O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.
– 1 Timothy 6:20-21
I am amazed at how Paul begins these last few lines of his letter to Timothy with the words of a father pleading with his son, “O Timothy.” There seems to be such urgency in his writing to Timothy. In fact, in the last chapter of 1 Timothy, Paul seems to be urging his young disciple on in his faith, to continue in Christ and in his pursuit of holiness (1 Timothy 6:11-12). He is calling Timothy to war against his flesh and against the many false teachers that were around them (1 Timothy 6:3-5). He warned Timothy not to be sidetracked by money (1 Timothy 6:6-10) and to warn the rich to place their hope in God alone (1 Timothy 6:17-19).
And then comes his plea in 1 Timothy 6:20-21.
My, how easy it is to sway. There are so many things that war against our faith in Christ. Whether it be false teachers, money, the flesh, or simply knowledge, so much seeks to pull us away from loving and seeking Jesus Christ. My number one passion and my number one pursuit should not be Arminianism or sports or my job or even my family, but my passionate pursuit needs to be Jesus (Matthew 6:33; Luke 14:25-35). I want to be like Paul the Apostle in Philippians 3:8-11 and make Jesus and His perfect righteousness my goal.
Paul himself knew that it was easy to sway from the faith and become sidetracked by other things. He himself wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 that he had to make his flesh his slave lest after preaching to others he himself might be disqualified. I recently heard a Bible teacher who believed in eternal security teaching from this passage, and he said that Paul is not referring here to losing his salvation but to the fear of becoming unusable to his Master. He would still be saved but carnal and lazy. Is that really the essence of what Paul is getting at either in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 or 1 Timothy 6:20-21? That swerving from the faith means that I simply am no longer useful to Jesus in service to Him and His kingdom? I think if that were the case our flesh would welcome such a move!
Yet I believe that Paul clearly has in mind that he is aware of the possibility of apostasy from the faith. Neither himself in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 or to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:20-21 do I see the text as teaching anything other than perseverance. He is wanting to guard us from swerving from the faith, for he knows how easy it is to turn away from following Jesus. Over and over again in 1 Timothy we see Paul warning the Church not to turn away from Jesus (1 Timothy 4:1-4, 7-8, 11-16; 5:8, 11-12, 20; 6:10, 14, 19). Paul knows the flesh that resides in us and he knows how easy it is to swerve from following hard after Jesus.
My earnest prayer to God is that He would expose my sins before Him and allow me to run this race with passion and with a zeal for holiness. My aim is to be like Jesus (1 John 2:6). My goal is to be perfect as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48; 2 Corinthians 13:9-11 NIV). I know that my pursuit for perfection is always coming up short since I am a fallen man (Romans 5:12), but I praise God for Jesus and His perfect righteousness imputed to me by faith (Romans 3:22-26; 4:5, 22-25) and I rejoice that when I stand in His presence, I will be completely forgiven and perfect because of Jesus Christ and His cross (Hebrews 12:23 notice the words, “the spirits of the righteous made perfect”). Until that final day, I pray that my passion, my desire, my longing is simply to be like Jesus in ALL that I say or do (Colossians 3:17) while praising God for His mercy all the while (Psalm 89:1 KJV).
[Link to original post and comments on Roy Ingle’s website.]
