”I am thoroughly witnessing in the face of God and Jesus Christ and the assembly of angels, in order that these you should guard without bias, doing nothing according to partiality.”
-Timothy. O Timothy. Timid Timothy. You need to man up and be ready and determined to guard these things. Guard the truth. Guard the church. Guard it from false teaching. Guard it from reproach - make sure the widows and families and the elders and deacons live lives which beautify the name of our God and Savior. And guard it from sinning leaders - show no partiality in this regard whatsoever. The word means to lean against something, or to lean towards one party or another. In this case, it would look like Timothy leaning towards letting one of his favorite leaders continue in their role while they continue unrepentant in some kind of ongoing sin. But you need to stay centered and focused on this, Jack. You must not lean to even the slightest degree away from keeping the church and its doctrine and its people clean! And that includes its leaders.
-And I am super serious about this, Paul says. I cannot put it strongly enough. So I am going to put it as strongly as I am able. In fact, I am bringing God AND Jesus AND all the angels on this one. They are my witnesses, Paul says. Timothy, you need to take this seriously, and be ready and willing to wade into the mess of people’s junk - which even encroaches on the church. There are no perfect people this side of heaven. We all have junk, and we all bring it with us into God’s family. Yes, He is engaged in a massive renovation project on each and every one of us, but He is far from finished. Renovations take time. They can be messy. Some junk takes a lot longer to clean out. And some drifts in from the outside as well. But you cannot, must not, show any bias or partiality whatsoever. Not leaning in the slightest even towards your favorite and most trusted leaders. If any one of them gets into some kind of ongoing sin, they need to be confronted, and rebuked, for their own sakes as well as for the sake of the church and the Lord. But wait - before you do that - next verse...
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