In my daily private Bible study, I am finishing up my time in Paul’s first letter to Timothy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
My approach over this past year has been to move very slowly through a particular book of the Bible, writing out the text as I go, looking closely at how parts, words, and ideas fit together.<\/p>\n\n\n
Also – and this is important – I look for practical applications … how the teaching applies to my inner life, for ministry, or for the church as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
This takes several weeks, even for a short book. And when I hit the last verse, I devote my study over the next few days to reading through the book as a whole, start to finish, and taking notes on anything that strikes me now in overview.<\/p>\n\n\n
What I noticed this morning is that Paul states his letter’s purpose succinctly right in the center of the letter, at 3:14-15:<\/p>\n\n\n
“I am writing you these instruction so that, if I am delayed [in coming to you], you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”<\/p>\n\n\n
This opened my eyes to the fact that, throughout this letter, Paul is not addressing the behavior of individual believers in isolation. It is all instruction to the church as a body.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
That can be an important thing to keep in mind when reading individual verses pulled from the letter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
In fact, much of the letter applies primarily to the conduct of people who are in church leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It would be an excellent text for a church committee, a board of elders, or a gathering of pastors to study together in depth.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my daily private Bible study, I am finishing up my time in Paul’s first letter to Timothy.\u00a0 My approach over this past year has been to move very slowly through a particular book of the Bible, writing out the text as I go, looking closely at how parts, words, and ideas fit together. Also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4902,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions\/4902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}