The Extraordinary Importance of Preaching the Bible

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The Bible, the inspired word of God — as it just so happens, through the providence of God — the memory verse for that first lesson in that material happens to be something we've been talking about here in our Sunday morning services. 2 Timothy 3:16. And 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17, kind of the end of that third chapter of 2 Timothy, really focuses on the significance of the word of God being inspired, breathed out by God. It is the word of God given to us, and it's given to us with a measure of authority and sufficiency and capability.

Paul tells us in those verses that it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. And he's talking to Timothy. So he says that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

This is what the word of God is. But that kind of opens up the question: what are we supposed to do with it then? We've got this thing. We've got this book. We've got this word from God. It's profitable. It's something that can help us. It can do certain things for us. But what are we supposed to do with it? How should it be used?

Well, earlier in 2 Timothy, one of the things Paul tells Timothy that he's supposed to do is rightly handle it. It's not just something that's up to Timothy or up to me or up to anyone else what we do with this. And that's one of the things we have been able to witness over the course of church history — individuals who seem to be proliferating now, thanks to social media, taking the word of God and just sort of doing anything and everything with it. Carving it up and making it what they want it to be, rather than what God intends it to be for us. So one of the things Paul tells Timothy is: you're going to use this, and you have to use it correctly. You have to rightly handle it.

In Psalm 119, which we've spent some time reading through on Sunday mornings, one of the things David says is that a valuable use of the word of God is to treasure it in our hearts. The King James Version says, "Hide it. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you." It becomes a safeguard for us to honor God with our lives and to live in obedience to him.

Going all the way back to Deuteronomy, the people of God were encouraged — not just encouraged, they were commanded — to teach the word of God to their children. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 6. This was supposed to be a daily and even moment-by-moment activity that the people of God were supposed to engage in: imparting the truths of his word to future generations. And this was a responsibility for parents.

For the apostle Paul, as he's laying out this instruction for Timothy, his concern for Timothy is helping Timothy to understand that his success in ministry — in this case in Ephesus — is really going to rise and fall on his use of the word of God. It doesn't really have anything to do with Timothy's charisma or his personal skill set. I mean, those can be used, but the ultimate success of the ministry, and really the ultimate determiner of whether this church is going to have any longevity to it, has to do with whether or not Timothy and other individuals are going to use the word of God as it is intended. If they do, then the church will guard against certain threats. People will be equipped and raised up. The church will grow and flourish. And if they neglect it, then those things will not happen.

Timothy, in other words, could study it. Timothy could understand it correctly. Timothy could even treasure the word of God in his heart. But if Timothy, or any other of the leadership of that church, or even the members themselves of that church, were not willing to take that word of God and then let that word of God flow out of their mouths, the church would be doomed to failure. The church would be overrun by people who have given themselves over to whatever suits their current desires.

Chaz talked about how the book of Judges ends with not only is there no king, but everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes — this sort of complete moral relativism that had taken root in the people, and it was disastrous. The book of Judges is one of the most discouraging and depressing books in the whole Bible, and that's the characteristic of the people. And what Paul is warning Timothy is: if you do not take the word of God, learn it, treasure it, cherish it, and then deliver it to the people, the church is going to fail, because the people are going to do whatever they feel like doing without any direction from God. And so it is going to be devastating.

What we see at the beginning of chapter 4 of 2 Timothy is this reality: that preaching the word isn't merely a duty. It is a desperate necessity for the church's survival. This isn't just a responsibility that Paul is making sure Timothy understands as his own responsibility, but he's saying the church is desperately in need of this. And in fact, Timothy, if you don't — or no one else is willing to do this — the church is going to shrivel up and die. It cannot survive.

Let's look at the first four verses of 2 Timothy chapter 4. I'm only going to be preaching on the first two this morning, but I want to set the context a little bit wider than those two verses. So we already know chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. And that leads right into verse one: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, will turn away from listening to the truth, and wander off into myths."

And Paul makes it really clear: Timothy, if you don't do this, this disaster that is looming ahead — and not just for the church of Ephesus, but for really any church that would consider the careful and clear proclaiming of God's word to be optional — will come. It is not optional.

Now before we really dig in, I want to give you a word about two words, if you will. The first word is "charge." "I charge you." That word means to earnestly counsel someone concerning serious matters. This is a serious thing. Paul isn't just saying, "Hey, Timothy, I think it'd be a really good idea if you thought about maybe considering doing something like this." He's not couching this in as many vagaries as he can. This isn't just some nebulous idea floating out there that, if Timothy were so inclined, maybe he should consider. No. This is almost like a military commander briefing his unit before they embark on a mission — these are the mission parameters, this is where we're going, this is going to be the key to our success, and these are the things you're going to need to do. This is serious business. This is not optional. This isn't little footnotes that maybe you read and maybe you don't. This isn't like the IKEA instructions that you chuck on the ground and have at the cabinet yourself with nothing but an Allen wrench. This is serious counsel about serious matters.

