Day 343, or December the 9th. Tell me the old,
old story. Our thoughts today are rooted in 1
Timothy chapter 6, verse 20. Timothy, guard what
has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from
godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what
is falsely called knowledge. Now the big picture
surrounding this verse. Paul warns Timothy about
specific false teaching that is invading the
church, and encourages the young pastor to remain
true to what he has been taught according to
the Scriptures. Whenever a new idea raises its
head, there is always a crowd of folk who will
tell you how you can improve it. It's happened
to me many times since introducing the ministry
of Walk Through the Bible into the UK in 1984.
and as following Christ was a new and novel idea
in the days of Timothy and Paul there would undoubtedly
have been many who wanted to tweak it to conform
to their own particular ideas. Paul warns Timothy
all these are false teachers we need to stick
to the truth based on the Bible i e the Old Testament
as the New Testament was still being written
and formulated in his letter. Paul gives considerable
detail about choosing future leaders and how
important it is for them to recognize their godly
gifts in order to lead the church in the truth.
And now today's action step. If ever a verse
was written for the 21st century, surely our
verse for today could be it. We have become so
smart and have such sophisticated technology
that some have thrown out the truths of the gospel
simply because they are ancient and contain parts
that are hard to understand and therefore are
obviously out of date and irrelevant, or so it
is claimed. There are new ideas now, and new
is always better than old, but we know that's
not true. We have nothing to fear from new ideas.
We are followers of the truth, so why would we
be afraid? It's simple, really. If an idea agrees
with Scripture, then accept it. If it contradicts
it, discard it. It may sound too easy, but it
has to be simple, so that all can understand
it, just like the Gospel.