In 2 Timothy 4:1–8, Paul urges Timothy to proclaim the truth with patience, endure hardship, and remain faithful even when people would rather hear what confirms their own desires. This reflection explores why Christian doctrine matters, how harmful experiences and hypocrisy have contributed to distrust of the church, and why spiritual growth requires more than listening to voices that always agree with us. Podcasts and devotionals can be valuable tools, but they cannot replace Christian community. We need people who love us enough to encourage us, challenge us, and lovingly point us back to Jesus. Faith was never meant to be lived in isolation; we need the body of Christ.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Tuesday morning. I hope you’re doing well and that all is good for you as we continue through this week together.

I don’t know if it’s cold where you live, but it sure is cold here in Starkville. Now, you didn’t tune in to this reflection for the weather forecast, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it, y’all. I think this is the year the cold finally gets me.

You know how it happens in the movies? There’s usually some supervillain who gets frozen or turned into ice, and then somebody cracks them, and they shatter into a thousand pieces. I think that’s what’s going to happen to me this year. I’m just going to turn into a block of ice, crack, and fade away.

So it’s been nice knowing y’all!

If all the stuff you hear about El Niño and whatever else is going on turns out to be as bad as they say, I just don’t think my frail constitution can handle it. It’s going to be a long winter, and if I’m already complaining this badly in the middle of October, things aren’t looking good for me.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re warmer than I am. Send me some heat if you can!

But today, we’re starting with 2 Timothy 4:1–8.

Paul gives Timothy some final instructions. He urges him to proclaim the message, to be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable, and to teach, correct, and encourage with patience. Paul warns that a time will come when people won’t put up with sound teaching. Instead, they’ll gather teachers who tell them what they want to hear, turn away from the truth, and wander off into myths.

Then Paul tells Timothy to endure suffering, carry out his ministry faithfully, and keep going. As for Paul himself, he recognizes that his life is drawing to a close. He has fought the good fight, finished the race, and remained faithful. He looks forward to the crown of righteousness that awaits him and all who long for Christ’s appearing.

There are several things we could talk about here, particularly the reality of suffering and the importance of remaining faithful. But I want to focus on something Paul says about teaching, truth, and those itching ears that want to hear only what they want to hear.

First, let me say something about doctrine.

You’ve heard me talk about this before. I don’t believe that doctrine saves us. We are saved by grace, not by having all our theological beliefs lined up perfectly. I don’t believe that everyone has to agree on every point of doctrine to be a Christian.

I have Christian brothers and sisters who hold all kinds of theological beliefs. Some of those beliefs I agree with, and plenty of them I don’t. And I’m sure they would say the same thing about me! They’d say, “Andy has some beliefs we agree with and some we don’t.”

That’s okay. We don’t have to agree on everything to belong to Jesus.

But I don’t want us to go so far in saying that doctrine doesn’t save us that we pretend doctrine doesn’t matter.

Doctrine matters because bad doctrine can be harmful. An incorrect understanding of God can affect our souls, our lives, and the way we treat other people.

If our understanding of God tells us that God is cruel, unloving, and eager to punish us, we may find ourselves crumbling under the weight of a cruel God we have imagined. But if our understanding of God leaves no room for holiness, accountability, or transformation, we may end up believing that nothing about our lives needs to change.

We need to understand both God’s love and God’s holiness. We need to understand grace, and we need to understand what it means to respond to that grace by living faithfully.

That’s why Paul urges Timothy to teach, correct, and encourage. The truth matters. How we understand God matters. And helping people grow in that understanding is part of the church’s responsibility.

But then Paul says something that I think is especially important for us today. He warns that people will gather teachers to suit their own desires. They will turn away from the truth and look for what they want to hear.

I’ve had a number of conversations recently with pastors and other people of different ages about where the church finds itself today. We’ve talked about why people are drifting away from the church and about the harm people have experienced because of the church’s mistakes and failures.

I once preached a sermon here about the harm the church has caused, and someone told me afterward that it was the first time they had ever heard church hurt acknowledged in a sermon. That surprised me, because church hurt is a real thing. We need to be honest about it. The church has failed people, and we need to acknowledge that rather than pretend it hasn’t happened.

People have become cynical about the church, its motives, and its leadership. People leave for all kinds of reasons: political disagreements, moral questions, hypocrisy, personal experiences, and the church’s own failures.

And we hear more and more people describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”

Now, I understand why someone might feel that way. There are seasons when we’re struggling with our faith, or when we’ve been hurt by the church, and we need some space to work through things. I understand that.

But I’m not a fan of treating spiritual isolation as a lifelong pursuit. And here’s why.

One of the things religion and Christian community can do for us is give us grounding. Community gives us people who can encourage us, teach us, challenge us, and help us see things we might not see on our own.

You’ve heard me say this before, but it’s amazing how, when it’s just me and Jesus, Jesus always agrees with me!

Isn’t that convenient?

When I’m the only one interpreting my faith, deciding what God thinks, and determining what I need to hear, I can easily convince myself that I’m right about everything. I can choose the teachings I like, avoid the ones that challenge me, and find religious voices that confirm what I already believe.

And that’s dangerous.

Sometimes we need to be corrected. Sometimes we need to be challenged. Sometimes we need somebody who loves us enough to say, “I don’t think you’re seeing this clearly. Let’s talk about it.”

That’s one of the gifts of Christian community.

I heard a quote on social media once that went something like this: If your God hates the same people you hate, you might have made that God in your own image.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that observation.

If my understanding of God always confirms my prejudices, always agrees with my opinions, and never challenges the way I treat other people, then I need to stop and ask whether I’m truly listening to God.

The Holy Spirit should sometimes correct us. The Spirit should sometimes convict us, challenge us, and point us in a different direction. If my faith never asks me to reconsider anything, I need to be careful that I haven’t simply created a faith that tells me what I want to hear.

And the same is true of the people who help guide us spiritually.

The pastors and mentors who have loved me throughout my life have corrected me many times. Sometimes those corrections frustrated me. Sometimes they made me angry. But there were times when I needed to hear those words, even when I didn’t want to hear them.

That’s part of what Paul is telling Timothy to do. He is telling him to teach the truth, to correct people when they need correcting, and to encourage them to keep going.

Notice that Paul also tells him to do this with patience. Correction is not an excuse to be cruel. Teaching the truth doesn’t give us permission to humiliate people or treat them unkindly. We are called to correct and encourage with patience, always seeking to point people toward Jesus.

We need people who will love us enough to tell us the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

And we need to be willing to hear it.

Now, let me bring this back to these morning reflections. I genuinely hope these reflections are helpful to you. I hope they encourage you, help you understand Scripture, and strengthen your faith. That’s why I do them.

But these reflections cannot be the extent of your Christian community.

Please don’t let a podcast become your entire religious life. Podcasts can be good. I listen to them myself. Devotionals can be helpful. Bible studies and sermons can help us grow. But none of those things can fully replace being part of a community of faith.

You need people who know you. You need friends who will walk alongside you. You need a pastor who will care for you, encourage you, and help you grow. You need a church where you can worship with other people, serve your neighbors, learn from one another, and sometimes be challenged.

We cannot live our Christian lives in isolation. Our souls were not made for that. Our faith was not designed to be a private arrangement between us and whatever version of Jesus we happen to prefer.

We need the body of Christ. We need one another.

And one of the gifts of that community is that it can lovingly correct us when our ears are itching to hear only what we want to hear. It can help us recognize when we’re wandering away from the truth. It can remind us that following Jesus isn’t always about being affirmed. Sometimes it’s about being transformed.

So surround yourself with a community that loves you, cares for you, encourages you, and is willing to correct you with patience and grace. Find people who will point you back toward Jesus, even when you would rather go in another direction.

And be willing to do the same for them.

Because the goal isn’t to win arguments or prove that we’re right. The goal is to become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

We need each other, y’all. We need the church. We need the body of Christ.

So I hope these reflections are helpful to you, but please don’t let them be the whole of your religious education or your Christian community. Find a church. Get involved. Build relationships. Worship with other people. Serve alongside them. Let them love you, and let them help you grow.

