1 Timothy 6:12 – The Good Confession
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 individual. Confession, as Todd Agnew phrased his discovery of why people were drawn to his songs, is the meeting between our story and God's story.
Some iron filings may need to come off, though, before the goodness of our confessions is at its most dangerous to the enemy of our souls. Do we still have battles which tempt us to call our confessions, and our God, less than good? Rather than settling for the abstract idea that He will be good by and by, or He is good overall with some impurities still remaining in the steel of His faithfulness, we can let the Scripture's integrated confession sink into us, ruminate in our minds, and eventually escape our lips.
Rather than settling for an assent to general principles, a working out, eventually, of God's character, we can recall His great work in our lives in particular and play that on a loop as more worthwhile than our doubts or complaints. In Psalm 18:34-35, David rejoices in the present tense where battle is ongoing or imminent, "He teaches my hands to make war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze." David's confession of his past, his connection of his noisy narrative is, "You have also given me the shield of Your salvation. Your right hand has held me up."
This is his good, vocationally and situationally specific confession. What's each of ours? If that answer isn't readily forthcoming in the language of our own hearts, in the imagery of our own jobs and families, CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters says the demons prosper. We already, writes Lewis, tend to see God's doings as separated from us by the ages that separate us from togas. But if we savor our confession in 1 Timothy 6:12 fashion, if we know in advance that fact confession is good even when some of the ingredients that have gone into it have been bitter, we are less distractible by the kind of temptations Paul is warning against in 1 Timothy 6.
My good confession says God already cares about my job. A delay in results or affirmations won't change that. My good confession says I am already the bride of Christ forevermore and that my most intimate earthly relationships were set up to imitate and point to that rather than replace it.
I can, then, do good there because my confession is good, and my God certainly is. The eternity I lay hold of, then, is not a dream to hide in but a certainty of my ultimate fulfillment which can ground me in realistic expectations for anything earthly ministry has to offer. As we, like David in Psalm 18, see God's gentleness make us great, like Him, we can be gentle and encouraging toward those still in the hardships of training we had just passed through.
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 individual. Confession, as Todd Agnew phrased his discovery of why people were drawn to his songs, is the meeting between our story and God's story.
Some iron filings may need to come off, though, before the goodness of our confessions is at its most dangerous to the enemy of our souls. Do we still have battles which tempt us to call our confessions, and our God, less than good? Rather than settling for the abstract idea that He will be good by and by, or He is good overall with some impurities still remaining in the steel of His faithfulness, we can let the Scripture's integrated confession sink into us, ruminate in our minds, and eventually escape our lips.
Rather than settling for an assent to general principles, a working out, eventually, of God's character, we can recall His great work in our lives in particular and play that on a loop as more worthwhile than our doubts or complaints. In Psalm 18:34-35, David rejoices in the present tense where battle is ongoing or imminent, "He teaches my hands to make war so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze." David's confession of his past, his connection of his noisy narrative is, "You have also given me the shield of Your salvation. Your right hand has held me up."
This is his good, vocationally and situationally specific confession. What's each of ours? If that answer isn't readily forthcoming in the language of our own hearts, in the imagery of our own jobs and families, CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters says the demons prosper. We already, writes Lewis, tend to see God's doings as separated from us by the ages that separate us from togas. But if we savor our confession in 1 Timothy 6:12 fashion, if we know in advance that fact confession is good even when some of the ingredients that have gone into it have been bitter, we are less distractible by the kind of temptations Paul is warning against in 1 Timothy 6.
My good confession says God already cares about my job. A delay in results or affirmations won't change that. My good confession says I am already the bride of Christ forevermore and that my most intimate earthly relationships were set up to imitate and point to that rather than replace it.
I can, then, do good there because my confession is good, and my God certainly is. The eternity I lay hold of, then, is not a dream to hide in but a certainty of my ultimate fulfillment which can ground me in realistic expectations for anything earthly ministry has to offer. As we, like David in Psalm 18, see God's gentleness make us great, like Him, we can be gentle and encouraging toward those still in the hardships of training we had just passed through.
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