All Scripture Is God-Breathed
2 Timothy 3:16-17, the inspired Word, as the early church read it
Paul tells Timothy that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God" (literally, God-breathed) and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that "the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Chrysostom takes him at his word: doubt it not, the Scriptures are God's own breath, and they are sufficient to make a believer complete, standing, he says, "in place of" the apostle himself. The Father in his own words below, with a plain restatement.
The Father's words are verbatim and attributed (Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Timothy, NPNF, public domain; selected from the running prose, footnote apparatus omitted). The box marked "In plain terms" is our own restatement, never the Father's words.
2 Timothy 3:16 · KJVAll scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
"'All Scripture is given by inspiration of God'… therefore, he means, do not doubt; and it is 'profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.'… For thence we shall know, whether we ought to learn or to be ignorant of anything. And thence we may disprove what is false, thence we may be corrected and brought to a right mind."
St. John Chrysostom"Given by inspiration of God" renders a single vivid word: God-breathed. Scripture is not merely about God; it comes out of God, as breath from a mouth. And because it does, Chrysostom says, "do not doubt" it. It is the place we go to learn truth, to expose what is false, and to be put right, the trustworthy measure of doctrine and life.
2 Timothy 3:17 · KJVThat the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
"'That the man of God may be perfect.' For this is the exhortation of the Scripture given, that the man of God may be rendered perfect by it; without this therefore he cannot be perfect. Thou hast the Scriptures, he says, in place of me. If thou wouldest learn anything, thou mayest learn it from them… And if he thus wrote to Timothy, who was filled with the Spirit, how much more to us!"
St. John ChrysostomThe Scriptures are not a starting kit to be outgrown; they are enough to make the man of God "perfect" (complete) and fully equipped for every good work, "without this he cannot be perfect." Strikingly, Chrysostom tells Timothy the Scriptures stand "in place of me", even an apostle's living presence is supplied by the written Word. And if Spirit-filled Timothy needed them, "how much more" do we.
Where this stands among the traditions
All Christians confess what this passage plainly says: Scripture is God-breathed, true, and the authoritative measure of faith and life, the early church everywhere treated the Scriptures as God's own word. The debate is over sufficiency and authority alongside tradition. The Protestant Reformation pressed Chrysostom's note here ("the Scriptures in place of me," able to make the man of God complete) into the principle of sola scriptura, Scripture as the final, sufficient authority. The Catholic and Orthodox churches hold Scripture supreme but read within the living apostolic Tradition and the "rule of faith," and note that the canon itself was discerned by the church. The early church itself held both together in practice: it revered Scripture as God-breathed and supreme, and it read Scripture in the company of the apostles' teaching, which is exactly what this library does, Scripture first, heard with the Fathers. The drift to avoid on either side is to set the Word against the church that received it, or the church above the Word that judges it.
Patristic text from Chrysostom's Homilies on 2 Timothy (NPNF, public domain), selected from the running prose with footnote apparatus omitted; nothing added or paraphrased within the quotation marks. Scripture in the King James Version; the plain-language lines are our own restatement. This passage in the Study Bible; 2 Timothy 3 at BibleHub.