The other word — if you drop down past the charge and past the mention of the presence of God, which we'll get to — the actual charge comes at verse two. The charge is: preach the word. Timothy, I charge you to preach the word.

This is an interesting thing when you move from Greek to English, and this is something we talked about a little when discussing English translations. It's hard to have a truly literal word-for-word translation, and the Greek language is a great example of this, because Greek has many words that we translate in English into just our one word, "preach." So we go from lots of nuance and specificity to letting it all fall under the banner of this one word. And the problem is that we as English speakers tend to have a very specific understanding of what preaching is. Right? You think it's something like this — somebody standing up in a pulpit on a Sunday morning delivering a message from the Bible.

The word that is actually used here, which we translate as "preach," happens to mean to proclaim aloud. Here's a quote from one theological dictionary: it says that this word does not mean the delivery of a learned and edifying discourse in well-chosen words and a pleasant voice. Its true sense is simply to proclaim. I mean, you think of preaching and it's a pastor who has crafted a sermon based on study and is coming and delivering it, trying to be eloquent, trying to be convincing, trying to be winsome — all of these things, this carefully crafted theological presentation. And preaching can and often does involve careful study. It often involves skillful rhetoric. Paul's not dismissing that. Paul's not saying, "Hey, Timothy, don't ever worry about what you're going to say. Just get up there and say stuff." But his concern, in that moment, for Timothy and really for the people of Ephesus, is simply that the word of God gets out to the public — that it is proclaimed, that it is declared, that it is spoken about. In other words, what Paul is saying is: whether it is a carefully crafted sermon or it is simply an off-the-cuff, spontaneous discussion about a particular matter, the word of God must be proclaimed if there is to be any hope for the future of the church.

And really, this is not any different from the circumstance in which we find ourselves today. We could say that literally nothing has changed. The need for proclamation has not changed, and the impending result if we do not proclaim it hasn't changed either. We have an obligation, as we sit here today, to ensure that the word of God goes out. And sometimes that's going to be through carefully crafted sermons. Sometimes that's going to be through you having a conversation with a friend or having a conversation with somebody you find yourself sitting next to somewhere.

I hope you already understand this. I hope this isn't shocking to you, like, "Oh my goodness, I had no idea. I thought if I just put my Bible next to me wherever I went, or left it on my nightstand, or just sort of brought it with me, that the truths would just sort of leak out into the universe." We know better than that. Paul says in Romans chapter 10 that faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. And at the end of the book of Acts, Paul says, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." What's interesting is that in that particular passage, he's talking to the people at the church of Ephesus. Timothy understood this, and Paul still reinforces it with this charge to Timothy. This is very important. This is vital. This is a necessity — not an option, not a really good idea, not something Timothy should consider. This is an essential reality.

Why? Well, I'll give you one reason to start off with. The stakes are high. Paul says, "I charge you in the presence of God." God sees. We know that, right? We know that God is omnipresent. That's one of the characteristics of God that we know is immutable and that we do not possess. God alone possesses that omnipresence.

When I was a kid, we used to sing in Sunday school the song, "Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see. Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear. Oh, be careful, little hands, what you do. Oh, be careful, little feet, where you go." And the refrain of that song was, for each of those verses, "For the Father up above is looking down in love." And that almost sounds very menacing, right? Like, "Oh, God sees you, so you better be careful. You better watch out." But there's more to it than even that — that God is up above looking down.

Paul says, "I charge you in the presence of God." So, how I'm almost understanding this is that Paul is giving Timothy this message. But what if Timothy — like so many people today who look at Scripture and say things like, "Oh, that was just Paul. What did Jesus have to say about it? What does God have to say about it?" — drew a false dichotomy in Scripture, as if somehow only the Gospels are the word of God, or only the direct quotes of Jesus are the word of God, and whatever Paul said is somehow not part of inspired Scripture? Well, let's say somebody was in that category. Maybe even Timothy was. "I'm tired of listening to you, Paul. You're always telling me what to do, telling me my business. Well, I'm in Ephesus now." What Paul says is: that really doesn't matter, because what we're talking about is that you are in the presence of God, and that's ultimately what matters. The stakes are that high. He is here, Timothy, to witness the passing on to you of this crucial responsibility.