Our itching ears can lead us away from the truth, but a faithful community can help point us back to Jesus.

Thanks for being with us today. Tomorrow, we’ll pick up with 2 Timothy 4, beginning with verse 9. We’re getting close to the end of 2 Timothy, and then we’ll move on to Titus.

Have a great day, y’all. See you tomorrow!

In 2 Timothy 3:10–17, Paul reminds Timothy that Scripture is inspired by God and equips us for faithful living. This reflection explores the original context of Paul’s words, the Bible’s overarching story of creation, sin, redemption, and restoration, and the importance of reading Scripture carefully and faithfully. Scripture is our authoritative gift from God, but we must not confuse our interpretation with Scripture itself. By reading with humility, curiosity, and a focus on Jesus Christ, we can grow in our understanding of God and allow the Word to transform our hearts and prepare us for every good work.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning! It’s good to see you on this Monday morning. Things are a little different today. I’m recording this from my house instead of from the church. I intended to record earlier, but alas, things got away from me this weekend, so here I am, recording in a completely different context!

Anyway, what a great Sunday we had yesterday! We celebrated the 100th anniversary of the sanctuary here at Starkville First. It was a wonderful day of food, fellowship, and worship. We recreated parts of an early worship service, welcomed new members, and celebrated what God has done in and through this church over the past century.

God has been faithful to us, and for that, I am incredibly thankful. I’m grateful for God’s goodness and mercy, and I pray that God will continue to guide us and show us favor as we look toward the next 100 years of ministry.

Today, we’re continuing in 2 Timothy, looking at chapter 3, verses 10 through 17.

These pastoral letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus contain a lot of passages that you’ve probably heard many times. Today is one of those days. There’s something in this passage that I think is particularly important for us to understand.

Paul continues to talk about the reality of persecution and suffering. Following Jesus is not a promise that everything in life will suddenly become perfect and easy. In fact, sometimes I like to say that getting saved makes things harder! Sometimes life gets more difficult when you’re a Christian because following Jesus calls us to live differently from the world around us.

Paul reminds Timothy that trials, troubles, and persecution will come. So don’t automatically assume that God has deserted you, that you’ve done something wrong, or that you’re somehow alone when you face difficulties. Hardship is not necessarily a sign that you’re outside God’s will. Sometimes it is simply part of the Christian experience.

But while that has been a recurring theme throughout this letter, I want to spend most of our time today looking at verses 15 through 17, where Paul talks about the sacred writings and says that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness, so that we may be equipped for every good work.

This is one of the most famous passages in the Bible about the Bible itself. So I want to talk a little bit about what Paul means when he says that all Scripture is inspired.

First, we need to understand the original context.

Remember, when Paul wrote this letter, he was writing in real time. He wasn’t sitting down with a completed Bible like the one you and I hold today. When Paul talked about the sacred writings Timothy had known since childhood, he was referring primarily to the Scriptures of Israel, what we call the Old Testament.

The New Testament, as we know it, had not yet been assembled. Some of Paul’s letters had already been written, and we see evidence elsewhere in the New Testament that Paul’s writings were coming to be regarded as authoritative. Second Peter, for example, speaks of Paul’s letters alongside the other Scriptures.

But when Paul wrote these words to Timothy, the collection of 66 books that we call the Bible today did not yet exist in its completed form.

That matters because understanding the original context of Scripture is important. Paul was talking about the sacred writings Timothy had grown up knowing, particularly the Old Testament.

As Christians, however, we understand this passage to speak to the whole of Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments. We believe that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness, equipping us for every good work.

So what does that mean?

Scripture is inspired. Sometimes we use the phrase God-breathed. It is holy, and it is authoritative. It is a gift God has given us to help us understand who God is, who we are, and what God is doing in the world.

One way I often explain the story of Scripture to my church is this: Genesis 1 and 2 tell us that we were created in the image of God. Genesis 3 tells us about the Fall and the entrance of sin into the human story. From Genesis 4 all the way through Revelation, we see God’s ongoing work to redeem and restore humanity and all of creation.

