God's Word Used Rightly
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 from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
8 But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully…
"The teaching," sings Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, is to the teacher, and comes back most to him."
So it is that Paul extols the Word of God to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:8. Certainly, the Bible and its authority can be misused. Paul has cautioned greatly against this among the teachers at Timothy's church in Ephesus. These under-teachers have gotten distracted. When they do teach and use the Bible, they have done so without understanding. The temptation, then, might be not to break the glass on Scriptural authority, and to join the how to chorus that leads Barnes & Noble sales by teaching something else. Don't go there either, says Paul.
Misuse it though we may, Scripture is still God's gift which keeps renewing itself. Within its covers, Paul will expound on the good uses of the Law, but we pause at verse eight to remember to point it ourselves first, well before we use the Bible's ringing phrases to justify a point we would otherwise make to other people. "The Word," George Whitfield reminds us, never does us good until we find it spoken to us in particular." As we study, then, as we exposit, the Bible is first a mirror into our own souls. "We will be spiritually safe," encourages Dallas Willard's In Search of Guidance, "in our use of the Bible if we follow one simple rule: Read in a repentant attitude."
We need encounters like 1 Timothy 1:8 as the Hebrews needed cities of refuge. Serious as Paul's tone has recently been, our tendency can darken from this to condemnation. We can plaster our walls, our hearts, and our minds with the standards of Scripture, measure ourselves against those marks day after day, and despair. This is not using the law lawfully any more than when we pick one or two standards in which we marginally exceed our contemporaries. As the whole counsel of the Word of God does its work as the lawful Law, the healthful result in the regenerate soul is to turn us again and again to the righteousness which is ours in Christ, to constantly replant our root system in His living waters rather than our own aquifer, barely adequate moment by moment at best. Let us not, then, find the fault in the Word when it's application stings and discourages us, but instead turn by habit to Christ as the Word made flesh.
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 from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some have strayed and turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
8 But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully…
"The teaching," sings Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, is to the teacher, and comes back most to him."
So it is that Paul extols the Word of God to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:8. Certainly, the Bible and its authority can be misused. Paul has cautioned greatly against this among the teachers at Timothy's church in Ephesus. These under-teachers have gotten distracted. When they do teach and use the Bible, they have done so without understanding. The temptation, then, might be not to break the glass on Scriptural authority, and to join the how to chorus that leads Barnes & Noble sales by teaching something else. Don't go there either, says Paul.
Misuse it though we may, Scripture is still God's gift which keeps renewing itself. Within its covers, Paul will expound on the good uses of the Law, but we pause at verse eight to remember to point it ourselves first, well before we use the Bible's ringing phrases to justify a point we would otherwise make to other people. "The Word," George Whitfield reminds us, never does us good until we find it spoken to us in particular." As we study, then, as we exposit, the Bible is first a mirror into our own souls. "We will be spiritually safe," encourages Dallas Willard's In Search of Guidance, "in our use of the Bible if we follow one simple rule: Read in a repentant attitude."
We need encounters like 1 Timothy 1:8 as the Hebrews needed cities of refuge. Serious as Paul's tone has recently been, our tendency can darken from this to condemnation. We can plaster our walls, our hearts, and our minds with the standards of Scripture, measure ourselves against those marks day after day, and despair. This is not using the law lawfully any more than when we pick one or two standards in which we marginally exceed our contemporaries. As the whole counsel of the Word of God does its work as the lawful Law, the healthful result in the regenerate soul is to turn us again and again to the righteousness which is ours in Christ, to constantly replant our root system in His living waters rather than our own aquifer, barely adequate moment by moment at best. Let us not, then, find the fault in the Word when it's application stings and discourages us, but instead turn by habit to Christ as the Word made flesh.
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