And so what Paul says is: Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead and whose kingdom is coming and who will return. God is going to judge. And I don't believe these are meant as veiled threats or passive-aggressive warnings to Timothy. These are simply reminders to Timothy of imminent realities. They are meant to impress upon Timothy certainties about his future — and really, certainties about the future of everyone. It is appointed for man once to die, and after that comes judgment. You only get to go around once. No second chances, no do-overs. And so Paul's challenge to Timothy is from one man who will one day have to give an account of his life to another man who will one day have to give an account of his life — both standing before the only judge that matters, a holy God who is just but who also is ever present.

And so this is a serious thing. Paul wants Timothy to understand the weight of this. It's serious if it is neglected. It's serious if Timothy preaches something other than the word of God or abuses Scripture as he is preaching it. This is a serious matter not to be taken lightly.

This is something that many individuals throughout church history have felt — the weight of the responsibility when it comes to proclaiming the truth of God's word. Martin Luther would be a great example. We often think of Martin Luther as this sort of firebrand, this fearless person standing up to the governing powers, standing up to the pope, standing up to all these influential individuals with seemingly no regard even for his own life. And yet Martin Luther said that his knees would knock every time he stepped into the pulpit. He confessed that he feared preaching, feared the pulpit — so much so that when he was first beginning to do it, he wanted to preach basically in the lunchroom of the monastery. He was afraid to get up and actually do it behind a pulpit, because that just amplified the seriousness of what he was doing. And yet he said he had to do it. He felt compelled. He felt that there was an obligation on him.

And every preacher — not just Martin Luther — needs to wrestle with that paradox: that we fear preaching because it is the word of God we preach, and the responsibility to hold forth the word of God with truth and clarity is weighty. But we should also not fear preaching, because it is the word of God that we are commanded to preach, something we are called to do. And yet the significance and weight of what we're doing should impress upon us a certain degree of reverent fear. The stakes are high. This is a serious matter.

And so Paul's challenge is to consider that everyone must one day stand before God in judgment. This isn't just for Timothy, but there are individuals whose lives are in the balance and who need to hear the saving and sanctifying word of God. Whether they believe right now or not that they will one day stand before God in judgment is irrelevant. They need to be taught the truths found in Scripture.

Paul takes it one step further — that the kingdom is coming. For some people, this is going to be a great thing, an amazing thing: the kingdom of God on earth, with Christ ruling over that kingdom. It will be a beautiful reality, the dwelling place of God with man. For other people, that will be a horrifying reality, because the Bible is clear that only those saved by the gospel of grace will enter into that kingdom.

Paul takes the reality of the presence of God to a deep level — not just the idea that he's everywhere, but that he is a witness to this charge, and that we are right now, right here, in his presence. Paul could say that to us this very day in the same words he said to Timothy. He can charge us in the presence of God.

In verse one of the ESV, Paul says, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge." That expression, "who is to judge," carries the idea of imminence — this is like saying it is about to happen. We don't know when, but it could be at any moment. And he is going to judge the living and the dead, which is a great way of saying everyone. Everybody is either alive or dead; there is no third option. Death will not rescue anyone from universal judgment. In other words, all of this is coming for everyone. So the urgency is always pressing down upon the people of God.

And it isn't limited to Timothy's duty. This is something necessary for salvation, necessary for the sanctifying of the church and the sustaining of the church. This is something that is applicable throughout the generations. Christ will return. His kingdom will be fully and finally established. So the word needs to be proclaimed, because people's eternal future depends on it.

And I want to make this clear: this is not just a necessity for people like me who are vocational pastors. Yes, there is a special obligation placed on us because of the extra responsibility we have been given. But this is not just a necessity for us. This is a necessity for every believer. Every believer needs to be a proclaimer of the Bible. So when you wake up Monday morning and you have the whole day and week ahead of you, and you get the pollen out of your eyes and the crust from all the allergens that have settled on your face throughout the night, and you kind of stumble out of bed and put your feet on the floor wanting to have a dynamic impact on the world — you need to remember that people's lives, and indeed the world, are depending on us sharing the truth of God's word with them. Unbelievers need to hear it because they need to be told about the saving work of Jesus Christ. Believers need to hear it because they need to be edified, challenged, corrected, and built up. The whole world needs to hear this.

So don't just think, "Oh, this is for Pastor Paul. Boy, he really needs to hear this." It's true — I do need to hear this. I need to tremble before this. But we all need this. This is a serious matter.

But when should we do it? That would be the question. The time is right now. Okay? Whatever time it is, now is the time. Now is the time to do it.

