What Does “All Scripture” Mean? (2 Timothy 3:16 Explained) - ABS EP 11

“All Scripture is inspired by God” gets quoted like it settles everything. But once you ask a simple question, the ground shifts: when 2 Timothy 3:16 was written, what counted as “Scripture” for Timothy in the first century?

I walk back through my conversation with Pastor Cole and slow down on the one point we really disagreed on. We read 2 Timothy 3:16 and then force ourselves to keep reading into 3:15, where Timothy is told he has known “sacred writings” since childhood. That clue pushes us toward the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and raises a real interpretive challenge: how could those writings “instruct for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” when Jesus is not named directly in the Old Testament? From there, I explain how early Christians often read Israel’s scriptures through a Jesus-centered lens, retroactively applying Christian theology as the movement grew.

Then we zoom out to the big history questions that shape modern claims about biblical inspiration and biblical inerrancy: the New Testament canon was not finalized in the first century, and the earliest surviving list that matches the 27-book New Testament is commonly dated to Athanasius’ Easter letter in 367 AD. If “all scripture” means a complete modern Bible, what do we do with the centuries-long process of canon formation and the other early Christian writings that many believers treated as scripture-like? We also touch the authorship debate around 2 Timothy, because if Paul didn’t write it, the timeline changes again.

If you like careful Bible study, church history, and honest questions that don’t start with the conclusion, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves 2 Timothy 3:16, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What do you think “all scripture” meant to Timothy?

Transcript

Scripture And Inerrancy Claims

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Scripture claims to be inspired. This is not a a church claim necessarily or a Christian claim. It's that scripture itself claims to be inspired by God. Which verse? Uh well, Timothy is one of the prominent ones. Uh he's talking about all scripture being God-breed. Second Timothy three sixteen.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

But I mean, I would argue on that one that that's not even talking about that though.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well, it it we talked about this last time, but particularly, you you would then have to define what is what is he actually referring to as he's writing this letter is.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah, well, I think he's talking about the Old Testament as far as like 2 Timothy 3.15 says that these are the scriptures he was talking to Timothy, the scriptures you knew like as a child.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Minimally, we could say that that that's at least in reference to the Old Testament. Uh, but the reason I say that uh that this is built upon uh claims from scripture that which you know we believe is a part of the canon as far as the church. So if it is inspired by God, okay, uh if it's brought by God, God uh does not error, there's no error within so it's really more of a theological claim. One about the text, but also about God.

