How do you study to show yourself approved (2 Timothy 2:15)?

It is in contrast to all this that Paul proceeds: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." v. 15. There are two things in this exhortation. First, Timothy is to use diligence to commend himself, not to his hearers, but to God. This principle is the safeguard of all who are engaged in public service. As the Apostle says elsewhere, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10). And again, "As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts." 1 Thess. 2:4. Nothing else will keep the servants of God but to have Him before their souls, for then they will remember in all their service that it is His verdict of approval alone they have to seek. (Compare 2 Cor. 2:17.)

Second, Timothy is to approve himself to God by being a good workman. It would be possible for a servant to really strive to commend himself to God, and yet, through ignorance of the truth, to be a bad workman. How many godly, devoted men, for example, have had their eyes opened to perceive (and with what sorrow has the discovery been made!) that they had been misleading souls for years! It is not only necessary therefore to be godly, to have a single eye, but there must be also that knowledge of the Lord's mind, as revealed in the Scriptures, which will enable those who are in the place of teachers to rightly divide, to cut in a straight line, the word of truth. Diligence is requisite for this — diligence in the prayerful study of the Word — and it is this which is really enjoined upon Timothy. Ability to teach is a divine gift; to be a good workman is the result of study, training, and practice, in dependence upon the power of the Holy Ghost.

He was to be occupied with the Word. "But" he is told to "shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some." vv. 16-18. There is no more successful snare of Satan than the seduction of the Lord's servants into foolish controversies. To contend for the truth in a day of departure from it is one of their first responsibilities; but this is a very different thing from turning aside to verbal discussions and "doubtful disputations," or, as the Apostle here expresses it, "empty voices" — words or sounds without significance for the believer. It can never indeed be too often asserted that the best way to refute error is by the statement of the truth; and controversy conducted in this way will edify both speaker and hearers, while profane and vain babblings will only tend to produce more impiety, because they harden both the heart and conscience.

Much of Timothy's work consisted in putting souls in remembrance of what they had already learned: he was not told to bring out new or original things, a specially important consideration for the last days, when the danger of striving about words increases, with its emptiness as regards spiritual profit. Saints must be charged not to stoop to this. Its effect is to turn souls aside from the truth.

Verse 15 is the positive antidote for the evils warned against in the verses preceding and following. Studying requires applied concentration. Yet let us carefully note it is not here with the object of gaining knowledge, but of showing oneself approved by God. To know and act upon the Word of God is the vital matter here. But one must be most diligent to discern the true application of what he reads, drawing the lines where Scripture does. Differing dispensations must be distinguished: the particular character of each book should be understood, and the way in which it relates to other books. This will take time, patience, selfjudgment, and lowly consideration, together with plodding, consistent work. But we need it if we are not to be ashamed. It is always important, in considering any Scripture, to discern the prime object of each passage, and apply the details consistently with this object. God means something when He speaks, and it is His own thoughts about the passage that we should be concerned to know.

If Timothy is told to "shun profane and vain babblings," it is no less urgent for us, for these things are greatly multiplied today. "Profane" has the sense of being strictly secular, with no real reference to God, hence that which reduces things to a rationalistic, materialistic level. This is empty vanity, and drags souls into deeper ungodliness. Just the opposite of sound, solid truth, it will spread like a gangrene where it once gains a foothold. A pointed illustration of this is given in the case of two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, leaders in such evil, who claimed that the resurrection had already taken place. This was evidently a subtle spiritualizing of a vital truth of God, and therefore taking away its entire value. Denial of a future literal resurrection is wickedness that the believer must not tolerate.

Here Timothy is called not to understand merely but to put others in remembrance of the great vital truths that the apostle has laid down. He is also charged in the sight of the Lord to warn against word-fights, profitable for nothing, and calculated to subvert the hearers. This is a most wholesome caution needed widely and in all ages. There are real differences even among Christians, more or less serious in disguising or perverting the truth. But those who value the truth, especially if there be no aggressive zeal, are particularly apt to fall into distinctions without a difference. Zeal of this sort makes them doughty word-warriors. How true that this is useful for nothing, while it is readily available for subverting those who hear! For the word-warrior knows when to stop, the simple who hear pass on and are punished. There is much vanity, and little, if any, sincerity in such disputes; they tend not to edification, but to real and very grave mischief. The charge to Timothy is no less a duty for those who have moral influence in the assembly and seek the Lord's glory there at any time.

