We continue reading from the Second Letter to Timothy. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen how this letter reveals the growing understanding of how the Holy Spirit guides the people of God. Earlier, we reflected on the Spirit given through the laying on of hands, the gift of power, love, and self-discipline. Today, the letter adds something new: “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed from the sacred Scriptures.”

Here, we begin to see the early Church’s developing sense of what would become the canon of Scripture, the compilation of writings we now call the Bible, and the central role of Scripture in the life of the Church. The letter continues: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for correction, for training, and for equipping disciples for every good work.”

What does it mean that Scripture is inspired by God? The word “inspired” literally means “breathed out.” That image comes straight from Genesis, where God breathes life into Adam. Just as God’s breath gave life to humanity, the words of Scripture continue to breathe divine life into the world. And the Bible has a threefold power:

1. Corrects – it shows us where we need to be transformed by the power of God.
2. Trains – it shows us how to grow in righteousness, in ourselves and in others.
3. Equips – it gives us a vision for the mission of the Church and our role in it.

Corrects. Trains. Equips. Memorize those three. If someone asks, “What does the Bible do for you?” you can say: “It is the powerful word of God that corrects, trains, and equips me.”

If that is true, then no person or Church that is not being formed by the inspired Scriptures can expect to go very far in the spiritual life. Scripture is essential.

One of the things that the inspired word of God does is penetrate any culture. Think about it… it was written originally in Hebrew and Greek, thousands of years ago, under a cultural worldviews very different than ours, yet it speaks directly to us today. The bible has been translated into just about every language. Our own parish family experiences that every week, Scripture proclaimed in English, Spanish, Swahili, and Chuukese.

The reason Sacre Scripture has the power to resonate with anyone in any culture under any time period is because it is speaking directly to the universal human experience, and doe so honestly. It doesn’t hide the flaws of its heroes. This honesty is necessary, because transformation happens only through confrontation, when God’s power enters the brokenness of humanity and changes it from within.

 

One of the deepest human problems Scripture confronts is our tendency to violence. No wonder, then, that the Bible itself is filled with violent stories, something that makes many critics uncomfortable. One of those critics is Richard Dawkins, biologist and well-known preacher of atheism. As a former aspiring biologist myself, I’ve admired much of his scientific work, but his understanding of divine revelation is incredibly simplistic.

In his book The God Delusion, he writes that God is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction,” calling Him vindictive, bloodthirsty, and cruel.
In interviews, he says religion is the most dangerous element in human culture and should be replaced by science.

And we can understand, at least superficially, how he gets there. Today’s first reading seems to fit his argument: Israel is attacked by the Amalekites; Moses sends his men to battle, and the Book of Exodus appears to celebrate the victory: “Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.”

Some people try to make sense of this by drawing a contrast between the “violent God” of the Old Testament and the “loving God” of the New. Some even suggest dropping the Old Testament entirely. But that would be a tragedy. Christianity, the revelation of Jesus Christ, makes no sense without the Old Testament. That’s why, at every Mass, we read from it first. Jesus himself embraced the Old Testament because He understood it, and we must too. For example, Jesus taught love for enemies precisely because of the hate and violence that runs through human history and Scripture. He revealed that the only way to overcome violence is through the power of mercy and forgiveness.

All that violence in Scripture isn’t there to glorify it, it’s there to expose it.
Revelation has to enter that violent story in order to heal it from within. It’s like a Trojan horse, but instead of deception, God’s Word infiltrates the human heart to transform it.

         We see this transformation happening slowly. The Old Testament was written across centuries in a violent world, the ancient Near East. Moses, Joshua, David, they lived among empires that glorified conquest. The kings of Egypt and Mesopotamia carved inscriptions boasting of their brutality. Torture and domination were celebrated as proof that the gods favored them.

Against that backdrop, the Old Testament is, as one of my professors used to say, “PG-rated.” It portrays Israel not as a mighty army but as a small, vulnerable people. They were poorly armed, facing chariots and fortresses on foot. Their wars were defensive, never imperial.

The story today shows that: the Israelites had no chance against the Amalekites. Their only hope was prayer. So, Moses must keep praying, and they even hold his arms up to keep him going.

Even though they act in defense, God doesn’t spare them from experiencing violence. This is because the transformation of violence requires the transformation of human freedom. They might be acting in self-defense, but they are still responding with violence, calling upon vengeance against those who trespass against them. But God desires that we freely choose a different path, one of peace.

With Jesus, eventually, religious violence would have to be left behind. Jesus Christ arrives when Israel is a colony of Rome, an empire that ruled the world by violence. The timing is no coincidence: the first “global institution” in history, built on force, meets the God who conquers through love.

And so, Jesus has to die violently. He must die through crucifixion, not through natural death, because He enters human violence to redeem it from within, and he does so with a love founded in non-violence, non-resistance. When the disciples reached for their swords to defend him, Jesus said no. Point being, human force will never achieve the transformation of the heart. Only the love of God can do that, a love revealed through the Sacred Scriptures.

The Church recognizes that sometimes force may be necessary, just war, self-defense, but the call of Jesus always points higher: toward mercy, forgiveness, and peace. Saint Oscar Romero understood this. As Archbishop of El Salvador, he was killed in 1980 for defending the poor against a violent regime. He was steeped in Scripture: corrected, trained, and equipped by it.

He once said: “A Church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a Gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin or touch the real sin of society… what kind of Gospel is that? We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to the cross… True liberty does violence only to self, like Christ, who, though He was God, became the servant of all.”

Family, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It corrects, trains, and equips us. It has changed the course of humanity, and it continues to change us, one heart at a time.

The New Testament calls it the sword of the Spirit, not to wound, but to heal; not to divide, but to transform. So, at the start of every Mass, when you sit down for the readings, pray: “Holy Spirit, speak to my heart through Your Word.” If we do that, we’ll always remain on the path of peace.