It is significant that in verse 16 teaching is followed by conviction, or reproof. The reason for this is that no one can see something of God without being reproved by what he sees. Those who are under your teaching will see something, and what they see will convict, reprove, them.
Whenever we see something of God, we realize our mistakes, wrongdoings, shortcomings, and our sins. The result is that we are reproved; we are rebuked. This reproof comes from the revelation we receive. However, often in our reading of the Scriptures, we read without receiving any revelation, and thus there is no reproof. But when in our reading of the Scriptures we receive a revelation, the revelation will reprove us and rebuke us.
Reproof is followed by correction. Teaching, or revelation, brings us reproof, and reproof produces correction. Correction is a matter of setting right what is wrong, turning someone to the right way, and restoring to an upright state.
After we have been corrected, we will receive the proper instruction-the instruction in righteousness. Whereas Paul here does not use any modifiers for teaching, reproof, and correction, he does use a modifier for instruction and speaks of the instruction in righteousness. Righteousness is a matter of being right. Hence, the instruction here is for us to be right.
The reason we are reproved and rebuked is that we are wrong in many different ways and aspects. We may be wrong with God, with Christ, and with the Spirit. We may be wrong with the church, with the brothers and sisters, with our husband or wife, with our parents, with our children, with our neighbors, and even with ourselves. We may be wrong in the way we spend our money, in the way we spend our time, in the way we dress, or in the way we style our hair. Because we may be wrong in so many different things, we are rebuked by the revelation we receive when we read the Scriptures.
From our experience we know that often we are rebuked immediately after receiving a revelation. I can testify that time after time I have been rebuked by a revelation that came from reading the Bible or from a teaching. Have you not had such an experience? Because we are sinful and unrighteous, we need the rebuking that comes through teaching.
We may memorize Bible verses and recite them without experiencing any rebuking. But when we receive a revelation from the Word, that revelation exposes our sinfulness and rebukes us. We are not rebuked by man nor are we rebuked directly by God-we are rebuked by the teaching of the Word. When we are rebuked in this way, we are spontaneously corrected, and when we are corrected we have the instruction in righteousness. The result is that we are adjusted.
We may be adjusted in a particular matter and become right in this matter. However, we may not be right in this matter once for all. For example, suppose a brother is wrong with his wife. Under the revelation from the Word, he is rebuked and adjusted. He repents and then apologizes to his wife, and as a result he is now right with her. But a few days later he may be wrong with her again, and once again he will need to be rebuked, corrected, and adjusted.
In verse 17 Paul goes on to say, “That the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.” A man of God is a God-man, one who partakes of God’s life and nature (John 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:4), thus being one with God in His life and nature (1 Cor. 6:17) and thereby expressing Him. Such a God-man, such a man of God, is produced by God’s breathing out of Himself. God’s breathing produces God-men.
You may be a good man but not a God-man. This means that with you there is an extra o. You should have only one o, but instead of one you have two. The more you receive teaching, revelation, the more this extra o will be cut off. However, it is hard to get rid of the second o once for all, for it is like a man’s beard that appears again after it has been shaved or like the grass that grows again after the lawn has been mowed. From experience we know that the second o always comes back. Perhaps with you this extra o has only partially been cut off, and the part that has been shaved keeps coming back again. If this is our situation, then we are a man of God-a God-man-with an extra o. We need the teaching from the Scriptures to shave away this o again and again.
The word that at the beginning of 2 Timothy 3:17 indicates that this verse is an issue of the preceding verse. The issue of teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness is that the man of God becomes complete.
In the Summer School of Truth you should present a teaching that is an unveiling, the rolling away of the veil. Then the young people in your class will see something of God, and what they see will rebuke them, correct them, and afford them the proper instruction in righteousness to make them right both with God and with man. The issue, the outcome, will be that the man of God becomes complete and equipped for every good work.
The purpose of the Summer School of Truth is not to give mental knowledge to the young people. The goal of our summer school is to present teaching after teaching, revelation after revelation, so that the young ones may see God, see themselves, and be reproved, corrected, and instructed to be right with God and man that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work. Such a person will be a true man of God, a real God-man, continually inhaling the Triune God and thereby receiving revelation, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
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