Welcome And The Point Of This

Defining Inerrancy And Reading 3:16

“Sacred Writings” Timothy Knew

Extra Traditions In 2 Timothy

What “All Scripture” Likely Meant

Authorship And Timeline Questions

Recap And Next Topics Teased

Research Both Sides Of Debates

SPEAKER_01 1:11

What's going on? It's Joe Teal, and this is another episode of the Agnostic Bible study. Today is an explainer episode, and we will be reflecting on part one of my interview with Dr. Cole Yeldale, focusing on 2 Timothy 3 16. If you didn't see that episode, no worries. I will repeat any vital information you missed as we work through today's explainer. And I always like to remind y'all that this show is not about trying to convert anybody or deconvert anybody, it's about slowing down, opening up the text, and asking honest questions. So whether you believe, you don't believe, or you don't know what to believe, you are welcome here at the Agnostic Bible study. Let's get into it. So last Thursday I released part one of my conversation with Pastor Cole. In that episode, we discussed inerrancy, and that led into some really interesting topics. Today, I'd like to spend some time reflecting on one of the points we disagreed on last week. What does 2 Timothy mean when it says all scripture is inspired by God? As always, much love and respect to Pastor Cole. I appreciate him so much for coming on the show multiple times. This isn't me trying to win the debate after he left. It's not that type of thing. This is just me diving a little deeper into the topic and bringing up some points that I didn't really have time to make in the actual interview. Also, this gives me a chance to reflect on his answers, which were very interesting. All right, y'all, let's dive in. In our discussion about inerrancy, we naturally talked about the famous verse, 2 Timothy 3 16. If you aren't sure what inerrancy is, you can go back to our interview in episode 9, where Cole defines it really well. But here's my quick definition to catch you up if you don't. Inerrancy is the belief that the Bible, in its original form, is completely true and without error in everything it teaches. When I asked him what verse he used to back up inerrancy as a doctrine, he quickly jumped to this one. But when it comes to this verse, there is typically an argument on the interpretation and what it means for the Bible as a whole. So Pastor Cole's position is that 2 Timothy 3.16 says the Bible is inspired by God. I will now show you what I think it says. So first let's read the famous verse. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. So the first thing that jumps out at us is all scripture is inspired by God. There you have it. At first glance, this looks like an open and shut case. Paul is telling Timothy that the Bible is inspired by God. The challenge comes in when we start adding in the context, and there is a lot of it to discuss. So the first thing we need to do to get some context is to read the verse before it, 2 Timothy 3 15. Let's do that now. And how from childhood you have known sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So what we'll do now is split it into two parts and we'll break it down. In the first part we see, from childhood you have known sacred writings. I think it's important to remember that traditionally this is Paul talking to him and not us, the current reader. So what matters most to me is what Timothy would have got from this letter. So the question we should ask is, what are the sacred writings Timothy would have known since childhood? One clue comes from Acts 16 1, where we learn that Timothy is the son of a Jewish woman. That means the sacred writings are likely referring to some form of the Hebrew Bible or what we now call the Old Testament. Now let's look at the second part. Able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. I found this part interesting because if he was referring to the Old Testament, how could it instruct someone for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ if the Old Testament never says that directly? Jesus is never directly mentioned by name in the Old Testament or any exact formula mentioning him causing salvation. But I think the answer to this question can be found in how Christians at the time were interpreting the Old Testament. At this point in the movement, they were retroactively putting Christian theology on those scriptures. In their view, since the Old Testament pointed to Jesus, the sacred writings Paul mentioned could be useful instruction for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. So personally, I think 2 Timothy 3.15 is referring to some form of the Old Testament. There is another interesting detail just a few verses earlier that shows us how complex the sacred writings part could be in the first century. In 2 Timothy 3.8, the author mentions the name Janese and Jambries as the men who oppose Moses. The strange thing is, those names never actually appear in the Exodus story in the Hebrew Bible. The magicians are there, but they are never named. Those names come from Jewish traditions that developed around the story. So even in this same chapter, we see the author referencing traditions connected to the story of Moses that were circulating outside the written text itself. That gives us another reminder that the part about sacred writings and interpretation in the first century was not as simple as opening a finalized Old Testament the way we do today. In other words, Paul in verse 8 might have just made it even more difficult for us to define what Scripture is. Now let's move back to 2 Timothy 3.16 and ask the question what does all scripture mean to Timothy when he received this letter? It's important to remember that in this moment there was no established New Testament yet. So if Timothy really opened a letter that had these words from Paul, it seems more likely that he would interpret all scripture as the sacred writings from his childhood from the previous verse. For the modern reader, Cole's interpretation makes sense because we often think of the finished complete 66 book Bible. But think about this. The earliest surviving list of the 27 book New Testament that we know today is dated to 367 AD in Athanasius' Easter letter. So that would be Paul writing in the first century, and the New Testament won't be canonized until the fourth century. So if all scripture means your current Bible, that would mean 2 Timothy 316 is including not only the sacred writings Timothy had in his childhood, but also a list of narratives and letters that had not officially been placed together and possibly not all written yet. So the Old Testament plus the exact books recognized as canon by men 300-ish years later. This is important because there were other books that were being treated like scripture circulating that did not end up in the final canon. Books like the Shepherd of Hermos, the Didic, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, and others. The canon angle of this debate matters because the doctrine of inerrancy only covers the original manuscripts of the books we have today in our modern Bible. So Cole's reading would require Paul's statement to cover only the specific books that were recognized as canon 300 years after he died. Now, Pastor Cole did call his interpretation of 2 Timothy 3.16 a theological statement, and I agree it could be that. By theological, I simply mean reading the verse in light of the whole Bible and the beliefs Christians later formed about it. Later in history, the specific books we now think of as the Bible would be decidedly called scriptures. So if you are strictly thinking theologically, you can put them under the umbrella of this verse. That just seems like more of a theological move than a historical one. I guess you have to make the decision about whether Paul was speaking directly to Timothy or if it was meant to be interpreted differently for all believers after the fact. Historically speaking, if Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, I think he was speaking to Timothy. There's one more layer to this discussion. While the traditional view that the church has held throughout history is that Paul wrote 2 Timothy, many scholars today question whether Paul was actually the author. Without getting too deep into the debate, the reasons usually involve differences in vocabulary, writing style, and the way the church leadership is described compared to the letters that most scholars agree Paul wrote. But for our discussion, the most important thing is the implication. If the letter was written later by a follower writing in Paul's name, then the timeline shifts forward and the discussion about what is counted as scripture becomes even more complex. But if Paul did write the letter in the mid-60s, then when he says all scripture, he would almost certainly be referring to the sacred writings Timothy already knew from childhood. Then there is another timeline question we have to consider. Many critical scholars believe that at least some of the gospels and possibly other New Testament writings were written after that time. If that is the case, then applying 2 Timothy 3.16 to the full collection of New Testament books would require Paul's statement to cover writings that may not have even been written yet. That's another layer of this discussion that raises important questions about how this verse is being interpreted today. That idea actually leads directly into the next reflection episode. In part one of my conversation with Pastor Cole, we also discuss the dating of the Gospels, especially in relation to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. So in the next Thursday episode, we'll take a closer look at that topic and why the dating of the Gospels plays such a big role in the larger conversation. Before we wrap up, let's just quickly summarize what we walked through today. We looked at 2 Timothy 3.16 and the question of what all scripture would have meant to Timothy when he received that letter. We talked about the sacred writings Timothy knew from his childhood, how early Christians were interpreting those writings in light of Jesus, and how the canon of the New Testament developed later in history. We also touched on the authorship debate around 2 Timothy and how that affects the timeline of the discussion. I want to say thank you again to Pastor Cole for the original conversation that sparked this reflection. Even when we disagree on certain points, these kind of discussions are exactly what this show is about. Slowing down, looking at the text carefully, and exploring different perspectives. In next Thursday reflection episode, we'll continue working through part one of that interview and look more closely at the dating of the gospels. And on Tuesday's episode, we'll jump back into the text itself and take a look at the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. I hope y'all enjoyed hanging out with me. Since today was a shorter episode, I figure I'd share some thoughts that were on my mind. I can't tell y'all how important having tough conversations and intentionally researching the sides of debates that I don't personally believe have been for me on this journey. If you only research what you believe already, you're likely just reinforcing your biases. And while biases are inescapable, I think the best counter to them is tough conversations and intentional research. Learn both sides of the argument and then pick the one that makes the most sense to you. If we start with the conclusion, then we can make anything, especially a Bible verse, say what we want it to. The goal of being completely objective is likely unachievable, but I still think we should strive for it. Like I always say, I'm not here to convince you of my conclusions. My goal is to simply open up the text, explore the history, and encourage you to think through these questions for yourself. Thanks for being here, and as always, never stop learning. I'll see y'all next time.