22 June 2010 Devotion for Today "Meaningless Talk" I Timothy 1:1-7

 
 

 
 

^{1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,}

 2To Timothy my true son in the faith:

      Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

 3As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer 4nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work—which is by faith. 5The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. 7They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

 
 

Have you ever known anyone to turn their mouths on and then walk off and leave them? In my line of work, I see that quite often. I know that preachers are often accused of this- especially on Sunday. But that is only because we endure a lot of listening the rest of the week that sometimes we don't often get to say what we feel we need to say- especially to those who think they know it all and want to justify themselves to people like us. Today I am starting a new series of devotions from I and II Timothy, and in this passage Paul wastes little words in his introduction but soon gets to the point.

 
 

First of all, Paul shares with Timothy his concern about commanding certain men not to teach false doctrines. There were many who did this, both inside as well as outside the church. Paul constantly battled the ideas of gnosticism. Gnosticism simply means "knowledge" which embraced a whole gamut of spiritual ideas. One of the basis of this belief is that all spiritual knowledge was the same regardless of its origin, and that we are all connected through this "knowledge" as a life-source. It is similar to the ideas of spirituality we see emerging back into the mainstream of human life today as Postmodernism. These ideas teach that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you possess a believe system. Ethics is relative and no truth is absolute. Both Gnosticism and Postmodernism teaches an independent, detached philosophy and spirituality. You can be spiritual yet non-religious. Conscious of the spirit, yet uncommitted to any one faith.

 
 

Paul teaches here that even though this philosophy of Gnosticism promoted tolerance, it was intolerant of those who held to a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. The worldly philosophies abhorred any mention or thought of guilt, just as Postmodernism does today. Such modern practitioners raise up the flag of Tolerance but cannot endure Truth. Their words are like trying to nail square pieces of jello to a wall. Paul says they cannot know what they are talking about because one has to have a relationship with the source of the Truth before it can be meaningful to them. Otherwise it becomes more elusive.

 
 

Is this too deep or heady for a morning devotion? Perhaps this is another problem Paul will mention as he goes further with Timothy. Likewise we are not encouraged to think deeply about our faith. Any more than a tidbit is too much for our minds to think about as we have so much to deal with in the course of our day. But when we have the Truth as our basis for each day, the other matters we are forced to think about will take on a new meaning and a higher significance instead of just meaningless talk.

 
 

May the Lord increase not only your intelligence, but your container of faith which holds it.

 
 

Have a blessed day.