"The lawless and disobedient"

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE CONSCIENCE: 1 Timothy 1:9-10 (part 2)

The Apostle writes to his protege that the design of the law, and therefore we infer God's intention for the law, did not have its first or main reference to those who do right and live according to God's revealed will, i.e., the "just". For whom is it, then?

The Lawless. These are those persons who recognize no authority beyond themselves, a malady of soul which manifests itself with many symptoms. For some, it is the continual questioning of the authenticity, relevance, or applicability of the law as revealed in the word of God. Questions are good, and skepticism to what one is told or taught is a useful tool. But beyond a certain point, honest seeking becomes dishonest obstructionism, an unwillingness to bow the will. A seemingly relatively inert comment such as, "I have my own religion" or the so-common-as-to-be-almost-trite "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere" may be symptoms of this disease.

Great evils, like great achievements, start from tiny seeds which take root in the soul. When someone asks, "How can there be such great wrong in God's world?" it is unnecessary to look any farther than the unwillingness to honor God as God by recognizing and submitting to God's will. "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." A Biblical exemplar of lawlessness is Pharaoh, whose "foxhole faith" under fire from the ten plagues is the contrast note to a background of practical atheism where the God of Israel is concerned. The first result is lawlessness. The second result is death for the Egyptians, but freedom for God's chosen people Israel.

The Disobedient. These are those who know perfectly well that God is real and just and that the law of God is valid, but do what they want to do, anyway.

The offense may appear small. While acknowledging it is wrong to steal, someone pads his expense report, fails to disclose a bit of income on her tax return, trims the time on the clock at work, pirates the occasional movie or software. Recognizing that there should be no other "gods" in our hearts ahead of the one true Lord God, one fails to spend time acknowledging that God in prayer and praise and Bible study, neglects worship, and allows the Name or the sabbath to be violated without concern or comment. ("After all, God will always be there. This opportunity won't be ....") The commandments, a framework for our lives, number ten. The ways in which we violate them are nearly endless. Perhaps all the while, professing faith in and love of God.

Every human being falls into one of these categories at times, perhaps often. Rare is the disciple who readily and determinedly faces her or his own transgression honestly, and doggedly seeks to root it out, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Instead, self-justification flows from a happening to a habit, to a hobby, to a habitual way of life. The Biblical definition of a saint is one who, conscious of this trend and the gravitational force of wickedness, overcomes shame and sloth to stand desperately bare in the blinding light of God's holiness, to be embraced in the warmth of God's gracious love, no matter what the cost.


"King of sinners though I be, Jesus shed His blood for me." Lord, the lawless man and the disobedient child both reside in my spirit. Often, they are me and I am they. Forgive me, O God. Teach me to invite you into the remotest parts of my life, and the secret places of my soul. Prompted by your Holy Spirit, let me not stand for any rebellion against you in my life. And let me be alert to -- lovingly -- help to alert for and remove it in others, as you direct. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"Certain persons"

BLIND GUIDES: 1 Timothy 1:6-7

Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

The Apostle has just stipulated the three "legs" on which the "stool" of the charge of love rests: a "pure heart", a "good conscience", and "sincere faith". Now he addresses the problem of those who have abandoned these legs, seeking to rest the basis of ministry (the "stool") on other things, namely discussion and opinion.

Dialogue is good, and in the Wesleyan tradition we regard Christian conferencing as a "means of grace". But unless grounded in the word of God and the life of the Spirit, discussion and debate, even with the best of intentions, drifts into mere sentimentality or worse, rationalization in which we reinforce one another's errors.

James warns us that we need to be careful about being teachers, because we will be judged with greater severity. This passage goes a step farther, and warns not only about the behavior of teachers, but the content of their teaching as well.

Humility is in order here. So is continuing grounding in the word in Scripture, and attention to one's faith and life. Quality, sound teaching relies on all of the above.


Lord, safeguard my life and my teaching. Let me not run ahead of where You lead and guide, nor make things up where You have not given light. If you would have me be a teacher and guide of others, let me be a sound one, filled with faith, keeping good conscience, single in heart, and above all aglow with Your love, reflecting it to others. Amen.


Fulton, Maryland

"The aim of our charge"

LOVE'S THREE SUPPORTS: 1 Timothy 1:5

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

"The ends justify the means." Though most folks would probably deny, when put so baldly, that this is their life's operative philosophy, it certainly appears to be an underlying principle for much of our culture. What Paul tells us is that ends and means are tied together, that one proceeds from the other and cannot be separated so cleanly as the world tells us.

Love is the end, the aim, the goal: love of God, both expressed and experienced, lived out in sacrificial service at the same time it is received as a free gift. Love of neighbor, both in word and in deed -- in the specifics of day-to-day life as we live it in the microcosm each of us calls "my life", and in the great questions of the day and their reach all around the world, addressing the great issues of justice (e.g., human need such as adequate food and water) and stewardship (e.g., the environment) and mercy (e.g., care for the unborn and elderly).

The aim of the Gospel is love.

This love rests on three great supports, like the porch of a temple on three great columns:

A pure heart. The heart that is single in its devotion to God, tolerating nothing that gets in the way: "Nothing between myself and my Savior". A life devoted to the Great Commandment of love of God with the whole being and neighbor as self.

A good conscience. A life which keeps short accounts. None of us is flawless, and none of us is sinless. But the Bible says that we can be blameless, washed in the blood of the Lamb of God received through repentance and confession and faith (trust) in His word and work. The "good conscience" lives out of that repentance with integrity (a life in which conviction and action align) and when it fails or falls short, trusts, repents, and acts again to realign it.

A sincere faith. How can faith be "insincere"? By playacting, the root meaning of "hypocrisy". It has been said that hypocrisy used to be the compliment that vice paid to virtue, but these days it's the charge which vice hurls at virtue. But whether it's an act or an accusation, this "external" view of hypocrisy misses an important point: that "internally" it's an illness, an ailment, which needs to be diagnosed by the laser-like light of the Holy Spirit, and healed by Christ our Great Physician. Left untreated, it is like a spiritual cancer which breeds and spreads and consumes all of life, leaving fruitlessness and cynicism and confusion and dispiritedness in its wake. It needs to be excised and replaced by sincere faith, which by definition relies not on the self ("my" holiness) but on Christ (grace).

Lord, let love -- love of you, and of neighbor, pure and true and unfeigned -- be the great aim of my life. Purify my heart; strengthen my conscience; actualize my faith ... and these not for my ends, but that I might better love and serve You and reflect Your great love in the lives of others. For Christ's own dear sake, amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland