October 29, 2024
Passage Read: 1 Timothy 3-4
Meditation Verse: 3:6
Thought
One of the greatest enemies of faith is pride. To encourage someone in such a way that promotes their own pride, that causes them to inflate their own view of themselves, is not the act of a loving leader. What each person needs is to grow in humility. As much as possible, only those who have developed a healthy humility should be put in positions of responsibility in the church (and anywhere else). So Paul warns against putting a new convert in a position of authority, even if he is an older man with years of experience. If he is a new convert, then he is not sufficiently grounded in the Lord or in His ways, so he'll depend more on his worldly experience to guide and direct and teach the believers, and end up introducing false ideas, grow in confidence and become unteachable. And the last state of the man will be worse than the first.
Application
Sadly, in the church today it is hard to find spiritually mature men even among those who have believed a long time. It is easy to find those who have strong opinions, who are convinced of their beliefs, who are dogmatic, who have strong personalities, but it is not easy to find those who have an attitude of continual learning, of reverence for the Word of God, who diligently read and seek to conform their lives ever more closely to its teachings. The humble and contrite are hard to find because those are not qualities that are praised either in the church or in the world. Not that they are pushovers or unstable, but that they are meek: They know the truth, but understand they may yet need to learn more; they are confident in what the Word teaches, but understand they may not have a full grasp on all it means. They understand that the Word of God is trustworthy and true and carefully teach what it says, and they are continually seeking to walk more perfectly by it. This is a good warning to anyone, not just those who seek leadership in the church. I need to be careful not to become conceited, no matter how much or how well I think I understand the Word of God, I need to continually be learning from it.