Straight Shepherds

desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
(1 Timothy 1:7 – ESV)

Faithful exposition of the Word leads to biblical, true, godly love because it concerns itself and teaches and creates pure hearts, good consciences and sincere faith. Paul told Timothy and God tells us to continue in the Word, and be set free from the folly of fascination with fads (1 Timothy 4:15-16). He says instead that those who stray from the teachings are making a shipwreck of their faith. That is the definition of pastoral concern: keeping people off the rocks, which will leave them shipwrecked. Let's be thankful for all those who are gifted by God to think of the church in this way.

What’s supposed to happen? We are supposed to be being discipled. What is that? It is learning to apply the Gospel to our whole lives. That is our first thing and really the only thing, and if we stray from that, leaving the Gospel behind, we are straying from Christ, as this text teaches. We need shepherds who talk straight, not those who lead us into flights of fancy.

Timothy was to keep proclaiming and promoting the Gospel, so as to keep people from trying to save themselves by straying from the Gospel. He and we are to be warning and guarding and teaching against those who promote the false ways, straying from the Gospel. Oh they don’t start out like that, it starts out as something not so sinister, like trying to find some deeper meaning from the OT law that would give us more power today or please God better than we do now, or something like that. But Paul is telling Timothy, telling us, and I am telling you that it is indeed straying, leading us away from the real security of clinging to Christ and into the false security of clinging to ourselves.

Straying just a little off the path leads to another path altogether. We must stay on the path of the Gospel, where Christ is our righteousness, and we find in Christ our significance, sufficiency, and security, and we must be aware of the danger of straying onto the path of self righteousness, and self sufficiency which leads to self doubt, self condemnation, and ultimately damnation.

The Gospel is what it is all about, and let’s stay with it, let’s teach and learn and find ways to apply to it to every facet of our lives, instead of straying off the path by trying to find some hidden new secret, key, formula, or method of salvation, sanctification, or life enhancement that Paul never instructed Timothy about, and God doesn’t want us making vain discussion about. The Bible declares for the Christian that Jesus Christ has become for us our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:30-31 – ESV). Come to Him today, He is what you need, and all you need. Amen.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©