That Man May Be Perfect

That Man May Be Perfect After establishing how the Word of God came into existence, the next step in our building process is to find out what is the function of His Word. Let us look again at II Timothy 3:16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God [God-breathed], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for [which is] instruction in righteousness. All Scripture from Genesis to Revelation is profitable. The Scripture does not put you in the red; it keeps you in the black. What is it profitable for? It “... is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” All Scripture is profitable in three areas: (1) doctrine, which is how to believe rightly; (2) reproof, which is to rebuke at the places where we are not believing rightly; and (3) correction, which is to put us back to right believing. The entire Word of God will do just that. It will teach us how to believe rightly, it will reprove us at the places where we are believing wrongly, and it will correct us so that we can again believe rightly. All three of these are “instruction in righteousness.” Many times a critic of the Bible comes along and says, “Well, the Bible is not true. I feel that there are too many contradictions; the Bible really is just another book among the rest of them.” This is not the testimony of the Word of God. The testimony of the Word of God is that all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, which is to teach us how to believe rightly, how to believe positively. If we are going to tap the resources for the more abundant life we must know how to believe rightly. To the people who say that the Bible has lots of error in it, I would like to state that the true Word of God is accurate from Genesis to Revelation. The errors have come in by man propounding those errors. Men have brought their opinions and desires into The Word. When men come and say that they do not believe the Bible, we must remember that the Bib