1 Timothy 6:12 – The Good Confession, Reverberated
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 this predicament.
How are you, ask my mother-in-law, unaware that she was queuing a rehearsed drama. Mark! Places! Action! As I recall, I hit the Grim and Resolved new just right. I said I was OK, but that I was looking forward to getting back to work.
Only, she wouldn't play along. She wouldn't match my tone. Why just OK, she asked incredulously as if the sun was still shining. (Wait, it was.) As many times as you have said God has a plan, she insisted, you above everyone else ought to know that God has a plan for THIS. The concentration necessary for method acting was blown by my previous pattern of confession.
Perhaps Paul has something like this in mind to bolster Timothy as 1 Timothy 6:12 concludes. The veteran warrior for the cause of Christ reminds the younger man that the good confession of Christ's efficiency is part of him now, and he reminds Timothy that he has confessed it in the presence of many witnesses. Some have noted the pattern of his confession, as my mother-in-law had noted mine.
Some of them won't be fooled by one intimidating set of circumstances, no matter how convincingly we try to portray that our faith has been shaken. Some of them, like the Greek chorus, will in fact remind us of the faithfulness of Christ about which we had previously reminded others.
It is part of Christ's grace, then, at least as much as part of His rigor, that he calls us to live our faith in Him in community. It is not only in the material things of which Paul directly speaks, then, that we can supply another's lack, and next time he can supply ours in the stasis of 2 Corinthians 8:14.
Emotions, levels of resilience, are at least as variable as bank accounts. Our brother or our sister in Christ can, like His grace, remind us of yesterday's confession, remind us of yesterday's specific intervention on Christ's part. When he or she falters, by that same reciprocating grace, many witnesses will be around to reverberate the reality of Christ's unchanging favor.
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 this predicament.
How are you, ask my mother-in-law, unaware that she was queuing a rehearsed drama. Mark! Places! Action! As I recall, I hit the Grim and Resolved new just right. I said I was OK, but that I was looking forward to getting back to work.
Only, she wouldn't play along. She wouldn't match my tone. Why just OK, she asked incredulously as if the sun was still shining. (Wait, it was.) As many times as you have said God has a plan, she insisted, you above everyone else ought to know that God has a plan for THIS. The concentration necessary for method acting was blown by my previous pattern of confession.
Perhaps Paul has something like this in mind to bolster Timothy as 1 Timothy 6:12 concludes. The veteran warrior for the cause of Christ reminds the younger man that the good confession of Christ's efficiency is part of him now, and he reminds Timothy that he has confessed it in the presence of many witnesses. Some have noted the pattern of his confession, as my mother-in-law had noted mine.
Some of them won't be fooled by one intimidating set of circumstances, no matter how convincingly we try to portray that our faith has been shaken. Some of them, like the Greek chorus, will in fact remind us of the faithfulness of Christ about which we had previously reminded others.
It is part of Christ's grace, then, at least as much as part of His rigor, that he calls us to live our faith in Him in community. It is not only in the material things of which Paul directly speaks, then, that we can supply another's lack, and next time he can supply ours in the stasis of 2 Corinthians 8:14.
Emotions, levels of resilience, are at least as variable as bank accounts. Our brother or our sister in Christ can, like His grace, remind us of yesterday's confession, remind us of yesterday's specific intervention on Christ's part. When he or she falters, by that same reciprocating grace, many witnesses will be around to reverberate the reality of Christ's unchanging favor.
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