Coming Up For Air

17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 18 Let them do good… "Because our words must be life-giving," explains Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "we must never use truth as a weapon." This warning points to the beauty of 1 Timothy 6:18 in context. In a sense, Paul has weaponized the otherwise timid Timothy. The word command in verse 17 is an unmistakably strong one. He is going to be used to take down strongholds of corrupted thinking. But, if we don't close the letter in offense and conviction, and we keep reading, we see the life-giving impact on the other side of tough words of confrontation. The verb that opens verse 18 is let, a verb of beautiful freedom which so contrasts with the entanglement of the chase for money and approval. Would we look at confrontation differently, first confrontation with ourselves, ...

17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. "Henry Luce used to complain," sympathizes Lance Morrow In 1948: the Best Year of Their Lives on John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon B. Johnson, "that novelists never wrote heroic stories about businessmen." Morrow channels, "If they turned up in novels at all, would be villains, and that seemed to Luce an affront to what he saw as the heroic story of American enterprise." We evangelicals have probably had something to do with that divide. For, we haven't embraced the fullness of Scripture like 1 Timothy 6:17. Even in a passage full of staunch wariness against the power of materialism too, as Wordsworth put it, waste our powers in getting and spending, we see both the supremacy of God Who is Spirit and His absolute determination to express Himself through material gifts. We c...

Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God… 1 Timothy 6:17, New King James Version The Simpsons is a pretty good barometer of human weakness. In particular, as Springfield faces its latest crisis, I remember that the mayor and the police chief are forced to resort to reviewing the town's ancient charter. They don't find anything particularly helpful, but one of them discovers he is entitled to a comely lass, and a pig. I believe Paul knew something about the spirit being skewered here. I believe its limitations are why, choosing from a galaxy of Divine attributes to extol as better than pride and materialism, the Holy Spirit selects an unexpected one as 1 Timothy 6:17 continues. Don't trust in riches, He says, but trust in the God Who is… Provider? Not yet. Creator? Not this time. Sovereign? No, that's not the aspect of His glory He chooses for contrast here. Through Paul, He remind...

17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches… As John Steinbeck considers the American landscape in his penetrating Travels with Charley , he considers Texans. "The subtlety of their ostentation drew my attention." The same sort of second-look phenomenon draws Paul's attention also in 1 Timothy 6:17. Thus it should draw ours. He has already marked haughtiness 's more obvious manifestations for destruction. Timothy is to target the same sorts of practices James lambastes in which the rich use poor people to augment their status – in church. Showy demonstration the one's resources are out. Constant name and price drops engineered to imprint inferiority are banished. From the Law to the prophets, and clearly in the New Testament, the principle is established. God made both rich and poor, and both are accountable to him. But did I hear a sigh of relief as the Angel, meaning messenger in this case, of the Lord ...

Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty… Spurgeon's word picture is harrowing enough to be preserved and presented at length: "The man has come to the edge of Jordan; the time has arrived for him to die. He is a believer-just a believer; but his life has not been what he could wish; not all that he now desires that it had been. And now stern death is at him, and he has to take his first step into the Jordan. Judge of his horror, when the flames surround his foot. He treads upon the hot sand of the stream; and the next step he takes, with his hair well nigh on end, with his eye fixed on heaven on the other side of the shore, his face is yet marked with horror. He takes another step, and he is all bathing in fire. Another step, and he is up to his very loins in flames-"saved, so as by fire." A strong hand has grasped him, that drags him onward through the stream. But how dreadful must be the death even of the Christian, when he is saved "s...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only [e]Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life  author Richard Hofstadter laments among the conclusions of his work the division between men of thought and men of action. The two, he decides, are distinct works, with thinkers compromising themselves and their powers the nearer they get to enforcing policy from them. Pure thinkers, meanwhile, he says, dripped with a kind of condescension toward those who actually tried to draw concrete, actionable conclusions. Blessedly, the apostle Pa...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor… "From the beginning to the end," declares Israel & New Breed in "Jesus at the Center," "it will always be, it’s always been You, Jesus." There is a Pauline obedience in the repetition of this simple, yet still revolutionary, declaration. The apostle points Timothy there as, inspired, he continues to unspool the attributes of Christ for his young charge and for the ages to come. None who call themselves Christians, then or now, would likely be surprised by anything in the lyric...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see… I woke up to the unkillable anthem of Petra this morning. "We are content… To pitch our tent… Where the glory's evident… Seldom do we know… The Glory came and went." Perhaps the Lord was preparing my heart via those ancient songsters for what Paul sowed into Timothy's so long ago in 1 Timothy 6:16. And what a blessed Truth it is! Christ's unapproachable light, His holiness ever on His terms, perpetually humbles us, yes, and it should. But that Other, that Light so bright that it continues to reveal all of ...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light… New King James Version "There is no use," thunders Charles Spurgeon in his sermon "The Blood-Shedding," for you to satisfy your hearts with anything less than what satisfies God the father. Without the shedding of blood nothing would appease his justice, and without the application of that same blood nothing can purge your consciences." Paul would have Timothy reconvinced of this in the surprising Christ adjective inserted in 1 Timothy 6:16. Shall we buck Timothy up by reminding him that Christ is blessed, only, potentate, King of King...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality… "Depend upon it," focuses Spurgeon in Morning and Evening . "Where life begins, sorrow begins." But his plaintive proclamation quickly turns to a plea for a better prism through which to view his predicament. "But if God be my supreme delight and only object, To me 'tis equal whether love ordain my life or death-appoint me ease or pain." Spurgeon's realization that since Christ is in control of his ultimate life-and-death disposition lesser crises are not really crises is a two-person job in 1 Timothy 6:16. With the picture of Christ before Pilate still in Tim...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords… David Garrow references the thinking of a voter weighing options for United States Senator and considering a candidate whose background was not typical. "If your parent is from another country, your vision is larger than just the United States." Along similar lines, the apostle Paul is inspired to widen Timothy's admiration for Christ, and ours. Calling Him Potentate, Paul has placed Christ in the courts of influence, and celebrated Him as preeminent there. He has declared Christ King of Kings, first among those who are first among their brethren, and so he is. As the Israelites from whom Christ spring, humanly s...

 13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings… Insists GK Chesterton in his biography of George Bernard Shaw, "We must always be casting back to concrete foundations with which we began." Thus also insists the apostle Paul in his parting instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:15. Having taken us back to Christ's encounter with Pontius Pilate, he continues to illustrate the aspects of Christ's superiority. Christ is the better Potentate, the consistent courtier with everlasting favor to exercise on behalf of His own. His commission, unlike Pontius Pilate's will not expire. Yet, Christ is more than an exalted functionary, although He likewise derives His authority f...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate… There's a scene in the movie Ben Hur where Quintus Arius the Roman noble is conspiring with Ben Hur as his adopted son. Judah Ben Hur's purpose of rescuing his mother and sister from unjust and potentially deadly imprisonment has become the older man's to the extent that he tells the younger, "Events are very much to OUR purpose." He then goes on to explain that Pontius Pilate has been appointed governor of Palestine, probably thinking that a new governor might re-examine old cases. I consider this shifting of political chess pieces, and the reading of the board for potential, if brief, windows of opportunity in light of Paul's refe...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only… 1 Timothy 6:13-15, New King James Version The changeover of seasons and school years has me thinking. It doesn't seem as though 28 of these have occurred since I was navigating the one between high school and college, but they have. I was considering my heart in that place, confident to the point of bluster in some areas, yet openly insecure in others. Through it all, and persisting still, is the threat of Christ's grace. I can think back, even, to my state of mind at the precipice of adulthood and opportunity and see that. One of my strongest expressed desires at that point, one I was willing to admit to those God was using to disciple me, was that He would le...

