1 Timothy 6:20 – Desecration by Distraction
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings…
Tim Hughes in "Justice of God" entreats, "Keep us from just singing!"
Paul would no doubt double down on that prayer, asking the Lord to keep himself, to keep Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:20, and to keep those who will read it from just speaking.
At least when we sing we meditate to some degree, we rehearse a little bit. Speech, however, comes almost as naturally as breathing. As disciplined as James is and commands the readers of his epistle to be, even he admits we can't tame the human tongue. It will speak, and it will speak amiss.
The phenomenon of depravity demonstrated by speech is worse than we thought. We can grow accustomed to the idea that we will give account to the Lord for every word and train circumspection to the point of glumness that we might not say anything specifically blasphemous or specifically destructive toward our neighbor, but this isn't enough. Echoing Christ's warning that we will give account for every IDLE word, Paul comes behind with pruning shears for our speech. He would lop off those meandering phrases which don't specifically point to our dependence on Christ.
CS Lewis helps us, should we see this as austere. As a writer, he expresses that he must help keep the reader focused by eliminating side trails that might distract him or her. Just so, Paul recognizes that when Timothy engages, as Casey Stengel will later, in nervous speech to fill space, he distracts from the central point of his own narrative.
We are so susceptible, Paul knows, to the mellifluous tones of our own voice, it at once overflows from the state of our heart and actually reinforces and leads our heart. If Timothy starts just chatting with the boys in order to build rapport, this leads to profanity not in the sense of a handful of prohibited words but in the sense that he will lose sight of the holy purpose of the moment for which he was redeemed. In many words, Proverbs says well beforehand, sin is not lacking.
We would, then, know what message discipline is, and maintain it. Even reoriented to the spiritual purpose of our words empowered according to Jesus to move mountains, we would first talk to God about men well before we talk to men about God. Whenever we prioritized speech or silence accordingly, this is His grace in action, for so much of our speech is habit. We would have Him reorient our hearts and our subsequent words, or if He would do so, reorient our hearts BY our subsequent words. The words and the silences were bought by Him.
Tim Hughes in "Justice of God" entreats, "Keep us from just singing!"
Paul would no doubt double down on that prayer, asking the Lord to keep himself, to keep Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:20, and to keep those who will read it from just speaking.
At least when we sing we meditate to some degree, we rehearse a little bit. Speech, however, comes almost as naturally as breathing. As disciplined as James is and commands the readers of his epistle to be, even he admits we can't tame the human tongue. It will speak, and it will speak amiss.
The phenomenon of depravity demonstrated by speech is worse than we thought. We can grow accustomed to the idea that we will give account to the Lord for every word and train circumspection to the point of glumness that we might not say anything specifically blasphemous or specifically destructive toward our neighbor, but this isn't enough. Echoing Christ's warning that we will give account for every IDLE word, Paul comes behind with pruning shears for our speech. He would lop off those meandering phrases which don't specifically point to our dependence on Christ.
CS Lewis helps us, should we see this as austere. As a writer, he expresses that he must help keep the reader focused by eliminating side trails that might distract him or her. Just so, Paul recognizes that when Timothy engages, as Casey Stengel will later, in nervous speech to fill space, he distracts from the central point of his own narrative.
We are so susceptible, Paul knows, to the mellifluous tones of our own voice, it at once overflows from the state of our heart and actually reinforces and leads our heart. If Timothy starts just chatting with the boys in order to build rapport, this leads to profanity not in the sense of a handful of prohibited words but in the sense that he will lose sight of the holy purpose of the moment for which he was redeemed. In many words, Proverbs says well beforehand, sin is not lacking.
We would, then, know what message discipline is, and maintain it. Even reoriented to the spiritual purpose of our words empowered according to Jesus to move mountains, we would first talk to God about men well before we talk to men about God. Whenever we prioritized speech or silence accordingly, this is His grace in action, for so much of our speech is habit. We would have Him reorient our hearts and our subsequent words, or if He would do so, reorient our hearts BY our subsequent words. The words and the silences were bought by Him.
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