Equipped for Every Good Work
"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
— 2 Timothy 3:14-17
Paul wrote this from custody in Rome, in chains, near the end of his life. In the same letter he asks for his cloak before winter, and for his books. Timothy was young, the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father. His mother and grandmother raised him on the sacred writings at home, a job usually left to fathers. Each scroll was copied out by hand over weeks, and few homes owned even one. Most people never held one, and heard them only when believers met and read aloud. The word behind God-breathed, theopneustos, is barely found in Greek before this letter. The word translated "equipped" was also used for fitting out a ship before a voyage. You fit out a ship to sail it, not to leave it tied up in port. Jerome died on this day in 420, after years of turning those writings into Latin. Words like these were given to be used, not just kept.