Becoming an Authentic Witness
What must I do to become a positive influence? Love the Lord, serve Him with all my heart, accept others, and trust Him to do justice. My responsibility? Pour into those around me. Live out the faith in my heart.
What must I do to become a positive influence? Love the Lord, serve Him with all my heart, accept others, and trust Him to do justice. My responsibility? Pour into those around me. Live out the faith in my heart.
God doesn’t always spell things out in such stark “thou shalt” terms. When we get to the epistle of 1 Timothy, however, we discover virtually a whole chapter devoted to a black-and-white list requiring little interpretation but a lot of application. In 1 Timothy 3:1-7 Paul puts his finger on the essential qualities God is looking for in pastors and elders. Qualities applicable for church leaders in the 21st century as they were in the first century.
The role of women in the church is a hot issue, best handled with sensitivity and compassion—and maybe a pair of asbestos gloves! This is not because Scripture is controversial but because the role of women in the culture is different from what Scripture teaches about the role of women in the church. So, questions rise like steam from a boiling kettle.
What does God want most from us?” the words I hope to hear are, “He wants us to love Him.” That’s the point. Morality is not the point.
In the workaday world of daily life, it’s simple to overlook the significance of the Gospel. Paul, of course, never did, and in this section of 1 Timothy—in one of the most practical and clearest presentations of the Gospel in the New Testament—he challenges us to open our eyes and our hearts, once again, to its wonder.
We all wrestle with doing things in order of importance. One of the reasons for this struggle is that we often don’t know what deserves our immediate attention. For ministry our first priority is clear: prayer.
Though second-generation fallout is both ancient and common today…it can be minimized and we parents will have grown spiritually through that process. New and healthy habits can be formed.
In this brief vignette, we read of Paul—called Saul—before his conversion to Christ. Saul was “a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor” who, by his own admission, “acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13). Ironically, Saul was a religious zealot, an intense rabbi, sincere to the core…but sincerely wrong. And so? Mercy in the form of Jesus Christ came to the rescue!
This study offers insight on the biblical theology of ministry—as opposed to an approach to ministry based on experience, opinion, prejudice, culture, and preference. Let’s keep a keen eye on what is written in God’s Word and then do our best to let it shape our thinking.
The command of our Lord is clear. Faith begins and continues with a simple plan—stalk Jesus. The plan is simple but the execution of it isn't. You and I both admit that following Jesus is layered with struggles and questions.