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2 Timothy 3:16-17 & 4:1-3 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. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His Kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.

When my salvation in Jesus Christ was first revealed to me, I knew little to no doctrine. I possessed no religious training. In that moment that I first recognized Jesus, Jesus was simply enough. Now I am much older and have had many years to consider what happened to me in that moment and to study scripture. I have focused in on many aspects of my salvation and have understood it from many different angles as they are presented in scripture and as I have been taught by the insights of other Christians. My understanding is yet in flux but the constant is that Jesus is still simply enough.

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The Bible is sound doctrine. My insights or the insights of men and women much more highly educated than I are not altogether sound. In the things that I write there is some soundness in what God has given to me of Him to understand and also some error as my understanding of God will never be able to apprehend the whole mind of God. His ways are higher than mine, so high that I can never obtain them all. There is also no other teacher or preacher who has fully obtained God. Yet, those of us who are in Christ have been obtained by Him. That obtaining by Him is what those of us who have experienced God through the Salvation that is Jesus call being saved. Those of us who have been saved cannot help but speak of what has happened to us in Christ even though our understanding of God and of the Bible may be incomplete. Even as more mature Christians, our understanding will always remain incomplete. If we were to wait until we had full understanding of Scripture to speak, no one would ever speak of Jesus for none of us have arrived. Therefore, each of us must be diligent in taking whatever we hear spoken of by one another to Scripture to test that which is doctrinally sound and caste off that which is not. That does not necessarily mean we should caste off those from whom we have heard speak something that is false for if we continue to divide and to divide again over understandings of that sound doctrine that is the Bible, the Word of God, we will eventually find ourselves all alone.

For those who are unified in Christ Jesus despite the differences of understanding must submit themselves to the written record as the authority of faith. All of us at one time or another are in need of correction and that correction must come from God by the Word of God and not by men and women who are partially sound and partially in error in their understanding of the Word of God. We should never seek to impose our understanding upon another nor should we adopt the understanding of another. We must each seek out the truth that is Scripture and measure that truth for soundness against the character of Christ Jesus Who is The Truth.

2 Timothy 2:14-19 Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wondered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are His," and "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."

Those of us who are in Christ Jesus have become workman together and workman must acknowledge authority above each and all in order to form a cohesive and functioning unit. Scripture has been given to us as that authority and those who will not submit their own thoughts and musings to the Word of God are not in submission to Christ Jesus. There can be no allegiance between those who desire the Will of God and those who desire their own will as being above the Will of God. It is in Scripture that God's Will may be ascertained and not in the partial understanding of any man or woman. If any teacher or preacher should promote their own understanding or the understanding of any theologian past or present as being above Scripture as the authority by which Scripture should be understood, we should turn away from listening to the fallacy that they teach. However, we should be careful to listen to their point of view to ascertain whether they speak out of human pride which lifts itself above the authority of God or simply out of an incomplete understanding of scripture or an understanding that is different from our own.

2 Timothy 2: 22-26 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel: instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH, and they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

Those of us in Christ are all students and all teachers. Even those of us who never teach a Sunday School class or facilitate any formal Biblical study, teach others of Jesus by the way we live our lives. All of us whether teacher, preacher, or of any other calling in Christ are in need of instruction and rebuking when in our incomplete understanding, we stumble. We cannot correct one another from our own incomplete understanding but only by the Word of God that is able to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart are any of us corrected from the error of our own imperfect and incomplete knowledge of God.

A good teacher is above all a good listener and those of us who are compelled to teach must first learn to listen. All of us measure ourselves in relation to God whether we be believer, pagan, agnostic, or atheist and when we listen to another they will tell us exactly where they are with God. We must also listen in love and proclaim in love. We must not listen as some are prone to do with an intent of fixing someone spiritually by finding the opportunity to give them our own understanding of Scripture and of God. Instead we must listen in love that is born out of concern for our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters, and then in Love point them first to Jesus and then to Scripture that they might seek for themselves the direction of God in their lives.

In this is the unity that is found only in Christ Jesus. This is not the false unity of religion which is lock-step mental assent. In Christ, each individual must look directly to Jesus for Himself not only for Salvation but also for direction in living a godly life. When each of us are walking and talking according to Jesus, we walk and talk in harmony. When we in pride begin to push our own understanding as sound doctrine, we have become legalists and purveyors of religion and not of Christ. Those who are in Christ Jesus should not divide upon doctrinal lines but instead, continue to exhort one another according to true sound doctrine, the Scriptures themselves. We should not divide and divide again as we seek out those who share our current understanding but instead look to unify ourselves with those who call upon the Name of Jesus out of pure hearts. The Truth Who is Jesus is not relative but we who are flesh and blood and growing in the Spirit are changing and in flux as we are relative to that absolute Truth that is Jesus.

2 Timothy 3: 10-17 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings, --what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecution I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from who you learned 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.

I desire to do good work, the very work of God on earth. Though I am as of yet,not thoroughly equipped, I press on toward the goal of that full equipping. I am compelled to speak the things that God whispers in my ear. I have no choice in the matter yet, I speak from an understanding that is not yet full. On one day, my words may agree with that which God is teaching you and then on another day, my words may grate and we will disagree. However, if we are gathered in the Name of Jesus, He is there among us and in Him we are unified. My prayer is that if I should be found in error that a loving brother or sister in Christ would first listen in love to ascertain that which is scripturally unsound in me and then not turn away but instead point me back toward Christ and the soundness of scripture. I pray that instead of quarreling over that which we can only partially understand with an understanding that is in constant flux as we grow in Christ, that we would commit to loving one another that those who have yet to experience life in Jesus Who is Life would know that we are truly His disciples and not disciples of one another. I pray that we who are in Christ would grow to such complete unity in Christ that His presence would be undeniable to all those who are in need of Him.