Commanded Love
From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith.
5 now the purpose of the commandment is love…
Donald Whitney frames in Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life, "God has offered you this time to discipline yourself for the purposes of godliness."
We are a little taken aback at first at the pairing of discipline and godliness. Isn't it, after all, a work of faith and the Spirit to change us? Aren't we, we excuse, passive passengers as God changes our affections and then our actions?
Perhaps not. As Timothy swims in the distorted notions of love in the goddess Diana's company town of Ephesus and attempts to pastor there for Christ, Paul challenges him actively. The default in Ephesus, as elsewhere in a world with thoughts and feelings distorted by the fall, Paul lays out in the opening of 1 Timothy, is for men to errantly attach our affections. Fictitious fables? We will take them and shape our notion of reality accordingly. Endless genealogies that put us and the strength we tell ourselves is in our heritage at the center of our explanations? We will take that, and love it. By imbibing such sustenance like a fish taking in polluted water through its gills, our sin sickness is made manifest in disputes so different from a disciplined effort to build one another up.
To stay where the fight against our own flesh and the prevailing culture is difficult, Paul charges, is in itself revolutionary. To root ourselves in Christ rather than in the excuses and distractions which so readily offer themselves is to submit to the commands of the Bible, and of those whom Christ has positioned to disciple us. As we do, as we deliberately draw from His sufficiency and reflect on His self-sacrificing love so different from the syrupy stuff on the radio or the seductive siren's song of stuff playing in the background of television advertisements, love is the result. We think and act our Way, Paul roots us along with Timothy, into a new, more firm basis for our relationships.
Discipline ourselves for the purposes of godliness, then, one decision at a time. Having followed after a thinner and less substantial kind of love for most of our lives, we are surprised when the mature love to which Christ and Christ's own call us doesn't feel natural immediately. Perhaps when our flesh screeches, perhaps when our relational decisions place us at odds with those who love the world, Christ's work in us and in our circle has really taken hold.
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is faith.
5 now the purpose of the commandment is love…
Donald Whitney frames in Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life, "God has offered you this time to discipline yourself for the purposes of godliness."
We are a little taken aback at first at the pairing of discipline and godliness. Isn't it, after all, a work of faith and the Spirit to change us? Aren't we, we excuse, passive passengers as God changes our affections and then our actions?
Perhaps not. As Timothy swims in the distorted notions of love in the goddess Diana's company town of Ephesus and attempts to pastor there for Christ, Paul challenges him actively. The default in Ephesus, as elsewhere in a world with thoughts and feelings distorted by the fall, Paul lays out in the opening of 1 Timothy, is for men to errantly attach our affections. Fictitious fables? We will take them and shape our notion of reality accordingly. Endless genealogies that put us and the strength we tell ourselves is in our heritage at the center of our explanations? We will take that, and love it. By imbibing such sustenance like a fish taking in polluted water through its gills, our sin sickness is made manifest in disputes so different from a disciplined effort to build one another up.
To stay where the fight against our own flesh and the prevailing culture is difficult, Paul charges, is in itself revolutionary. To root ourselves in Christ rather than in the excuses and distractions which so readily offer themselves is to submit to the commands of the Bible, and of those whom Christ has positioned to disciple us. As we do, as we deliberately draw from His sufficiency and reflect on His self-sacrificing love so different from the syrupy stuff on the radio or the seductive siren's song of stuff playing in the background of television advertisements, love is the result. We think and act our Way, Paul roots us along with Timothy, into a new, more firm basis for our relationships.
Discipline ourselves for the purposes of godliness, then, one decision at a time. Having followed after a thinner and less substantial kind of love for most of our lives, we are surprised when the mature love to which Christ and Christ's own call us doesn't feel natural immediately. Perhaps when our flesh screeches, perhaps when our relational decisions place us at odds with those who love the world, Christ's work in us and in our circle has really taken hold.
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