Variety: 2 Timothy 3v14–17

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have known sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14–17)

I remember my first day at Papa’s Fish Barn. I was 15, ready to take on the world. Instead, I ended up hauling sacks of potatoes from dangerously high piles into dangerously sharp chipper machines. I was paid the same amount per hour as a large portion of those same potatoes were sold for: £3.50.

First jobs expose you. You don’t know what you’re doing, and there’s no manual for who you need to be to survive, let alone thrive. I expect the biblical Timothy felt similarly about his new role. He was young and inexperienced (compared to Paul), left in Ephesus to stabilise a messy community full of opposition and false teaching.

Whether you’re a church leader or a chip boy, a CEO or a social worker, a student or a stay-home parent, the question is the same: how do you become someone who can actually handle what’s being asked of you?

Reading the passage this way, Paul’s line about Scripture being ‘inspired by God and useful’ reads less like a doctrinal statement and more like the advice that every new starter needs. He’s saying to Timothy, ‘Skill isn’t enough. Your intuition, your resilience, your courage – let Scripture shape these parts of you. Stay rooted in the story it tells and stay close to the main character it reveals. Equip yourself with its wisdom.’

That’s how you handle what’s asked of you: let God’s word do its work in you.

Because Scripture doesn’t just make you more competent. It makes you more like Jesus. It forms patience when you’d usually hurry. Courage where you’d normally shrink back. Gentleness where you’d snap. Truthfulness when a half-truth would be easier. It reshapes the instincts you take into meetings, emails, parenting, budgeting, conflict, leadership, friendship, and the late-night thoughts that won’t leave you alone. But remember: the aim is not that you learn its story, but that you look more like the one at the centre of it.

So whether you start in Ephesus or Papa’s, the same truth holds: Scripture forms ordinary people for extraordinary kinds of work. As you step into your office, your classroom, your kitchen, for the first time or the hundredth time – let Scripture teach you, correct you, rebuke you, and train you in righteousness.

These past weeks have taken us through four passages, but they’ve all whispered the same invitation: allow the God who speaks in Scripture shape your everyday life – until Christ is formed in you.

May it be so.

Tim Yearsley