Devotions with Jonathan

1 Timothy 5:22

Though you may wonder why I skip straight from chapter four to the end of chapter five, the reason is quite a simple one. Most of chapter five is with regards to widows, women who are not eligible to be widows, and what families and the church should do in terms of taking care of widows. There is also some verses in there about elders and accusations against them. Not that I'm saying such verses are useless, but the point of these times of devotion have always been self-reflection, and the only verses I could find use to apply in my life in the present time was 5:1-2. Good advice for anyone our age... though it's interesting that Paul says nothing about how we should treat our equals in this particular passage. I guess it was besides the point... and it's not like he doesn't say in Philippians to consider other's better than ourselves in humility. (Philippians 2:3)

The references for today's devo:
1 Timothy 5:22-6:2 (ESV) 1 Timothy 5:22-6:2 (NIV) 1 Timothy 5:22-6:2 (KJV)

Lots of scattered advice in this passage, much like chapter four. I'm sure that verse 22 can (and probably has been) interpreted in a variety of different ways, and I'm going to be honest and say that I don't have a clue what Paul means when he says laying on of hands. My commentary suggests that what is meant is the ordination of elders (uses 1 Timothy 4:14 as reference, as well as 2 Timothy 1:6) and it makes some sort of sense.

But what my commentary goes on to say is even more important. It comments further on the part of the verse that says "do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure" by saying that Paul was advising Timothy to be careful with the "hasty ordination of elders" as such people would be partially to blame for the problems they end up causing in the church, but lays this forth only as a potential explanation. It says, more poignantly, and I quote "Whichever is the case, Timothy was to keep himself free from sin. One cannot deal with sin in another if one's own life is not pure (hagnon)." This is an incredible reminder of Jesus's criticism of the Pharisees in Matthew 7:3 or Luke 6:41, when he tells them why they seek to take the dustspeck out of their brother's eye when they fail to see the plank in their own, and an even greater reminder of my own extremely mean-spirited nature, attempting to nitpick at other's every fault (or badmouthing them behind their back because of said faults, real or not), without having the discipline to take action on my own. And yet, when can one truly say that they are pure? Purity is something unattainable to us as humans, it is impossible for us to be pure.

And that's where the amazing grace of God comes in. For what is impossible for man, is possible for God (paraphrase of Matthew 19:26/Mark 10:27). And only by his Spirit can we ever think of being clean or pure enough to have any shred of righteousness in order to even consider pointing out a flaw in someone else. Otherwise, it's just finger pointing and nasty mud-slinging.

(I'm amazed at how long I went on about that one verse. The amazing depth of Scripture. This one verse has served to remind me more of more things than I realized I needed to consider. And now, seeing as how Archie has reminded me of the massive amounts of people that could stumble onto this blog, I won't go into particulars about what those memories are. If you know me well enough, email me, and I'll let you know so you can pray about it. The only thing that I will add on to that is that Caedmon's Call's "You Created" is an absolutely amazing song. Consider the chorus. Here are the lyrics. Scroll down past all those search hits. Thanks to Josh Robinson for giving me the much needed info so I could search it on the internet.)

-also as an addendum: That one verse gave me enough to think about. I had some observations to make about those verses in chapter 6, but they can wait, I think I need to meditate on this for a while.

posted by Jonathan P @ 7:58 PM