But there is also a more positive and personal call in verse 15: "Be diligent to present thyself approved to God a workman not to be ashamed, cutting straightly the word of truth." Example sways more than precept, and those who teach others have especial reason to dread failure or carelessness in themselves. Further, every pious man knows that the first of all obligations is to stand right with God. Timothy therefore was to use diligence to present himself approved to God in the first instance. Where this was not true, his words might be right enough in themselves, but his work would lack blessing, and himself be ever liable to shame. In fact his course would be more or less hypocritical. There could be no courage before the enemy, where the conscience was not good before God. One must seek to be approved alike in conduct and service, approved to God if shame is to be avoided even now. Again, what confidence can there be in drawing out and applying the word of truth with an unwavering heart and hand? The scripture needed might otherwise condemn oneself. A man without conscience might speak out boldly; he that feared God must tremble in blaming another for a wrong which he knew in himself. It is of all importance therefore! that the workman should present himself approved to God: otherwise his testimony cannot but be timid, feeble, and uncertain.

But there may be a further duty as regards the profane babblings of pretentious men, never so self-satisfied as when they err most. This evil had already set in, as the article appears to show. They were not unknown but existing follies among those who bore the name of the Lord. Timothy was not called to occupy himself, still less to engage in controversy, with them. The apostle's word is "avoid" or shun. This again is an exhortation of divine wisdom. Some conscious of ability to dissect and oppose evil are prone to meddle with these vain profanities. It is not wholesome for themselves; it may injure the saints, who valuing the labourers may saturate their minds with these dreary efforts, which as a general rule inflate instead of convincing the guilty parties. To Titus a very similar exhortation is given by our apostle for an analogous evil (Titus. 3:9). Time is too precious save for that which edifies; and he who undertakes to contend with every evil dreamer may succeed in vanquishing them, but he is in imminent danger of getting serious harm to himself. It is a good thing to be zealously affected in good always; it is not well to turn aside and deal with evil, unless to do so be the sternest duty.

There is an important text in 2 Timothy 2:15, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Now this rightly dividing the word of truth does not simply mean, as many say, giving to the saint and sinner each their portion, but it is cutting in a straight line the word of truth. In consequence of the accomplishment of eternal redemption, and the coming down of the Holy Ghost because of Christ being glorified, believers are brought into a totally different position and state to what could possibly have been known before. From the second chapter of Acts then, when the Holy Spirit came down to indwell believers, and abide with us for ever, we have the truth flowing out by the inspired apostles, and made known as could not have been known before. (1 Cor. 2:9-10.) We judge, therefore, that we rightly divide, or cut in a straight line the word of truth, when we accept, as in contrast with God's earthly people, our standing in Christ in the heavenlies, and know our union with Him by the Holy Spirit sent down by Him in ascension as Lord and Christ, and given to be the Head over all things to His assembly which is His body, the fulness of Him which fills all in all. (Eph. 1:19-23.)

Timothy was therefore to strive diligently to show himself approved of God, a workman not needing to be ashamed, as rightly dividing the word of truth." How important is this right division, of which the apostle speaks here! Scripture itself is true all through, from cover to cover, and yet how much we may blunder, and what disastrous work we may do, by giving that which is for the sinner to the saint, or that which is for the saint to the sinner; by bringing Judaism into Christianity, or even by carrying back our Christianity into Judaism. We have to learn, not merely the existence of certain truths, but the right use of them; and the abuse, in fact, is not consistent with the holding of the truth itself. Yet how little has this been observed by Christians! If a man writes a book, people will realize that there is some reason, at least, for the division that he makes in the chapters of it. If a treatise is written, they will realize it to be a first need to know what it is written about. They would not be content to say of a book of science that it was all science, without knowing to what division of science it belonged. Yet with the word of God, so various and immense as it is in scope, and dealing with the whole field of spiritual knowledge, how little importance attaches in men's eyes, to the meaning of the different books, for instance, into which Scripture has been divided, and still less to the intelligence as to the true divisions of these books themselves. Theories which are even yet current, for instance, as to the gospels are a perfect illustration of what is meant. Are they the work of independent writers? Who wrote first? How far was one the copyist of the other? Such things are deemed important;but the result is commonly only to produce in the soul the sense that Scripture is in this way a mere kind of patchwork, writers doing the best they can, and others following them to supply what they have missed, if not almost to make straight what they have left crooked. How the word of God has suffered in such hands! The very glories of Christ which are here distinguished as far as may be for us, in order that we may rightly apprehend them, are all obscured by what in the common cant of the day is spoken of as the human element in Scripture, but which, forgetting how Christ has married the divine and the human, is always brought in to lead astray the soul from the divine side of things. How earnestly we need to insist upon what the apostle says here, that we rightly divide the word of truth! We shall not do it except, to begin with, we realize that it is the word of truth — all truth, and nothing else. If we treat the apostles as accused persons, we shall find that they are but silent before their self-constituted judges. If, in the appreciation which all ought to have of the character of that which they have at any rate produced, we own their sufficiency for the work entrusted to them, we shall find that they speak and speak; and the more earnestly in this spirit we inquire into everything that they put before us, the more we search and ask of them every question that is possible to be made, the more the infinite glory of that which is but the glory of the Word made flesh will break upon us.

