But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
3 sermons cite this verse
forever. Amen. Let's pause in a moment of prayer. Make the book live to me, O Lord. Show me yourself within your Word. Show me myself, and show me my Savior, and make the book live to me. For Jesus' sake, amen. Do not be like them. That was Jesus' statement to his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount when he encouraged them to be radically different from those who were their pagan neighbors. These individuals were concerned about all kinds of things on a very natural level, and Jesus said to his disciples, If you're going to follow me, and if you're going to declare your trust in me, then do not be like them. Now, that simple phrase could so easily have been taken up and employed by Paul as he comes to this particular point in his exhortation of Timothy. Because he has been pointing out to Timothy and to Timothy's readers the fact that the false teachers who had made such an impact in the community in which Timothy was ministering, were themselves involved in fruitless squabbles. They were greedy, double-talking, troublemakers. And it was imperative that if Timothy's ministry was going to have the kind of impact that God intended, then Timothy mustn't be like these folks—individuals who, by their very lifestyle, had indicated the fact that they saw ministry and godliness as a means to financial gain. And between verse 3 and verse 10 of chapter 6, although not for the first time, Paul is pointing out the vices of these individuals. …
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Father, I pray that you might take my words and speak through them, that you will take our minds and help us to think through them, and that you will take our hearts and set them on fire with love for the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. The directive of Paul can be seen in these two verses by focusing on the imperatives, the verbs which he uses to call Timothy to a particular life of action. We do well to remind ourselves, incidentally, as we move towards the close of our studies, that Paul gives the context of his writing in the fifteenth verse of chapter 3, where he talks about how people should conduct themselves in the house of God. And in Philip's paraphrase of those verses, we have these words, At the moment of writing, I hope to be with you soon, but if there should be any considerable delay, then what I have written will show you the sort of character men of God's household ought to have—the sort of character and conduct which should mark men and women within the framework of God's church. And to that express purpose, Paul has ordered under the direction of the Holy Spirit the material in this letter, and has spoken regarding the conduct of various groups, …
… your life will head toward ugliness. in 1 Timothy 6 verses 8 through 12. But if we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people. The word that's translated plunge there is often translated drown. That drown people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith, pierced themselves, that's, I've run out of fingers on my hands. So go to the next one, have pierced themselves with many griefs. God has, there's actually 12 things that are in this passage. warnings about what will happen to us if we are lovers of money, if we desire to be rich more than anything else. If that's our driving motivation, then we're going to have disastrous consequences. But then turn it around. Eight verses later, in 1 Timothy 6, 18 through 19, Paul urges the rich, quote, be rich in good works, be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for yourself as a good foundation for the coming age. And obviously he's thinking of Matthew 6, what Jesus said about storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven. Now, the thing that's so encouraging about that is that if you look at James, weep and howl, you rich, for the judgment that's going to come down on you. …