1 Timothy 6:20 – Words' Dangerous Drift
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— 21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.
A reality TV producer of the short-lived but excellent Aaron Sorkin drama Studio 60 defends his quest for eyeballs and attention. "Rumor will work as well as truth," he posits.
Perhaps surprisingly, the apostle Paul would agree. It is the abrupt closing note to his first letter to Timothy including in the biblical canon, he points to what Hebrews will call the shipwreck of faith which can be wrought by, "just talking."
The dynamics, he says of being a conduit for the day's conventional wisdom, the effort to stated just a little more smartly, to adroitly have one foot in God's Word, and one foot in the wisdom of the world, has caused many to leave themselves away from the simple but profound Gospel they want said they believed. In this, the reality TV producer is right. Rumor will work as well as truth.
So many thoughts path into our eyes and our minds unfiltered. The Scriptural ideal is given to us by the Jewish congregation in Berea whose two-sided response to Paul's message is laid out in Acts 17:11. They received with eagerness, Luke says. Then they followed behind that enthusiastic initial response with disciplined examination to see if the teaching they were first excited about lined up with what they already knew to be God's Word.
Our trouble with applying Berean equipoise is at least twofold. First, we tend to apply different levels of discernment once the Bible is closed and the official sermon or devotional time on our schedule has lapsed. We dare not, for Paul's emphatic closing point to Timothy and to us is that there is ALWAYS a gospel tugging at our hearts. Do the math, and we will be pleading for God's keeping grace.
Even if we spend an hour under solid biblical teaching on Sunday and on Wednesday, even if we are feeding ourselves from God's Word steadily during the week, we are spending many multiples more time being offered discipleship from other influences. More concerning than the lopsided tally of time on each side is the reality that we are less actively aware of when we are being discipled by the world.
The second aspect of the war for our hearts and minds is even more concerning than the first. I can veer a little off course between times in God's Word. I lapse in my comparison of my actual course as compared to the accurate charts of the Bible. I can do this, and yet by God's grace stay generally on course. The real danger is not the winds from without that may push my boat. Any decent veteran sailor expects to adjust for those. The real danger is when I spend time putting an ever larger hole in my own ship.
By professing it, Paul says, by internalizing and speaking the wisdom of the age, those who would lead and impress others drift from the faith. Nobody's voice is as persuasive to me as my own. Nobody knows the idiom of my heart like I do. Nobody can excuse the differences between my perspective and practice and that of which the Bible continues to convict me like I can. Just as, in one direction, out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks, the same cycles back and begins to convince me because I have spoken it.
We need, Christian, other voices in our lives besides our own, and not just those from the pulpit or the stage once a week. We need those who will sift through what we say and help to discern the heart from which it flows. We need those who have known us long enough to have gotten past our efforts to impress them.
We need those who know the areas of our lives in which we are shining examples, and the areas in which we are closest to a shipwreck. We need Pauls who will spend their last line telling us that we are not immune to the enemy's intentions. We need those who will tell us when we are starting to believe our own press and be convinced by the face we are presenting to the world, or the church.
Even where we are part of mass consumption that may not as directly and intimately speak into our lives, we need a balance from different spiritual and intellectual food groups. One flock with which we are commanded to assemble ourselves and do well to do so is going to be susceptible to many of the same vulnerabilities. Being taught by other pastors, especially from other ages, can be our multivitamin helping to bolster in areas where our regular diet might not be sufficient.
A reality TV producer of the short-lived but excellent Aaron Sorkin drama Studio 60 defends his quest for eyeballs and attention. "Rumor will work as well as truth," he posits.
Perhaps surprisingly, the apostle Paul would agree. It is the abrupt closing note to his first letter to Timothy including in the biblical canon, he points to what Hebrews will call the shipwreck of faith which can be wrought by, "just talking."
The dynamics, he says of being a conduit for the day's conventional wisdom, the effort to stated just a little more smartly, to adroitly have one foot in God's Word, and one foot in the wisdom of the world, has caused many to leave themselves away from the simple but profound Gospel they want said they believed. In this, the reality TV producer is right. Rumor will work as well as truth.
So many thoughts path into our eyes and our minds unfiltered. The Scriptural ideal is given to us by the Jewish congregation in Berea whose two-sided response to Paul's message is laid out in Acts 17:11. They received with eagerness, Luke says. Then they followed behind that enthusiastic initial response with disciplined examination to see if the teaching they were first excited about lined up with what they already knew to be God's Word.
Our trouble with applying Berean equipoise is at least twofold. First, we tend to apply different levels of discernment once the Bible is closed and the official sermon or devotional time on our schedule has lapsed. We dare not, for Paul's emphatic closing point to Timothy and to us is that there is ALWAYS a gospel tugging at our hearts. Do the math, and we will be pleading for God's keeping grace.
Even if we spend an hour under solid biblical teaching on Sunday and on Wednesday, even if we are feeding ourselves from God's Word steadily during the week, we are spending many multiples more time being offered discipleship from other influences. More concerning than the lopsided tally of time on each side is the reality that we are less actively aware of when we are being discipled by the world.
The second aspect of the war for our hearts and minds is even more concerning than the first. I can veer a little off course between times in God's Word. I lapse in my comparison of my actual course as compared to the accurate charts of the Bible. I can do this, and yet by God's grace stay generally on course. The real danger is not the winds from without that may push my boat. Any decent veteran sailor expects to adjust for those. The real danger is when I spend time putting an ever larger hole in my own ship.
By professing it, Paul says, by internalizing and speaking the wisdom of the age, those who would lead and impress others drift from the faith. Nobody's voice is as persuasive to me as my own. Nobody knows the idiom of my heart like I do. Nobody can excuse the differences between my perspective and practice and that of which the Bible continues to convict me like I can. Just as, in one direction, out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks, the same cycles back and begins to convince me because I have spoken it.
We need, Christian, other voices in our lives besides our own, and not just those from the pulpit or the stage once a week. We need those who will sift through what we say and help to discern the heart from which it flows. We need those who have known us long enough to have gotten past our efforts to impress them.
We need those who know the areas of our lives in which we are shining examples, and the areas in which we are closest to a shipwreck. We need Pauls who will spend their last line telling us that we are not immune to the enemy's intentions. We need those who will tell us when we are starting to believe our own press and be convinced by the face we are presenting to the world, or the church.
Even where we are part of mass consumption that may not as directly and intimately speak into our lives, we need a balance from different spiritual and intellectual food groups. One flock with which we are commanded to assemble ourselves and do well to do so is going to be susceptible to many of the same vulnerabilities. Being taught by other pastors, especially from other ages, can be our multivitamin helping to bolster in areas where our regular diet might not be sufficient.
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