Through covenants, relationships, and ultimately through Jesus Christ, God is working to bring about redemption and restoration. Scripture tells the story of how we were created, how we fell into sin, and how God is working to save us and restore all creation. The story ends with the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, with God bringing about a new creation.

That’s the big picture of Scripture. It tells us who we are, what has gone wrong, and what God is doing to make things right.

I also appreciate the way the theologian Karl Barth talked about the Word of God. He distinguished between the written Word, the spoken Word, and the revealed Word, which is Jesus Christ. Scripture and preaching point us toward Jesus, who reveals God to us in a unique and decisive way.

That’s an important way to think about the purpose of Scripture. The Bible is not simply a collection of interesting facts, ancient stories, or rules to follow. It is God’s gift to us, pointing us toward Jesus and helping us understand God’s work of redemption.

I often put it this way: Scripture is without error for the purpose God has given it to us. Its purpose is to tell us that we were created in God’s image, that we have fallen into sin, and that God is working to redeem us and all creation.

Scripture is inspired. It is holy. It is authoritative. It is our guide, and it is our friend.

But—and this is important—we need to be careful about how we read it.

We need to read Scripture in context. We need to pay attention to the verses around a passage, to what was happening when it was written, and to the larger story of Scripture. We need to read it through the theological understanding of the church and in conversation with other Christians. We need to read it with humility, recognizing that we might be wrong about how we interpret a particular passage. And we need to read it with curiosity, unafraid to ask questions.

Scripture is inspired and authoritative. But my interpretation of Scripture is not Scripture.

Let me say that again: My interpretation of Scripture is not Scripture.

That distinction matters because one of the dangers we face today is that people sometimes give their own interpretations of the Bible an authority that belongs to Scripture itself.

You hear it when someone says, “The Bible clearly says…”

Now, sometimes the Bible really does speak clearly about something. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Our United Methodist understanding, rooted in our doctrinal standards, affirms the sufficiency of Scripture for salvation and that what is necessary for salvation is made plain in Scripture.

But that doesn’t mean every passage is equally easy to understand or that every interpretation is automatically correct.

For one thing, we read the Bible in translation. We generally read it in English, rather than in the Hebrew and Greek in which its books were originally written. Words don’t always correspond perfectly from one language to another, and translators sometimes have to make decisions about how best to convey the meaning of a passage.

That’s one reason I encourage people to read a variety of Bible translations. I read several because different translations can help us notice different aspects of a passage and understand it more fully.

We also need to listen to what other Christians have said about Scripture, to learn from the church throughout history, and to listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need to think carefully about what we read, ask honest questions, and interpret Scripture in light of its larger story and, above all, through the lens of Jesus Christ.

I love the Bible, y’all. Outside of my salvation and my love for my wife and children, I don’t know that there’s much in this world I love more than Scripture. I read it every day. I love studying it, teaching it, and talking about how we got it and how we understand it.

But because I love Scripture, I want us to read it well. I want us to read it with grace and humility. I want us to read it so that we understand God better, not simply so that we can collect more facts or win more arguments.

And I want us to let it transform us.

That’s why Paul says Scripture is useful for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness, so that we may be equipped for every good work. The goal isn’t simply that we know more about the Bible. The goal is that God’s Word shapes us into people who faithfully follow Jesus and serve others in his name.

So let us treasure Scripture as God’s inspired and authoritative gift to us. Let us read it, study it, learn from it, and allow it to change our hearts.

But let us never confuse our interpretation of Scripture with Scripture itself. Scripture is the authority. My interpretation may be wrong. I don’t think it is—but it could be! And we all need the humility to recognize that we still have things to learn and room to grow.

That humility doesn’t weaken our love for the Bible. I believe it makes our reading of Scripture richer, deeper, and more faithful.

So, anyway, y’all, I love the Bible. I love talking about it, studying it, and exploring how it works. It is God’s authoritative gift to us. Read it. Learn from it. Grow through it. And may it change your heart.

Thanks for being with us today. We’ll be back tomorrow morning as we continue into chapter 4. Have a great day, and we’ll see you then!