Be ready. Verse two: "Preach the word. Be ready." I almost wanted to make my whole sermon about those two words, because I feel like I could really go on about that for quite a while — this idea of being ever ready to give voice to the word of God, to proclaim it, to let it ring out. Even if the pastor doesn't always have a carefully prepared sermon ready, he should always be at least prepared to answer questions, to provide explanations, and in general just to be present with some degree of clarity, able to explain fundamental truths and teachings from Scripture.

I kind of think about it like this — we've been watching a lot of baseball in the Sheldon household. A lot of baseball, more baseball than we've ever watched. It's kind of our family thing right now. We've been watching practically every day. And if you know anything about baseball, there's always a bullpen in the stadium — that's where all your relief pitchers are. Every now and then the camera will pan to the bullpen and there are, you know, half a dozen, ten guys sitting out there, and they've got to be ready for when they get the call from the dugout: "Hey, we need a relief pitcher to come in." Could be the fourth inning, could be the eighth inning. They might need a right-hander, they might need a left-hander, depending on the circumstance. So they have to be ever ready, from the first inning to the last inning. Those guys are out there because they might get the call. We need a pitcher. You need to get up, get warmed up, and come out here and pitch.

This is the same idea — we need to be ever ready.

Confession time. You need to know this. There are regular occasions — more often than not, probably — where I get asked a question or an issue is presented before me and I have to say, "I don't know." I have to say, "I'm not really sure about that." But I always follow that up with, "Let me do some digging. Let me do some study. Let me come up with an answer." I don't want to just say, "Well, I don't know. Good luck with that." Let me put in some study time so that I can give you a solid answer. There are other things, though, that I don't even have to pause over. If somebody asks me a question about the way of salvation — "What must I do to be saved?" or "How do I become a Christian?" — I don't even have to take a breath. I can start talking about it right then. There are certain fundamental truths that I understand I have to have locked down. I have to be ever ready.

But on the other hand, if I'm given an opportunity to speak in a more formal setting, I will rarely turn it down unless the schedule simply doesn't allow it, and I will do my best to stand up there prepared to speak.

1 Peter chapter 3:15 — Peter says, "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you." So if you're a Christian, you should always be ready to answer questions like that. Why are you a Christian? What do Christians believe? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be saved? Why did Jesus die on the cross? We all should be ready to answer those kinds of questions.

Paul says, "Preach the word. Be ready. Be prepared, in season and out of season." I bet if you asked a farmer, "When is in season and when is out of season?" they would say, "Well, that's all the time, isn't it? It's either in season or it's out of season." That's a very nice way of just saying you should always be ready. Timothy and the church today need to understand: the time is now. It's either in season or it's out of season right now, which means the time to be prepared is right now.

There certainly is always more room for preachers and teachers to grow in their understanding of Scripture, to grow in their ability to comprehend and explain. That's one of the realities of being a preacher — you are always trying to learn more, always trying to study more, always trying to gain more knowledge about this book and things related to it. It means always praying, always seeking God's face, always seeking his wisdom more and more. But even as we develop as proclaimers of God's truth, we can in that same moment be proclaiming it. Does that make sense?

And if you want to go back to the baseball illustration — just because it's baseball season, the commentators are always talking about players working on their swing, working on this or that. But they're still out there playing. They're still stepping into the batter's box. They're still going out into the field. They're still doing it, even while there are things they're working on.

Certainly this is directed at Timothy, so it has special implications for pastors, but there is application here for every Christian as well. We should all be ready and willing to openly share truths from God's word. Remember — if you want to go back to what Jesus says in Luke chapter 10 — what does he say? The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. He's talking about obedience to the Great Commission and the gospel call: the fields are white unto harvest, but we need more harvesters. "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest." We are all out in the field — that's what we call living life in this world. And the question is: are you laboring for the harvest? Are you proclaiming the truths of the gospel? Are you ready to do that? And are you equipping yourselves to be more ready — ready to point people to Christ by proclaiming the truth of his word? The time to do that is right now.

There's one more thing that Paul lays out here for Timothy in these first two verses that helps us understand his heart for the ministry — his heart for Timothy and even his heart for the people Timothy is ministering to, many of whom we've kind of seen are troublemakers and rabble-rousers who want to erode and tear down the church from within. But Paul encourages Timothy with this: clarity is essential. This proclamation is not just a simple information dump. There's a purpose to it. He says, "Reprove, rebuke, exhort." In other words, Timothy is supposed to use the Bible to correct people and to direct people.

