul’s final words.
“But as for you, continue in what you have learnt and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learnt it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
When it comes to the importance of studying God’s word there are 3 things that stand out for me from our passage. 3 things all of us have to have when it comes to the study of God’s word.
1.You and I have to have Conviction
2.You and I have to have Commitment
3.You and I have to have a Bible
Since #3 is a given I want to spend this time on what it means to have Conviction and what it means to have Commitment.
When it comes to the importance of studying God’s word
1.We have to have Conviction
2.We have to have Commitment
We see this in the very first verse of our text.
“But as for you, continue in what you have learnt (Commitment) and have become convinced of, (Conviction)”
Conviction and commitment go hand in hand
•We commit to our convictions
•Our convictions are…all the things we commit too.
Again when it comes to the study of God’s Word we have to have Conviction and we have to have Commitment
Question: Which of the 2 comes first? Conviction or Commitment?
“But as for you, continue in what you have learnt (Commitment) and have become convinced of, (Conviction)
I think that Conviction comes first. Commitment comes second.
Commitment follows conviction.
Too often we make the mistake of putting commitment first.
How often have we said to ourselves…”I need to commit to studying the bible more.”…
Truth: We are not going to keep our commitment to studying the bible more if …we don’t first -have strong convictions about it!
We can’t study the bible out of guilt –we have to study the Bible out of conviction.
Let’s look at Conviction
There are 2 convictions found in our passage
2 convictions I have to have if I’m going to be serious about studying the Bible.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
1.We have to have conviction about what the Bible is
2.We have to have conviction about what studying the Bible can do for us
1. What is the Bible?
There are probably a thousand different opinions out there on what the Bible is.
But the correct answer according to our text is that “All scripture is God- breathed”
What does that mean?
Every word that the human authors of the bible wrote down was given to them by God.
Here is what the Apostle Peter said about the bible.
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
God prompted the original thought in the mind of the writers
God then guided their choice of words to express such thoughts
Lastly He illumines the mind of the reader of such words in a way that the reader potentially may comprehend the same truth as was originally in the mind of the writer.
How many of us wish God would speak to us?
He has! He has spoken to us through His Son and He has also spoken to us through His scriptures.
Is it your conviction that the Bible is God’s infallible word to us?
Statistic: About one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word.
If this is not our conviction then we will never see the importance of studying it.
But if it is our conviction- We do see the importance of studying it.
Then secondly we have to have conviction about what studying the Bible can do for us
Again our text tells us what studying the Bible can do for us
…”and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