In 2 Timothy 3:1–9, Paul warns against an outward form of godliness that lacks the transforming power of faith and against continually learning without arriving at a life-changing knowledge of the truth. This reflection explores the danger of cultural Christianity, reminding us that following Jesus is about more than appearances, traditions, or accumulating biblical knowledge. Our faith should begin with a heart rooted in Christ and bear fruit in the way we live, love, and serve others. The goal isn’t simply to be fed spiritually, but to put what we receive into practice.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re having a great day. We’ve had a great week, and it’s Friday! It’s the weekend!

It’s been a big, big, big week. Today, we’re hosting a leadership conference for our Annual Conference. Today will be a day focused on pastors, with a speaker coming to talk about leadership. Tomorrow, we’ll have several pastors from our conference speaking about leadership in its different forms. I’ll be one of those speakers, talking about visionary leadership, and I’m looking forward to sharing.

Then Sunday is going to be a big day at church. We’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of our sanctuary. We’ve been in this building for 100 years! God has been faithful to us throughout those years, and, if the Lord tarries, we look forward to another 100 years of ministry in this place.

And if you’re going to celebrate something like that, you’re going to want to eat afterward! So we’ll have a potluck. Because what do Methodists love more than a good potluck?

There are lots of exciting things happening at Starkville First United Methodist Church this weekend, and we’d love for you to come be a part of them if you’re in the Starkville area.

Today, we’re beginning chapter 3 of 2 Timothy. We’re looking at verses 1 through 9.

Paul warns Timothy that difficult times will come. He describes people who are selfish, greedy, boastful, arrogant, ungrateful, unholy, slanderous, reckless, and more concerned with pleasure than with God. Then he makes two observations that I think are particularly important. He describes people who have an outward form of godliness but deny its power. And he describes people who are always learning but never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Let’s talk about those two things.

If you go back to the turn of the twentieth century, around the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s, there was a great deal of optimism in parts of the world and the church. There were important reforms taking place, including efforts to end child labor. People had a sense that things were getting better and better.

There was also a belief in parts of the church that the world would continue to improve until the Lord returned. We would be able to look at what we had accomplished and say, “Look, Lord! Look at your world! Look what we’ve done with it!”

But the twentieth century put an end to a lot of that optimism, didn’t it?

We had the First World War, which people called the war to end all wars. Then came the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the use of nuclear weapons. We had Korea and Vietnam. As we entered the twenty-first century, we experienced September 11. Then came COVID. And today, it often seems as though the world is on fire, both literally and figuratively.

I don’t know many people who look at the world and confidently believe that everything is getting better and better, or that when the Lord returns, the world will be in better shape than ever. You don’t hear that kind of theology talked about quite as much.

Paul warns Timothy that difficult times will come. He lays out this long list of sinful behaviors, and one thing worth remembering is that we can find ourselves in that list, too. We may recognize our own struggles with pride, selfishness, greed, or any number of the things Paul describes.

But I want us to pay particular attention to two things.

First, Paul warns about people who have an outward form of godliness but deny its power.

That’s a real danger for the church.

John Wesley understood that danger. He famously warned that he did not fear the Methodists would cease to exist as a people called Methodists. What he feared was that they would become a dead sect, retaining the outward trappings of religion but losing its power.

And I think that’s a danger for us today, particularly when we talk about what we call cultural Christianity.

Cultural Christianity is a form of Christianity that is often recognizable by its language, its outward appearance, and its practices. It may be associated with where we live, the church we attend, the music we listen to, or the traditions we maintain. But those things, by themselves, don’t necessarily mean that our hearts are firmly rooted in the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Our faith can become about what we do, where we go to church, or what we look like on the outside. We can become focused on the optics of religion without actually following Jesus.

We can have an outward form of godliness while denying its power.

That’s part of what Jesus confronts in his criticism of the Pharisees. He compares them to whitewashed tombs: beautiful on the outside but full of death on the inside. They had the outward appearance of holiness, but something was missing beneath the surface.

