The Behaviour of Christ’s Body – 04

Sobriety for All

Older men are the first of six classes of Christians whom Paul instructs Timothy to exhort as to the critical qualities of their character. The need for sobriety emerges as the core discipline upon which their entire Christian testimony is to be built.

When the remaining 5 classes of Christians are subsequently addressed, it becomes apparent that older men are expected to set the example of sobriety so as to establish behaviour which can be confidently emulated by all.

If the Church’s older men fail the sobriety test, it is little wonder to find the entire Body unable to walk a straight line.

Richard Lenski - Christianity lends balance of mind to all its members, old and young, men and women, and fortifies them against all flighty deceivers who would unsettle them. Lenski, R. C. H. (1937). The interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus and to Philemon (p. 912).