He warns us against disputes of words and recalls us, not only to the word of truth, but to the word of truth rightly divided. All Scripture is the word of truth and yet what disaster may be wrought by giving Scripture a private interpretation, or by using texts out of their context, and thus, as Peter says, wresting Scripture to our destruction.

Then we are warned of further decline. The profitless speculation of verse 14 would degenerate into “profane and vain babblings”. Babblings that are profane treat divine things as if they were common, inasmuch as they make light of sacred things. They are “vain” in that the arguments used are without any substance.

These things he was to remember. And if they are remembered they will bring deliverance from the strife about words, vain and unessential disputations in which there is no profit, which only subvert the hearers. It is through disputes about words, and speculations, that Satan brings in his most subtle deceptions. The true way is to strive diligently to show oneself approved of God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, "rightly dividing the Word of truth." What a havoc has been wrought by a wrong dividing of the Word of truth! Law and grace have been jumbled together, Israel robbed of her promises, and the church impoverished on account of it. The Word of God and the truth of God have suffered most from the hands of such unskilled workmen, who, not dividing the Word of truth rightly, have produced confusion worse confounded. The sad division of Christendom, a carnally minded, professing church, is the fruit of it, and much else. The whole truth of God has been obscured, and unbelief fostered by it. To insist upon "rightly dividing the Word of truth" and to practice it both in teaching and living is a most essential requirement of the true workman.

Profane and vain babblings are to be avoided, for they only produce ungodliness. Hymenaeus and Philetus, who held that the resurrection had taken place already and thereby overthrew the faith of some, were examples of it. How true it is that error is like a gangrene, spreading vileness and corruption everywhere.

In verse 14 Timothy is exhorted to put believers in remembrance of these solemn considerations that thereby they may be delivered from wasting their time over unprofitable matters that only breed contentions, and in this connection Paul appeals to him under the figure of a workman. He was to make it his object to be approved of God, "rightly dividing," or "cutting in a straight line" the word of truth. It takes a skilled carpenter to cut a really straight line, and spiritual skilfulness is needed in dividing up the Word of God so as to set it forth in detail.

Now, it is in the midst of all this that the apostle thus addresses Timothy, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." A most necessary word, for Hymeneus and Philetus were at that very time doing the very contrary. They, as the apostle says of them, "concerning the truth had erred." They said, in a general way, "the resurrection is past already." As a universal proposition, a doctrine to be taken in all its applicability, it is false, in special application most true. But these men who were overthrowing the faith of some, did not heed this right division of the truth. But truth itself depended on this right division of it. We are, in the perfect grace of God, to know the resurrection as past, when we think of sin and judgment. We are to know it in our conscience. We are to be free there, to have "the answer of a good conscience towards God," because of "the resurrection of Jesus Christ." We are to know Him as delivered for our sins, and raised again for our justification.

Some details remain, which we may notice, but now specially connected with ministry. I start from the holding fast the form of sound words and avoid jangling on profitless questions raised, holding to the truth itself; avoiding strife even in contending for the truth; shunning profane vain babblings - they increase to more ungodliness. This was not the jangling on questions to no profit but error, as we see from the case given. They were to be shunned; nor are we to strive about words to no profit. All these shunnings and avoidings referred to keeping in the simplicity of the truth. From the corrupt profession, forms of piety, and ungodliness, we are to turn wholly away. The former were to be avoided, shunned (it was individual); the latter, left or turned away from.

376 On the other hand, he was to be watchful and diligent to shew himself a workman approved unto God; a workman not needing to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth: it was to be rightly set out, dissected, and applied, as well as expounded according to the mind of God. Then he was to commit what he heard from Paul to faithful men - not put men in office but commit truth to men, faithful men. Truth all through, and truth connected with unaffected and true godliness, is the leading thought of the apostle, and a suffering place in the world because of it, in contrast with an easy-going church. But all his directions are individual, not to fancy he could correct the body; he was to shun, avoid, turn away, etc., and pursue godliness with them that really sought the Lord (not mere profession) out of a pure heart. The testimony and truth were to be held fast at all cost. We see how soon departure from the truth was the enemy's way of bringing in ungodliness and worldliness. Even when the form of godliness is spoken of, it is propagated amongst silly women never coming to the knowledge of the truth. This laid them open. Finally the Lord would be faithful - could not deny Himself.