And that’s the danger for us. We can become so focused on looking religious that we miss the whole point of our faith.

So how do we guard against that? We make sure that our hearts are in love with Jesus.

You’ve heard me say this before: I’m not worried about simply making you a good person. I’m worried about you loving Jesus. Because I believe that if you truly love Jesus, the rest will begin to work itself out.

That doesn’t mean our actions don’t matter. They absolutely do. But the outward expressions of our faith need to grow out of a heart that is being transformed by Christ. We don’t want to settle for looking holy on the outside while missing Jesus on the inside.

We want hearts that are steadfastly focused on him.

The second thing Paul says is that there are people who are always being instructed but never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

I think that’s interesting because our faith is not simply about acquiring more information.

If you ask preachers why people sometimes leave a church, one of the most common answers you’ll hear is, “I’m not being fed. I’m just not being fed.”

And sometimes that’s true. There are times when people aren’t being fed, and as pastors, we need to take that seriously. We have a responsibility to teach and preach the Word of God and to help people grow in their faith.

Honestly, y’all, that’s one reason I try to do these morning reflections. I want you to have an opportunity every day to hear the Word of God read and reflected upon. I want to do what I can to help feed you spiritually.

But it isn’t enough simply to be instructed over and over again. We need to arrive at a knowledge of the truth, and that truth is centered in Jesus Christ.

We need to grow in our knowledge of him, and we need to allow that knowledge to change the way we live.

Sometimes I wonder whether we have a spiritual obesity problem. We’re always being fed, but we never exercise. We keep taking in more and more teaching, sermons, Bible studies, and reflections, but we don’t always put what we’re learning into practice.

Now, please hear me: I love Bible study. I love teaching. I love digging into Scripture and wrestling with difficult questions. I’m not suggesting that we should stop learning. We should never stop learning!

But the purpose of learning isn’t simply to know more. It’s to become more faithful. It’s to become more like Jesus. It’s to take what we’ve received and put it into practice through the way we love God and serve our neighbors.

So today, as you hear this reflection, or as you spend time in your own devotional life, don’t stop at being fed. Ask yourself what you’re going to do with what you’ve received. How is God calling you to live differently? Who can you serve? Who can you love? Where can you put your faith into action?

Let’s not settle for an outward form of godliness without its power. And let’s not settle for constantly receiving instruction without allowing the truth to transform us.

In these challenging days, let’s keep our hearts focused first on Jesus Christ. Let’s grow in our love for him, and let’s allow that love to shape the way we live and serve.

Thanks for being with us today. I hope you have a great day, and we’ll see you Monday morning!

In 2 Timothy 2:14–26, Paul urges Timothy to avoid pointless arguments and to treat others with kindness, patience, and gentleness—even when correcting those with whom he disagrees. In a world that often rewards outrage and hostility, Christians are called to a different way of living. Gentleness is not weakness; it takes discipline and strength to respond with love rather than anger. Our goal is not simply to win arguments, but to reflect Jesus and invite others to experience the truth and grace of God. In a world that can be cold and cruel, choosing kindness and beauty is an act of rebellion and a witness to the way of Christ.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Thursday morning as we continue our time together in 2 Timothy. I hope you’ve had a good week so far. Things are busy here, but good, as always.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday. First UMC here in Starkville is going to host a Transformational Leadership training event through our Annual Conference. I’m looking forward to having everybody here.

Tomorrow, we’ll have an event for preachers, with one of our pastors talking with us about leadership. Then, on Saturday, the event will be open to anyone who wants to come. We’ll have several conversations about leadership, and I’ll even be giving one about visionary leadership—how we can align our leadership with a vision, how we develop that vision, and a little bit about how I go about developing one.

So, if you’re in the Starkville area and would like to learn more, send me a message. I’d love to talk with you about the event our Annual Conference is putting together here at the church.

Today, though, we’re going to be in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 14 through 26. We’re finishing up chapter 2 today.

Paul reminds Timothy to avoid arguments over words because they accomplish nothing and can ruin the faith of those who listen. He encourages Timothy to present himself to God as a faithful worker, to handle the word of truth rightly, and to avoid profane chatter that leads people further away from God.

