1 Timothy 6:12 – Embracing the Struggle
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 a sin, which has the total effect of moving him close up to the Enemy, makes against us in the long run."
Perhaps this is why Paul uses the general but compelling descriptor "good" to describe the fight Timothy is signing up for in 1 Timothy 6:12. This good is synonymous with, "beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious, useful, suitable, commendable, admirable," according to blueletterBible.com, not adjectives we would readily savor concerning a fight.
Warned against materialism and spiritual pride in 1 Timothy 6, distraction is Timothy's fight, as much as it is the struggle of the human patient in The Screwtape Letters and every disciple since. But without training, without framing, I'm not ready to grade the paper of my life or current condition with all those superlatives if I fail to see Christ as superior at first glance, every time.
Intriguing, then, that Paul calls this struggle to look and evaluate a second time the fight of faith. It is Paul, after all, who distinguishes, we walk by faith, and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7.) There is a deliberate, learned, leaping choice involved to question what the eyes see and what the heart craves (Matthew 5:29,) an acquired habit of insisting that there must be more than initially meets the eye. Faith, then, is feisty. Faith, then, expects the good fight.
The attitude toward the second look distinguishes faith from the flesh, and measures the progress of the former. Left to myself, when I sense the first impulse of temptation, I'm already writing the ending chapter. I'm already simultaneously whining that my hunger and thirst for righteousness is not strong enough, and resenting that this, by largely unexamined assumption, comes so much more easily for everyone else. The presence of the fight, in fact the opening bell of the fight, is the flesh's excuse to stay in the corner.
Screwtape may be pleased with this quivering, but the Lord is not. He not only called our fight good through Paul in 1 Timothy 6:12, He fought our fight as good beforehand. Pulled by the desires of the world for ease, engaged in the fight, He chose His fellowship of the moment with a fighter's purpose He avoided the demonstrated pull of distraction in Matthew 16:23 and announced His deliberate focus on Godward fellowship in Luke 22:15. Paul reflects on the theme music of Christ's fight more exhilarating than Rocky when he invigorates struggle in Hebrews 12:2, that for the joy set before Him Christ endured the cross.
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 a sin, which has the total effect of moving him close up to the Enemy, makes against us in the long run."
Perhaps this is why Paul uses the general but compelling descriptor "good" to describe the fight Timothy is signing up for in 1 Timothy 6:12. This good is synonymous with, "beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious, useful, suitable, commendable, admirable," according to blueletterBible.com, not adjectives we would readily savor concerning a fight.
Warned against materialism and spiritual pride in 1 Timothy 6, distraction is Timothy's fight, as much as it is the struggle of the human patient in The Screwtape Letters and every disciple since. But without training, without framing, I'm not ready to grade the paper of my life or current condition with all those superlatives if I fail to see Christ as superior at first glance, every time.
Intriguing, then, that Paul calls this struggle to look and evaluate a second time the fight of faith. It is Paul, after all, who distinguishes, we walk by faith, and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7.) There is a deliberate, learned, leaping choice involved to question what the eyes see and what the heart craves (Matthew 5:29,) an acquired habit of insisting that there must be more than initially meets the eye. Faith, then, is feisty. Faith, then, expects the good fight.
The attitude toward the second look distinguishes faith from the flesh, and measures the progress of the former. Left to myself, when I sense the first impulse of temptation, I'm already writing the ending chapter. I'm already simultaneously whining that my hunger and thirst for righteousness is not strong enough, and resenting that this, by largely unexamined assumption, comes so much more easily for everyone else. The presence of the fight, in fact the opening bell of the fight, is the flesh's excuse to stay in the corner.
Screwtape may be pleased with this quivering, but the Lord is not. He not only called our fight good through Paul in 1 Timothy 6:12, He fought our fight as good beforehand. Pulled by the desires of the world for ease, engaged in the fight, He chose His fellowship of the moment with a fighter's purpose He avoided the demonstrated pull of distraction in Matthew 16:23 and announced His deliberate focus on Godward fellowship in Luke 22:15. Paul reflects on the theme music of Christ's fight more exhilarating than Rocky when he invigorates struggle in Hebrews 12:2, that for the joy set before Him Christ endured the cross.
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