Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from 1 Tim 1.3 and following. Indeed, we met Timothy in Acts 16:1-5. Paul’s connection to his “true child in the faith” was close. Yet he wrote to her as an apostle to emphasize the authority he conferred on her. This young disciple was invested with a difficult task: to order everyone how he should conduct himself in the assembly (1Tim 3:14-16). A mandate was entrusted to him whose purpose was love. Just as the courts are not for honest people, the Act is no longer about those who are justified. What now suits them is the love whose source is in God. It is poured by the Spirit into our hearts (Rom 5:1-5). But so that it is not in us like stagnant water, so that it “passes” through us and gushes for the benefit of others, no “conduit” must be obstructed. Forlove flows: first of all from a pure heart, free of all idols; then a good conscience, which has nothing to reproach itself with (Acts 24:14-16); and finally, a sincere faith, free from any form of hypocrisy (2 Tim 1:3-5). If these conditions are not met, our Christianity will be little more than a vain chatter. How brilliant is the contrast between the Law that curses the sinner and the grace that carries him into the glory and happiness of God!
If anyone could compare the bondage of the Law with the gospel of grace, it was the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul. His faithfulness to the Law had in no way prevented him from being the first of sinners. Had he not persecuted Jesus by persecuting his own so bitterly? Without false humility, he declares himself worse than all the sinners listed in Tim 1:8-11. But it was precisely the guilty, not the righteous, that Christ Jesus came to save (Mt 9:10-13). And since the first of them may have been, no one can call himself too sinful to be placed for the benefit of grace. “Mercy has been done to me,” the apostle cries out twice. He measures the greatness of this mercy by the greatness of his own misery and spontaneously adoration rises from his heart. If we often enjoy so little grace, it may be because our conviction of sin has not been deep enough.
Thus, the apostle now returns to the “ordinance”, to the mandate that had been entrusted to Timothy and of which he had spoken. It enters the proper subject of the epistle, after having ended as we have seen, with a song of triumph and an Amen! the magnificent exposition that is taking place(1 Tim 1:5-17).
For the apostle had yet spoken only of the immediate danger which threatened the saints of Ephesus and which Timothy had to deal with the authority conferred upon him. This danger was still summed up only in the activity of “certain people”. But before that Paul placed before his faithful disciple and child in faith the importance, in the eyes of God, of the ordinance entrusted to him. (1 Tim 4 . 14; 2 Tim 1. 6). Prophecies had been made before about the gift to be received by this faithful collaborator of the apostle. He had therefore received it by prophecy,but it had been communicated to him by the laying on of Paul’s hands. This gift had been accompanied by the laying on of hands of the bodies of the elders. This last fact meant the identification of the elders with Timothy in his service and the punishment they brought to it, because they did not communicate anything to him. (Nb 8 . 10). It was up to the apostolic authority and no one else to occasionally transmit the gift, whether it was a “gift of grace” or the “gift of the Holy Spirit”, a gift which, moreover, was most often sent directly from above by the Lord, but we never see the elders communicating it.
The prophecies, previously made about Timothy, announced that he was appointed by God to “fight the good fight,” a necessary fight, intended to sustain sound doctrine in the house of God and to thwart the tricks of the Enemy. This victory could only take place if Timothy kept faith,thatis, the state of the soul that is firmly attached to the whole of God’s teaching in his Word. Faith is no longer sincere, when conscience is no longer good and seeks to evade, in any way, God’s control. Then there is fraud in the heart. This state is most dangerous. For thesoul gets used to avoiding the light of the presence of the Lord and His Word. That is why throwinga good conscience sooner or later leads the soul to abandon the faith. All heresies have their source in a bad state of consciousness which, fleeing the opportunity to meet God, is left to itself and, in this state, abandons the truth as God taught us in his Word.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
No other lessons:
- Peace Invoked
Jg 6:23 And the Lord said to him, Be at peace, fear not, you will not die. Dn 4:1 Nebuchadnezzar, king, to all peoples, to nations, to men of all tongues, who dwell on all the earth. May peace be given to you with abundance! Lk 10:5 In whatever house you enter, say first: Peace be upon this house! 1 Pet 5:1 Here are the exhortations I address to the elders who are among you, me elder as they are, witness of the sufferings of Christ, and participant in the glory that must be manifested:
- Facts about Timothy, origins
-His father was Greek Acts 16:1 He then went to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, there was a disciple named Timothy, son of a faithful Jewish woman and a Greek father.
-Her mother was a pious woman 2 Tim 1:5 keeping the memory of the sincere faith that is in you, who first dwelt in your ancestor Loïs and in your mother Eunice, and who, I am convinced, also dwells in you.
-Instructed in the scriptures from childhood 2 Tim 3:15 from your childhood, you know the holy letters, which can make you wise to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
-Circumcised by Paul Acts 16:3 Paul wanted to take him with him; and, having taken him, he circumcised him, because of the Jews who were in those places, for all knew that his father was Greek.
-Two letters were written to him
- Power of Grace
Luke 10:19 Behold, I have given you the power to walk on serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy; and nothing can harm you. Rom 14:4 Who are you who judges a servant of others? If he stands, or falls, it is up to his master. But he will stand up, for the Lord has the power to strengthen him. 2 Cor 9:8 And God can fill you with all kinds of graces, that, always possessing in all things enough to satisfy all your needs, you may still have in abundance for every good work; 1 Tim 1:12 I give thanks to him who strengthened me, to Jesus Christ our Lord, for what he deemed me faithful,
- The discipline of the Church
1 Cor 5:5 that such a man be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 2 Cor 13:2:10 When I was present for the second time, I have already said, and today that I am absent I still say in advance to those who have sinned previously and to all others that, if I return to you, I will not use any care, 10 That is why I write these things being absent, so that, present, I do not have to use rigor, according to the authority that the Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction. 1 Tim 1:20 Of these are Hymenea and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme. Tt 3:10 Keep away from you, after a first and a second warning, the one that causes divisions,
From all the above, we note thatHymenea and Alexander had come to flee the opportunity to meet God. And the Word is careful to tell us that these were blasphemies, probably blasphemies against Christ, in relation to the law, because Paul tells us, describing his state of enmity against Christ, that he himself was a “blasphemer.” Here, the evil having not yet reached its peak, it was rather that instead of using their activity for the maintenance of the faith, they had personally been shipwrecked and that, no longer having a compass to lead themselves, they had lost all sense of the value, dignity, holiness of the Lord. We findon this same Hymenea in 2 Tim 2. 17, but associated with Philetus and supporting a doctrine that closed heaven to the redeemed and established them definitively on earth. The act of surrendering to Satan had actually taken place in our passage. The two men of whom it is spoken here, having been abandoned in the hands of Satan, were henceforth out of the assembly, deprived of its control and influence which they had enjoyed until then, becoming, by this fact, the property of the Enemy who now had no other purpose than to separate them forever from Christ, with no hope of return. However, here again, in the midst of this terrible judgment, God had an intention of grace. The misery, probably moral and physical, in which they were immersed could “teach them not to blaspheme anymore”, thus making their restoration possible. For “He to whom he is little forgiven -or at least who thinks so -loves little” (Luke 7:36-50). And you, friend still indifferent, the patience of the Lord has been exercised towards you too, until now. Don’t make him wait any longer. Tomorrow it may be too late. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and for centuries of ages. Amen!
I would be happy to respond to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow “pray for all men.”
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.