Paul warns Timothy about people who have wandered from the truth and upset the faith of others. But he reminds him that God’s foundation stands firm.

He then uses the image of a large house, where there are vessels made of different materials and intended for different purposes. Those who turn away from wickedness and pursue holiness can become vessels dedicated to God, useful for every good work.

Finally, Paul tells Timothy to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace alongside those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. He warns him to stay away from foolish and senseless controversies because they lead to quarrels.

And then we get to the final verses, which I think are particularly important for us.

Paul says that the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, and patient. Even when correcting opponents, the Lord’s servant must do so with gentleness, in the hope that God might lead them to repentance and knowledge of the truth.

We’ve heard similar things from Paul already in 1 Timothy, particularly when he talked about the responsibilities of church leaders. And now, as he writes to Timothy again, he returns to this idea of how we are supposed to conduct ourselves.

Avoid needless quarrels.

Speak with gentleness.

Be kind to people.

And I think that’s a particularly important message for us in the world we find ourselves living in today.

Because the world seems to be awfully quarrelsome.

You see it all the time, especially on social media and the internet. People seem to be looking for a fight. Everybody has an opinion, everybody has something to say, and everybody seems ready to argue about it.

And sometimes, as Christians, we get pulled right into the middle of it.

We start to think that we are Aragorn charging toward the Black Gate in The Lord of the Rings, sword in hand, ready to fight the great battle against the forces of evil.

Now, there are times when we need to stand firm. There are times when we need to speak the truth, defend what is right, and refuse to compromise our convictions.

But we don’t have to pick every fight.

My mom used to tell me, “You don’t have to attend every fight you’re invited to.”

And that’s good advice.

Just because somebody invites you into an argument doesn’t mean you have to participate. Just because somebody says something you disagree with doesn’t mean you have to respond. Just because you have something to say doesn’t mean it needs to be said right now, in that moment, in that particular way.

Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is to step back.

But I think the end of this chapter gives us an even deeper reason to be gentle.

Paul doesn’t simply tell Timothy to avoid arguments because they’re unpleasant or because they waste time. He tells him to be kind, patient, and gentle because of what that gentleness might make possible.

He says that the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, and patient. Even when correcting someone, Timothy is to do so with gentleness, because God may use that interaction to bring someone to repentance and a knowledge of the truth.

Think about that for a minute.

Why should we be gentle?

Why should we be kind?

Why should we remain patient even when we’re talking with someone who disagrees with us, challenges our beliefs, or seems determined to misunderstand us?

Because our goal isn’t simply to win the argument.

Our goal is to bear witness to Jesus Christ.

And the way we speak to people matters.

The way we treat people matters.

The way we respond when we’re challenged matters.

When we show gentleness, when we show compassion, and when we show care for people—even those with whom we disagree—we demonstrate something of the love and mercy of Jesus.

And that can become an invitation.

It can give someone a reason to reconsider. It can open a door that anger would have closed. It can create space for a conversation that might never have happened if we had simply responded with hostility.

We aren’t kind because we’re weak.

In fact, I think kindness and gentleness require real strength.

Reacting with rage is easy.

Reacting with fury doesn’t require much discipline. Somebody says something that makes us angry, and we fire right back. We don’t stop to think. We don’t pause to consider what the other person might be experiencing. We simply react.

But it takes strength to stop.

It takes discipline to sit with another person’s words, even when we disagree with them.

It takes humility to consider whether there might be something we haven’t understood.

And it takes love to respond with patience when our first instinct is to respond with anger.

Paul tells Timothy not to be quarrelsome, but kind and gentle.

In other words, don’t simply react to the world around you. Let your life be shaped by Christ.

I’ve used this line before in sermons, and I don’t remember where I first read it, but it’s always stuck with me:

It’s really hard for people to believe that a God they cannot see loves them when a church they can see doesn’t seem to like them.

Think about that.

If our conversations with people who don’t know Jesus are filled with condescension, judgment, anger, and hostility, what makes us any different from the rest of the world?

