2 Timothy 2:15 Amplified Bible (AMP) 15Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.
Today's verse is where AWANA clubs derives it's name - Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed. The Amplified Bible and King James Version start out with "study" several other translations start off with "do your best". We are all called to study and this verse expounds upon the attitude and desire of our hearts towards it. It's humbling and convicting. Am I doing my best to eagerly study God's Word, applying it in life, through the trials, and teaching it?
I listened to a sermon while driving last week that referenced this verse. The word for "rightly dividing" or "correctly analyzing" literally means to "cut straight". Think of a carpenter. How would a table, a floor, or any wood object look if it were not "cut straight" before it was assembled? There would be gaps, curves and anyone that looked at it would see the poor craftsmanship of the person that did the work.
My grandfather was a carpenter and we still have things in our home that he made. One of them is a footstool, made over fifty years ago that is still used day to day in our kitchen to help us reach otherwise unreachable items in our kitchen shelves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer shared his thoughts on the proper attitude in reading and studying God's Word; "One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of Him. Only if we seek Him will He answer us.....Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible."
Approaching the Bible in this manner will help to build us up into what we should be. Cut straight and assembled, fit together as we are supposed to be and reflect, that we are children of God. His word, working in our lives will help us reach things in life and in service to Him that otherwise could not be reached.
In Christ,
Mike
Mike
Follow the Verse of the Day blog at http://mikesvotd.blogspot.com
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace NIV
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace NIV
2 Timothy 2:14-19
English Standard Version (ESV) A Worker Approved by God
14Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."
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