And people don't take too kindly to that. I've noticed. They say things like, "Who are you to judge?" They say things like, "Don't tell me my business." They tell me things like, "Why don't you worry about your own problems and I'll worry about mine." People don't really like it. Even if you're taking God's word and trying to use it to help them — and even when they come to you for counsel and advice — remember how Paul sets this up in verses 16 and 17: the Scriptures are profitable for teaching and for reproof and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be competent and equipped for every good work. That's what Scripture is for. It's all about God. But one of the things it does is it shapes us. We call that sanctification. And one of its main functions is to transform us, to change who we are. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 12, where he says that we are not to be conformed to the image of this world, but to be transformed through the renewing of our mind. And that, in many ways, is dependent on our ability to understand the word of God.

But how we go about using the word of God to shape us and direct our lives can be very important. It's true that no one knows you better than the word of God. Did you ever think about that? You think you know yourself well. Hebrews 4:12 says, "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." I mean, we often cannot do that for ourselves — discern our own thoughts and intentions. And then it goes on to say, "No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must all give an account." God and his word see right into your very heart.

So we need to take that and use it to correct and to direct people. But Paul says we need to do it with complete patience. And this is where we so often go wrong. We think, "Oh, hey, this person said something really mean to me, or this person betrayed me, or this person did this or that — I'm just going to read this one Bible verse to them, and voilà, that's going to change everything about them, right?" In fact, we think, "I'm not even going to read it to them. I'm just going to post it on my Facebook page, or make a nice little Instagram video with that verse, and I know they follow me so they're going to see it, and then if they don't change, well, that's on them, right?" No — that's impatience. That's expecting people to just sort of change magically or instantly, forgetting how hard it is for us to change our own beliefs and practices and ways of life.

We want complete patience, not partial patience. I'm convinced that this is one of the reasons Jesus instructs us to take the log out of our own eye before we go help someone take the speck out of theirs. Yes, he says that getting the log out of your eye will help you better see to take the speck out of theirs. But I think it also gives us a certain realization about the pain of the process, which should impart a certain level of patience and understanding when we go to help others deal with the issues in their own lives. We want to be more delicate, more careful about how we do this. We're not going to use vice grips if tweezers will work. We need to be patient. Complete patience.

We do it with complete patience and with teaching. Yes, Scripture is powerful, and certainly God, through the power of his Holy Spirit, uses Scripture all by itself regularly to open people's eyes. I think if you talk to anybody who has daily Bible reading as part of their routine, they can all share with you about times when they've read a verse — maybe one they've read fifty times before — and all of a sudden it just hits them in the face like they've never read it before. Or there's a particular issue in their life that it just exposes, and it gives them a softened heart toward it, an understanding of the gravity of how they have been wronging somebody or living a certain way. We can all give testimony to that fact — that the Bible all by itself can do that.

And yet too often we treat Scripture like a little magic token. If we just throw it out there, if we just say the words or post it to social media, then poof — everybody's going to be reformed. We won't have to bring any clarity. We won't have to do any teaching. We won't have to provide any insight as to what it actually means. But the reality is: it takes time and it takes care to help people wrestle with the meaning of Scripture and the implications of that meaning for their lives. More time, more care is often what is needed to help people surrender to the authority of God's word.

So whether you are a pastor like me or just a regular Christian — and don't hear me saying that one is more than the other — we all need to understand that if we want to take the word of God and use it in our own lives and use it to help other people, it needs to come with clarity and care as we seek to use it.

So I'll leave you with this. First, we all need to be proclaimers of Scripture, whether we're pastors or not. And second, I want to leave you with this: let the word of God speak to you. Let it reprove and rebuke and exhort you. Let it correct and direct your life. Don't resist it when people try to use it on you. You hear a passage of Scripture like this and you think, "Aha, I'm going to be out there wielding this word of God like a samurai." Well, that samurai might come into your life and start wielding it on you. And you need to be ready to receive it, and to surrender and submit to it as well. This is a give and a take. We all want to be on both sides of the issue.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for this word. We thank you for the grace that you have shown us by giving it to us. We thank you for how useful it is — helping us to live lives of godliness, showing us the way of salvation, helping to correct and direct us. We ask that you would help us to study it, to know it, to understand it, so that we can have a certain level of confidence and proficiency as we seek to tell other people about it. We also ask that you would help us to be as receptive to it as we hope other people are. We ask that you would help us to surrender to its authority in our lives. Help it to expose our own weaknesses and sins and shortcomings, so that we might be refined and further transformed into the image of your Son, made like him by being surrendered to your word. We ask that as you help us to use your word with confidence and clarity, we would see the world in which we live transformed by its power.Here is the transcript revised for grammar, spelling, and punctuation, kept in full paragraph format: