Thoughts on 1 Timothy 1:6-7

"Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions."

Certain people who, because their aim is not love, have turned away from the truth and turned towards pointless babbling. They wish that they were true teachers of the Gospel but they can’t even comprehend the truth of their babbling much less the Gospel message.

As a people we like pointless babbling. We don’t like to talk about the important issues. We don’t like to even think about God, his purpose for our lives, how we can better carry out His mission, or where we are going when we die. We would much rather talk about issues that have little importance like celebrity gossip or reality television. Don’t think that this is only an issue for non-Christians. This is especially true for Christians. Of the top 10 books in the “Religion & Spirituality” category on Amazon.com #’s 1, 3, 4, 5 , 7, and 10 are fiction, and #’s 2, 7, 8, and 9 are completely non-Christian. That means the only non-fiction, Christian book in the top ten is “The Five Love Languages” and it’s not even about Jesus! The same holds true for our beloved podcasts. Three of the top five podcasts in the “Religion & Spirituality” category are held by Joel Osteen, a self-help expert who claims to be a Christian but who denies the exclusivity of the Gospel (watch here), and Oprah who’s lineup of shows this week have nothing to do with religion or spirituality and who has also denied that Jesus is the only way to heaven (watch here). The proof is in front of us. We like pointless babble. We don’t like the truth but instead we only like to listen to that which makes us feel good about ourselves. Paul wrote Timothy about this in his second letter: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

As Christians we should be focused on completing the mission Jesus gave to us. He sent us on a mission with the specific message of the Gospel. I’ve been watching a lot of the TV show “24” lately. As I’ve been watching I’ve noticed something about Jack Bauer: he is always focused on the mission at hand. He doesn’t allow anything to distract him from the job he has been given to do. I wonder if the Apostle Paul was anything like Jack. In our sermon this morning at Church of the Cross (listen here), Brent talked to us about being on mission with Gospel intentionality. Think about these numbers: There are seven billion people on the earth today. If two people were successful in winning two other people per year with the Gospel message and that number grew exponentially each year, in only thirty-four years every person on earth would be a Christian. We need to keep that in mind as we seek to love people with Jack Bauer like intensity and focus. As Christians we need to stay focused on the mission at hand which is to reach lost people with the Gospel message. We cannot let ourselves be sidetracked by vain discussion and useless arguments. I am as much guilty of this as anyone. We each have a topic we love to debate and even enjoy a good argument with someone about our pet topic or doctrine. But we have to recognize when those discussions start to get us off track and distract us from the mission we have been called to. When we become more concerned about being right than seeing people saved we have wandered too far and would do well to listen to Paul’s exhortation.

I’m afraid that too often my aim is not love. I’m afraid that most of the time my goal is not to see people saved but to show the little knowledge that I posses. Too often I have been distracted by various things and taken my focus off the mission at hand. It is especially important in times like these to focus on the cross. It is because of my sin, which is turning my back on God and turning toward sin, that Jesus came to die. It is because of Jesus’ death on the cross that I can repent of my sin and be forgiven. Repentance means turning my back to sin, in this case allowing myself to let things other than love motivate my actions, and turning again towards God. It means I get my nose in Scripture and allow God’s word to focus my heart and mind on the mission. It means daily prayer asking God to keep me from being distracted from the mission and keep love as the motivating factor behind my actions. And as always it means looking to Jesus and modeling my life and behavior after his.