Competent and Equipped

Jonah 3:1  Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2  “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

2 Timothy 3:16  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17  that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 

Verses 16 and 17 of 2 Timothy 3 are some of the most important verses for the Christian.  Paul is reiterating what should already be apparent throughout the history of humanity - God’s Word as necessary, powerful, and completely sufficient for knowing and growing in Him through Jesus Christ.  It was true in the garden and it is true today.  His Word is attacked from within and from without.  Adam and Eve distrusted God’s authoritative Word from a heart of sin and the serpent twisted (took away and added) God’s Word from without.  Since that fateful day, mankind has raised a skeptical eye toward God doing “what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).  

Every systematic theology I can think of begins with The Scriptures.  And well should they since the very Word of God begins with God speaking all of creation into existence (Genesis 1) and ends with a warning about not taking His Word lightly (Rev. 22:18-19).  The Word was given that we might know God and know Him well.  The written revelation of Him is our authority of Him.  It teaches us what we are to believe concerning God and what is our duty before Him.  

In our sin we desire and trust everything but His Word.  We trust inclination, what feels right, or what others say.  We desire the extraordinary above the ordinary and set it as the higher guide in our estimation.  

But what makes us complete or competent as Christians is trust and obedience to God’s Word.  Jonah subtracted from God’s Word by adding his own.  Jonah did not trust that God was being just when He commissioned him to preach to Nineveh in Jonah 1.  Instead, Jonah determined his own course.  He was not competent or equipped for the task because he trusted his own inclination.  But God would not have His son’s rebellion and would make Jonah competent and equipped by leading him, through ocean’s depth and fishes belly, back to His Word a second time (Jonah 3:1-2).  

In what do you trust as you seek to make decisions from day to day?  What seems right in your eyes?  Or decisions made from time spent meditating on God’s Word . . . a sanctified heart and mind that has been equipped and made competent?