A Charge to Keep from 1 Tim. 1:3-4

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2-7-02

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  A Charge to Keep

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1Timothy 1:3,4

 

            Message of the verse:  In verse three Paul gives Timothy a charge to keep.  The word “charge” is a word that was used in the military, and it was used to give a strict order to a person lower in command than the one giving it.  It can also be translated “command” and it is translated this way at other times in Paul’s letters.  The command that Paul gives is described in verses 3-11.  Paul says in the latter part of verse three that this charge involves Timothy telling some in his church family not to teach any other doctrine. 

            Paul had been taught the correct doctrine by God, and then he taught it to Timothy, (and many others), and now he wants Timothy to teach the correct doctrine to those who are in his church family so that they in turn could teach the next generation, and so on.  Some in his church family were teaching doctrine that was not true.  Paul goes on in verse four saying that they should not “give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.”  There were false teachers in this church that were teaching wrong doctrine and these things mentioned in verse four.  The things about genealogies and fables could have had something to do with “Judaism, which probably dealt with allegorical or fictitious interpretations of OT genealogical lists.”  (Note from Macarthur Study Bible.)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Life is to short to fill it up with wrong teaching and arguing about wrong teaching.  There is a clear message in the Scriptures about salvation in Jesus Christ, and there are also some teachings that can be disputed in there meaning.  It is better not to argue about some of these things and get on with the important things that are taught in the Scriptures.  I should not get bogged down with unimportant things in my life.

The Word of God brought conviction into my life today.

 

My Steps of Faith Today:  My mind is preoccupied with this seemingly problem with the changeover of our IRA from Lorain National Bank to the ING Company.  I know that God has led me through this process and I did think that it was all taken care of.  However there is still some work to do on it and I cannot get hold of the proper people to see what is going on with it.  I do not want to bring fear into this problem, I want to have faith that God is in control of this and it will be done in His timing.  “Lord I believe, please help my unbelief.”

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 3:12-14

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.