We hear these very poignant words in Paul’s second letter to Timothy:

From your infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, the source of the wisdom which, through faith in Jesus Christ, leads to salvation…. All Scripture is inspired of God and is useful….

One of the immediate questions that should come to mind is: What did Paul really mean? It is obvious that when Paul referred to the Scriptures he was not referring to the writings contained in the New Testament (NT). Those writings did not exist at that time since his letters to Timothy were probably written between 63-67 CE. What was Paul encouraging Timothy to do?

It should be remembered that Jesus never rejected in any way the message of the Old Testament (OT). Indeed the message of the OT was about God’s promise to help those who believe in Him to navigate and survive the challenges of life. The OT is filled with God’s love and promise to His people.

So what did Jesus teach? Jesus taught us how to live in order to understand God’s promise and love for us. Jesus taught, and Paul truly reiterated and reinforced this teaching, that the way we can begin to understand how much we are loved by our Creator and what He truly promised to those who believe in His existence, is by living as Jesus lived. Something happens to us when we make an effort to live with unconditional love for our fellowmen: we truly become children of our Heavenly Father and   begin to understand the meaning and purpose of life.  There is, of course, no way that anyone can prove this to us. The only way we can begin to understand this is by trying to live like our brother Jesus lived. It is in our attempts to live what we believe that insight comes.

To live as Jesus lived – that is trying to think and act as He did – requires that we practice true humility and embrace the idea that it is only in the present moment that we can come to experience the fullness of life. We see the meaning of life when, with humility, we seriously make an attempt to unconditionally love all others – that is to love others without exceptions or conditions.

True humility allows us to see that we need to engage in metanoia – need to constantly work on changing the way we think and behave, always recognizing that we are not perfect!