2 Timothy 3:16

This is one of the most famous verses in the Bible; it basically says that the Bible is the Word of God and that, no matter who each part was written by, it all has the same Divine Author.

This verse can be interpreted in so many ways, but I'm just going to take one slant on it - that it can be interpreted in so many ways. What does it mean for Scripture to be "God-breathed"? The Bible is basically the Word of the Living God, which would mean that the Word itself is living: the Living Word.

The Living Word can say different things at different times and to different people. I'll give you an example. I love reading the Bible, and frequently follow Bible plans. This means that I can be reading different parts of the Bible at the same time, but one time - for the first time - I was reading the same part of the Bible (1 Samuel, if you're interested) in both of my Bible plans at the same time. If the Bible had been written by the earthly author, with no divine influence, the Bible plans would have said exactly the same thing, because the words would have the same message. But they didn't. The Word is God-breathed, and so God speaks through it to each of us differently. So, even though I was reading the same scripture twice, the person writing Bible Plan A had a different slant on it than the person writing Bible Plan B.

The Word can say different things to different people at different times. Not only that, but you can read a verse once and take one meaning, then read it again the next day and it seems to say something completely different. But the words themselves haven't changed.

So, this is what it means for scripture to be "God-breathed": that the words are the same, but the message is different. And thus the Living God speaks to each of us differently and gets His message across, whatever He wants to tell us. And so the Word is not just words, it is a Living Word.