SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/10/2025 9:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “A Strong Example As Spiritual
Mentor”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy
3:10-13
Message of the verses: “10 Now you followed
my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11
persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at
Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all
the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus
will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad
to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
I want to begin with a quotation that I ended my
last SD with in order to better understand what I am going to write in this SD.
“It means to follow a person
physically; to stick by him through thick
and thin, to be by his side in fair weather and in foul. It means to follow a
person mentally, to attend diligently to his teaching, and fully to understand
the meaning and the significance of what he says. It means to follow a person spiritually, not
only to understand what he says, but also to carry on his ideas, and to be the
kind of person that he wishes us to be. (The
Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon [Philadelphia: Westminster 1957],
224)”
John
MacArthur speaks of this statement: “That
comprehensive meaning certainly represents what Paul had in mind. He meant for Timothy to pattern his beliefs,
his thinking, and his lifestyle after him.
Although in more detail, he was telling his disciple, beloved friend,
and spiritual son what he had told believers in Corinth some ten years earlier:
‘I exhort you therefore, be imitators of me’ (1 Cor. 4:16). ‘For this reason,’ he continued, ‘I have sent
to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will
remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every
church’ (v. 17). Even at that earlier
date, he had great confidence in Timothy.
Just as he had trusted him to minister faithfully in Corinth he now
trusted him to minister faithfully in Ephesus.”
I
once heard a statement that seems to fit into what is going on in these verses
and that is if God were not using sinners to get His work done then His work
would not get done for as the Bible says “All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.” “So like all of us,
Timothy had temptations to weakness and vacillation, and he may have been in
such a struggle when Paul wrote him this second letter. Still, the apostle was certain that, with proper
encouragement and reliance on the Lord, Timothy would regain his former commitment
and zeal,” writes John MacArthur.
He
goes on to explain “In the Greek text, the definite article precedes each of
the descriptive nouns in verses 10 and 11, grammatically connecting each to the
possessive pronoun my and thereby giving it repeated emphasis.
“The
idea is, But you followed my teaching, [my] conduct, [my] purpose, and so on.
“Every
church, Christian college, Bible school, seminary, and other Christian
organization should be led by and, in turn, reproduce leaders who not only are
orthodox in doctrine and moral in lifestyle but also are courageous and
committed defenders of the faith. They
should be willing to follow the Lord and lead His church in dangerous times and
circumstances and at any cost steadfastly hold up the banner of God’s divine
revelation is Scripture.” This is the
way that it is suppose to be, but there are times when Satan gets into what is
going on and then in generations of new leadership things start to slip and you
end up with things like are going on in places like Harvard which began as a
Christian college. I think with fondness
of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and how the Lord’s teachings have been
faithfully taught for many, many years.
I think about the church that I attend, First Baptist Church, Elyria,
Ohio which opened its doors before the civil war began in our country. From those humble beginnings the Lord used
our church to begin two different mission agencies and a Christian school, which
was almost lost a number of years ago, but people prayed and the Lord answered
and now the school is strong again. I
have four grandchildren who attend this school, and a daughter who teaches
Spanish there and also coaches a volleyball team, something she loves.
MacArthur
concludes “The nine leadership qualities, or characteristics, mentioned in
3:10-13 can be divided into three categories; ministry duties (teaching,
conduct, purpose, v. 10 a), personal virtues (faith, patience, love,
perseverance, v. 10b), and difficult experiences, summarized by persecutions
and sufferings (vv. 11-13).”
Spiritual
Meaning for My Life Today: “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that
needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
My
Steps of Faith for Today: “Study to show
yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.”
5/10/2025 10:18 AM
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