AP

1 Timothy 6:2b-5    These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing.  They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

How easy it is for us to allow the sort of harmful attitudes Paul is warning Timothy about here to creep into our relationships in Christ.  This, of course, is not surprising because our enemy, Satan, knows the innate sinfulness of our hearts, and he knows which buttons to push to maximise the damage to Christ’s Church and the work of the Gospel!

Whereas a principal source of problems at Ephesus might have been rich, influential people trying to use their inordinate position of power due to their wealth to control the thinking of the fledgling Church, what he is warning against could come about just by ordinary individuals manipulating the internal affairs of the Church in a way that whatever they say goes – much like the situation at Corinth, where they needed to learn that “God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:24b-27).

The attitude that wants to run things its own way, and fails to recognise the importance of letting ears be ears, and eyes eyes, and hands hands. God has included them in the body for the mutually beneficial exercise of their particular Spirit-given gift(s). The failure to follow this is what causes ‘envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people’ to the detriment of the whole body.

Because of the subtlety of Satan’s deception, and because he knows which buttons to push effectively, we need to keep a constant lookout for where we might be speaking authoritatively instead of listening sympathetically, where we might be ‘laying down the law’ instead of laying down a servant heart.  Micah’s wise words are helpful: “He has shown you, O Man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). 

– Bruce Christian