Whenever I get something from the store that requires assembly at home, I have a deep sense of dread. The dread doesn’t come from the tiny wrench or the horrible instructions they give you in the box that de-maculates you…it comes from the fact that anytime I put something together I inevitably have pieces left over.

If you were to walk in my back yard and want to use the BBQ Grill, it is AT YOUR OWN RISK because, YES, there were pieces left over. Nothing is exactly complete or equipped to operate exactly as it was intended.

Humanity itself, in a sense, is in the same boat as my BBQ Pit (or ceiling fan or book shelf or car stereo or any number of things I have put together)…it is incomplete and ill equipped because of our sin. Our sin has marred God’s image in us so that we are not all that humanity was intended to be (and we look for the day when all creation is completely redeemed). This is why we study the scriptures.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Paul uses two words here that are extremely important: complete and equipped.

• Complete is the Greek word artios and means fitted. It is kind of like when you find that perfect pair of pants that you never want to wash because you don't want them to change at all because they are just right; that is artios.
• Equipped is the Greek word exartizō and it means to be finished. It is like a house that get's built and everything is done and furnished…it is finished.

What Paul is telling us is that the Scriptures are what we need so we can be fitted perfectly to God's calling, and that by studying them we will also become finished so that we naturally live out every good work our Great Savior has for us. The function of being complete and equipped is for the purpose of good works.

Our Great God does good works and He intends for His people to do the same. He has given us scripture so we can be fitted and finished for these works.

It is like what Augustine heard when God called him at the age of 32, "take and read." Augustine, after years of living in debauchery, picked up a Bible and the passage it opens to is Romans 13:13-14. The scriptures spoke truth in his life, Jesus changed him and he became one of the greatest theologians Christianity has ever known.