1 Timothy 4:6-16 “If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Pastor Kyle preached this last Sunday on the overarching message that our biblical doctrine of the Christian needs to match the model of our lives. Talking the walk and walking the talk need to be one and the same. How do we continually line up our lives with the words of Holy Scripture and the biblical doctrine in which we hold as absolute truth. Pastor gave us five ways of what it looks like to continually align our thoughts, words and actions. (1) Continually train for godliness by studying the Word of God and Theology. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, the Apostle Paul explains that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Good study and learning is good training in the words of faith with good doctrine which creates good serving of the Lord and your fellow man in good discipleship of the Good News. The good words of Faith are the Holy Scriptures of the Bible; study them, know them, become familiar with them and make it a part of your everyday life. Good doctrine is “Theology”, the study of God (Theos). Theology looks at what the whole Bible teaches as the Word of God for interpretation, thought and life application. We have to continually train ourselves by studying in the good Word and in sound doctrine. God tells us in Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We are “finite”, but God is “infinite”.
Our minds understand only what is revealed to us by the Lord. We do not know the Bible enough. No matter how well you think that you know the Bible or how long you have been walking with Jesus, I guarantee you that you do not know the living Word of God well enough to say that you’ve arrived. On top of that, we live in a biblically illiterate culture. Survey and statistics show the decline of biblical knowledge for a number of reasons; mainly secular humanistic teaching. In Christians, one reason being that biblical knowledge has been replaced by electronic search engines today. If we don’t sharpen our figurative ax of the Word of God daily, then it quickly becomes dull in our mind. We are all for Christian life application of Scripture and hope that each Christian has helpful biblical resources in their home to study, but we also need to study good Theology to make sure that the sword of biblical truth is sharp in our minds; training ourselves in the good words of the faith and in good sound doctrine.
Let's continue Pastor Kyle's message on having the "right" faith in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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