”These [things] be teaching and urging. If any is different-teaching and not agreeing to words being healthy, to the [ones] of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the teaching according to good-worship...”
-Good worship. Good worship. This is the goal of all our instruction. All our much ado about something, about Someone. This is our thing. AKA godliness. Being like God. Holy conduct and godliness (2Peter 3.11). Life and godliness - God’s divine power poured out towards that end. (2Peter 1.3). This word appears more in this letter than anywhere else in all of Scripture. We are to pursue it (1Timothy 6.11), practice it (1Timothy 5.4), train ourselves for it (1Timothy 4.7), embrace the great mystery of it (1Timothy 3.16) - it is to be the wall paper, the background color of our entire life (1Timothy 2.2). The word is eusebia, or eu-sebo, meaning good worship. We call these people pious. Godly. Devout. They are devoted to God, obsessively so, and their devotion determines their demeanor. It colors their conduct, like so much wallpaper. It is the background of how they live and act. But we’re not talking about some gaudy old paisley pattern you’re going to want to strip off at first chance. Not gaudy - but godly. No, this is heavenly designer wallpaper of the finest kind, designed and installed by the Master Designer Himself. That’s right - this One towards Whom we direct our devotion is the One Whom then colors our life with the many shades of Himself.
-Now the key, however, is that this devotion must be in accordance with sound words, words which are healthy. Now, what does that mean? These are the Words of Jesus Christ, Paul says. For starters, we certainly look at the words which Jesus spoke and which His apostles recorded under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The RED ones. And not just those, of course - all the God-breathed words which are contained in His Word. But really all the words which are true as they relate to Jesus. Not some different doctrine, some different teaching about God and Jesus, not some different teaching about what He is like. Such words are not healthy - in fact, they are quite the opposite. Quite unhealthy. Sick. Sick, sick sick. Sick people. Our deep abiding soul sickness is that we change the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1.25). We desperately supress the truth (Romans 1.18), desperate to deny our guilt. We readily jettison the truths about what God has said and what He is like for half-truths and lies and dismissals and denials. So-called worldly wisdom, the platitudes of fools. Worldy fables and old wives' tales (which we looked at in 1Timothy 4.7). No, no - we are to be pursuing a life which is characterized by moral excellence which is grounded in true knowledge (2Peter 1.5), one which shows off what God is truly like because it is based on true understanding of Him and what He is like. Which comes straight from what God has revealed about Himself - in His Word. In the words of Jesus and in the words of Paul and the other apostles and prophets, as collected in the Bible. These teachings we hold to be God’s authoritative revelation about Himself and how He wants us to live. Sound, healthy words. And they make for healthy living. They are in fact God’s prescription for healthy living. They are both the antidote and the immunity-booster. The vaccine and the cure. Timothy is to be taking great pains to be absorbed in teaching these words of health, in urging people to take this immune-boosting, cure-what-ails-ya soul medicine into their hearts and lives. But there are those who are teaching something different...
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