From John 17 –24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. From Romans 9 – 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my [a]countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises. "God's people need lifting up," admits Spurgeon in Morning and Evening . Of us, Christian, from age to age he writes by experience, "They are very heavy by nature. They have no wings, or, if they have, they are like the dove of old which lay among the pots; and they need divine grace to make them mount on wings covered with silver, and with feathers of yellow gold." It is from thi...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed… "Respect," writes Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, "was invented to cover the place where love should be." The juxtaposition, I believe, is similar to the one Paul is setting up for Timothy as 1 Timothy 6:15 continues. Pontius Pilate, to whom Paul alluded to in verse 13, could grant respect. He could dribble out faultless this over Jesus along with mercy until, at C.S. Lewis points out in The Screwtape Letters, it became risky. His is a suspension of judgment, a, "I haven't found anything wrong with this Guy… yet." On the other side of the balance, the real verdict on Christ and on Christ's is embedded in verse 15. Blessed. Not only want lasting conse...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time… "Taken out of the context of Creation," warns Eugene Peterson in Christ Plays in 10,000 Places , "any prayer soon becomes an act of idolatry." So it is, then, that Paul unfolds 1 Timothy 6:15 to admonish both Timothy and us against taking a spirit like Pontius Pilate's into prayer. As Paul armors his charges against the distractions of instant but ephemeral satisfaction around us, he knows how easy it would be to simply translate this consumer avatar from the face we present to the world to the faith we present to the Father. Paul has told us how vulnerable we are to being consumed by a consumer spirit. In so doing, he has shown us the Divine sympathy with our distractible and wea...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing… An opportunity to leave a lucrative CEO position in order to lead World Vision prompts a reevaluation from Richard Stearns which he narrates in The Hole in Our Gospel . In such a crucible, he looks back on his life and realizes, "I had been confusing my success with God's approval." Paul, perhaps, would have Timothy avoid this beforehand. Already in 1 Timothy 6, Paul has warned Timothy against the lures of riches and spiritual pride. Even when Paul specifically affirms the re-centering power of Timothy's confession before many witnesses in 1 Timothy 6:12, he immediately grounds himself on the reality that Christ, rather than the human gallery, provides the ultimate validation. The point must be crucial, and often conflated...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless … "If there be anything that can make men believe," confides Charles Spurgeon in his sermon "The Glorious Gospel on 1 Timothy 1:15, "it is a true picture of the Person of Christ. Seeing is believing in this case. A true viewing of Him will no doubt begat faith in the soul." Paul sounds this sort of theme to Timothy again as he ends his first canonical letter. He calls to mind Christ's perfect, surrendered witness before Pontius Pilate as an empowering snapshot for Timothy, his picture that, in Christ, he can overcome the urge to make things easiest for himself. By following this Gospel scene with an emphasis on spotlessness in verse 14, Paul shows us another aspect of Christ's witness. Not only was Christ's testimony before Pontius Pilate str...

I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate… 1 Timothy 6:13, New King James Version "At the core of every moral code," determines Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion , "there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history." Summoning Timothy to a moral code that is less ephemeral than the one in Ephesus, Paul in 1 Timothy 6:13 calls him into deep time. He calls him to re-witness one of the battles Christ fought on behalf of His own. Christ to knew what it was to confront expediency as a realistic option. He stood before Pilate with a chance to prioritize His own comfort and His own reputation over the well-being of His witness and His followers. It is this Christ, this disciplined and triumphant witness before Pontius Pilate, Paul invokes, who empowers Timothy to be distinctly Christ's in Ephesus. The Christ-centric version of his...

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things… Why does a steward steal?  Alexandre Dumas shows in The Count of Monte Christo that he steals because he's not sure he'll always remain with his master and wants to make his future secure. So it is that Paul takes some of the allure out of any temptation the materialism in the air at Ephesus has for Timothy. Already he has focused his young disciple on his work in the sight of God rather than for an audience of those who could bolster his pride and secure him financially. But Paul's very next phrase reminds Timothy, and us, of Who it is Who sees our efforts, of the heart and the power behind the gaze. Paul takes us quickly back to Christ's work in creating and sustaining all things. There is no sense, Paul argues, to go off the path He has for us, to strive after some security on the side in case He doesn't come through, because it is He Who gives life to all things. Any competition to serving Hi...

I urge you in the sight of God… 1 Timothy 6:13, New King James Version Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community feels compelled to draw an important distinction. "It is not that God is the spectator and sharer of our present life, howsoever important that is," he insists. But rather that we are the reverent listeners and participants in God’s action in the sacred story, the history of the Christ on Earth.” Paul and Timothy, I think, would recognize this deliberate shift toward the vertical. I see it in a pronounced way as 1 Timothy 6:12 melds into the next verse. There is great beauty, and ready encouragement in the fact that the veteran apostle offers his younger disciple a buoy in remembering what Timothy confessed before witnesses. God's acts in the external, especially in human community, can be an analgesic to our swollen egos and fears. Timothy, prone to timidity to the point of stomach upsets, can no doubt use this groun...

