3:15a

From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures: This clause is the second object of the verb “know” in 3:14c.

^14cYou know those from whom you have learned these things/truths ^15aand you know that from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures

infancy: In this verse the term infancy refers to the time from which Timothy was able to learn. Timothy probably began learning the Scriptures when he was three to five years old. It does not literally mean from the time he was born. Another way to say this is “from the time you were a small child.”

known: Timothy knew the holy Scriptures because his mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures. Another way to say this is that Timothy had “learned” the holy Scriptures.

Holy Scriptures: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Scriptures is literally “writings.” There were many “writings” in that day, so the word Holy specified that these “writings” were the “sacred writings” or the books of the Bible that we now call the Old Testament. Other ways to translate Holy Scriptures are “holy/sacred writings” or “God’s word.”

3:15b

which are able to make you wise: Paul said that learning the truths of the Scriptures will make a person wise.

Some other ways to say this are:

God’s word is able to cause you to understand that…
-or-
As you learn God’s word you become wise.

for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus: These words explain what a person will learn from God’s word. Each person will be able to understand, as Timothy had done, what Christ Jesus did to make a way for God to save that person.

This complicated set of phrases can be analyzed as follows:

salvation = God saves you

faith in Christ Jesus = you believe/trust in Christ Jesus

Simply stated, this means:

God saves you through your believing in Christ Jesus.

© 2003 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.