Spiritual Ponderings

Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness . Fight the good fight of faith ; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things , and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time. (1 Timothy 6:11-15) In part one I explored the meaning of the word confession along with various ways in which it is understood. I also reviewed problems with believing that God's kingdom can involve fighting using force and violence when necessary. I used the term bad fighting to contrast it with what Paul refers to as good fighting which is what I want to examine more fully here in part two. Paul in this instruction to Timothy men...

When I fail to honor and value a person from whom I hope to receive fulfillment, I am actually debilitating my own ability to feel valuable and fulfilled. Thus I set myself up for my own destruction as my ability for pleasure diminishes even while my thirst for it increases. There are many examples of this that could be explored. But the end of this path is the experience of hell itself where one is overwhelmed with intense desire for satisfaction only to find that they have themselves destroyed their own ability to experience it. This process of self-destruction happens over time during which selfishness and exploitation of others erodes the heart, diminishes capacity for love and hardens the soul. This hardening of the heart leads toward this tragic condition that becomes the reality all find themselves in who choose the good-bad Tree of Knowledge over the Tree of Life. Exploitation is the very process by which one destroys the very design built into them by ...

Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness . Fight the good fight of faith ; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time. (1 Timothy 6:11-15) As we were traveling yesterday in the car my wife was meditating on the book of first Timothy and began dialoging with me about what she was finding there. As we talked and mused over the possible meaning and implications of what Paul wrote about to Timothy, suddenly new light began to break through into our thinking. First let me take time to unpack some of the words and phrases in this passage. I will start with the w...