 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12, New King James Version I remember, I was just beginning to come up for air after being fired from my job. I don't recall how much time had elapsed since The Event, but enough that my limbic system had grown weary of sedating my spirit. Just for a change, even without a change in circumstance, I needed to feel better for a while. As timing would dictate, my resolve to turn life's page, and turn something other than a frown or a grimace to the world, coincided with my wife's and my first visit to my mother-in-law since The Event. Words like Shiftless Son-In-Law auditioned themselves for my unemployment of about two weeks, but they seemed overdramatic even for my temperament. In the car, I settled on grim, yes, Grim and Resolved. That's the appropriate note to demonstrate adult seriousness about ...

 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession… 1 Timothy 6:12, New King James Version Of Christ, Spurgeon writes in Morning and Evening , "If He should ask me why I call Him 'good' I should have a ready answer." Paul would hone Timothy's weapons of spiritual warfare to just a sharp point of specific, individualized praise in 1 Timothy 6:12. With such a focus, the old apostle is equipping Timothy, and us, to truly fight the good fight against lesser passions. We, souls made timid by the world's constantly competing noise and luster, can without this rousing lay hold of eternal life as The Great Other. We can begin to contemplate our theology in general terms. It's praiseworthy that God did this in the history of His Creation and His elect. We can manage something like cheerfulness as we acknowledge Christ's service into which we have been called. Confession, though, is indi...

12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called… 1 Timothy 6:12, New King James Version "The hardest thing in the world," evaluates Charles Spurgeon in his sermon "Sovereignty and Salvation," "is to turn a man's eyes off himself. "As long as he lives," Spurgeon follows the habitual human gaze, "he always has a predilection to turn his eye inside, to look at himself; whereas God says, 'Look unto Me." In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul quickly pushes Timothy toward this pivot as well. He has blessed the idea of a strenuous spiritual life, told Timothy to run toward virtues, and has just specifically told him to lay hold of eternal life. He is deliberately teaching his young disciples what, and Who, is a worthy fixation of his mind and his muscles, and that God's grace works out through Timothy's decisions. But almost as soon as he lets Timothy here the first century equivalent of stirring Rocky mu...

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life… 1 Timothy 6:12, New King James Version Charles Spurgeon in his sermon "The Resurrection of the Dead" meaningfully connects this bodily existence with what is to come. He entreats, "If this throat is to warble forever with songs of glory, let not of lust defile it. If these eyes are see the king in his beauty, even let this be your prayer,'Turn off my eyes from beholding vanities.' If these hands are to hold a palm branch, let them never take a bribe, let them never seek after evil." Perhaps this sense of continuity between the time-bound and the timeless is what Paul is charged with in 1 Timothy 6:12, and the past and he would conduct like electricity to Timothy. To that end, he commissions Timothy with an interesting oxymoron, to lay hold of eternity. Grasp that, young squire, which will outlast the strength of your grip, grasp that which is more broad than the biggest human hands outstretched to thei...

Fight the good fight of faith… 1 Timothy 6:12, New King James Version Screwtape is perturbed, which seems to be the default state of the demonic in CS Lewis's classic. His nephew brags that the human "patient" on whom they are working is distracted enough from spiritual realities that the distractions themselves have become the chief subject of his prayers. Vexed, Screwtape sees trouble for the demons in human honesty. Screwtape pleadss, "When distraction crosses his mind you ought to encourage  him to thrust it away by sheer will power and to try to continue the normal prayer as if nothing had happened." He does the impact of candor before the Almighty when he admits, "Once he accepts  the distraction as his present problem and lays that before the Enemy and makes it the main theme of his prayers and his endeavors, then, so far from doing good, you have done harm. Concluding, Screwtape pronounces that from the demons' perspective, " Anything, even...

But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. One Timothy 6:11, New King James Version Will and Ariel Durant are great admirers of Napoleon in their concluding volume to The Story of Civilization dedicated to the age they name after him. They describe him in relationships, "He was seldom brutal, often kind, playful, good-humored." They concede, though, "is sense of humor had been weakened by hardship and battle; he had little time for the pleasantries of leisure, the gossip of the court, or the wit of the salons. He was a man in a hurry, with a pack of enemies around him, and an empire on his hands; and it is difficult for a man in a hurry to be civilized." That reality, the hardening of battle, the natural defensiveness that can result from an awareness of one's vulnerabilities, that is what makes Paul's conclusion to 1 Timothy 6:11 so remarkable. In this section of Scripture, he has op...