How to do you!

It’s just a number

1 Timothy 4:12 CSB

Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

Paul starts out telling Timothy that being younger than some of the people he is having to teach but it’s a bit more than Paul telling this to timothy. Vs 11 starts a new paraharpah and new thought. Looking at vs 12 throuhg the lens of vs 11 gives us a bit of a different perspective.

1 Timothy 4:11 CSB

Command and teach these things.

There is an assumption that vs 11 is talking about the earlier verses. However there is an ambigiutiy to those five words. As well a realization that there were things that Timothy needed to live and to teach through the way he lived.

I’ve never understood age is just a number until I got to the point when birthday’s didn’t matter any more.

Just like when you first get married and you are a newly wed and for a long time that’s what you are ther’es no real deliniation for when that stops happening it just does..

But when it comes to some parts of our faith age is just a number. Paul is telling Timothy that there is a way to show his character and it has nothing to do with the lenght of his beard or it’s collor, or the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes.

First things first

Lets read the second part of vs 12 again

1 Timothy 4:12 CSB

Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

There is a foundation that needs to be set down before you start what’s happening in vs 13. Which we will get too

What we learn here is that what we do is more important than what we say…or perhaps a better way to say it is…what we say matters but only if it’s backed up by what we do.

Set an example is an action plan. Do this and the way you set that is with what you say…but also what your conduct how much you love how faithful you are to Christ and Your calling and those around you…and in purity.

expound on

speech

what we say matters and how we say it matters.

conduct

what we do reinforces what we say

have you ever heard do as I say not as I do…the reason that doesn’t work is because of the hypocricy inherent in the statement (expound)

love

You’ve heard the phrase love wins (expound on why this is true)

faith

SHowing that our faith is ours not somoene elses, faith in Jesus, faith in our calling, faith in the peopel he has placed in our lives

purity

I’ll be honest, this one is one of those words that threw me a bit. The obvious thought here is castity of course but there had to be more to it so I dug down.

and what we find is someting more than just the idea of sexual purity there is more to it than that.

it also holds in it’s meaning the idea of honorable public conduct, abundance of honesty, to be without moral defect. Suddenly things become more clear then

All of these things speak to what we do as a follower of Christ. and what we do had better line up with the words we speak because people who know we claim to be followers of Christ are watching and contrary to what you may think or have heard many of them want us to be exaclty who we say we are.

And then what happens

1 Timothy 4:13 CSB

Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching.

There’s a reason this comes after Paul tells TImothy how he’s supposed to live and act. Once all those things line up then it’s time to do the things that it takes to grow the faith of those in the church that he is around.

(expound on each of these things talk about how we so many times want to jump ahead of the game)

The importance of self care

1 Timothy 4:14 CSB

Don’t neglect the gift that is in you; it was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.

Paul is reminding timothy of something here that we all need to sometimes be reminded of.

The origin of our gifting and calling and that fact that it has to be maintained it’s not a one and done issue.

This Weeks Challenge

Take time this week to take stock of what you’re saying and what you’re doing, are they marked by what we talked about. Now take some time at the end of the week to do some self care for the gift and calling and faith you have. Go to your happy place and let God speak into your heart and life.