If we treat people as though they’re stupid because they disagree with us, if we assume the worst about them, if we approach every conversation as an opportunity to prove how wrong they are, what exactly are we inviting them into?

Nothing particularly appealing.

There’s nothing inviting about that kind of hostility.

But when we show gentleness, mercy, and kindness—even with people who disagree with us—we offer a glimpse of something different.

We offer a glimpse of the way of Jesus.

And I think that brings me to something I’ve been talking about recently.

In a post on Facebook, I was reflecting on Paul’s instruction elsewhere to focus our minds on what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable. I made the point that choosing to think about what is beautiful is not weakness.

It’s not naivety.

It’s not pretending that the world is better than it really is.

In a world that is cold, cruel, mean, and ugly, beauty is an act of rebellion.

It says, “I will not be like this world.”

“I will not live like this world.”

“I will not allow the anger and hostility around me to determine the kind of person I become.”

Instead, I will orient my life toward Christ.

And in a quarrelsome world, gentleness is an act of rebellion.

In a world that rewards outrage, kindness is an act of rebellion.

In a world that encourages us to assume the worst about one another, love is an act of rebellion.

And when we choose those things—even when it is difficult, even when we disagree, even when someone has said something that makes us angry—we bear witness to a different way of living.

We show the world that there is another way.

We show that our lives are not governed by the same anger, bitterness, and hostility that seem to surround us.

We show that Jesus has changed us.

Now, that doesn’t mean we never challenge anyone. It doesn’t mean we never correct someone or speak against something we believe is wrong. Paul specifically talks about correcting others in this passage.

But notice how we’re supposed to do it.

With gentleness.

With patience.

With kindness.

Our goal is not to humiliate someone. Our goal is not to prove our superiority. Our goal is not to score points or collect victories in arguments.

Our goal is to remain faithful to Jesus and to create opportunities for others to encounter the truth and grace of God.

So, friends, avoid those needless quarrels. Don’t attend every fight you’re invited to. And when you do need to speak, when you do need to challenge someone, or when you do need to correct something that is wrong, do it with love and gentleness.

Let your attitude be an invitation.

Let your words reflect the grace you’ve received.

And let the way you treat people—even people with whom you disagree—show the world something beautiful about Jesus.

Because in a world that is so often angry and divided, gentleness is not weakness.

It’s an act of rebellion.

And it’s an act of faithfulness to the One we follow.

Hey, thanks for being with us today. I hope you have a great rest of your Thursday, and we’ll pick up tomorrow with chapter 3.

See you then. Thanks!

In 2 Timothy 2:1–13, Paul encourages Timothy to endure hardship, remain faithful to the gospel, and remember that even though Paul may be imprisoned, the Word of God is not chained. The passage culminates in a powerful promise: even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. We often treat our relationship with God like a transaction, believing that God’s love and grace depend on our performance. But grace is a gift rooted in God’s character, not something we earn. Our failures matter, and we are called to live faithfully, but our hope rests in the goodness of the God who remains faithful even when we fall short.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Wednesday morning. I hope you’re doing well as we continue our time in 2 Timothy.

I always love Wednesdays. Wednesdays are fun! I have a Bible study this morning here at the church, and then we have Bible study tonight as part of our Wednesday night programming. It’s a good opportunity to dig into God’s Word, so what better way to start the day than with our daily reflections?

Today, we’re going to be in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 1 through 13.

Paul encourages Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ and to entrust what he has learned to faithful people who will be able to teach others. He tells Timothy to share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. He uses the examples of a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer to remind Timothy that faithful service requires commitment, discipline, and endurance.

Paul then reminds Timothy of the heart of the gospel: Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David. It is for this gospel that Paul suffers, even to the point of being chained like a criminal.

But Paul makes an important distinction: he may be chained, but the Word of God is not chained.

He endures everything for the sake of others, so that they too may obtain the salvation found in Jesus Christ.

Then Paul offers this saying:

If we have died with Christ, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us.

And then we get to verse 13:

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

That last verse is where I want us to spend some time today.

First, though, let’s remember the situation Paul is writing from. Most scholars understand 2 Timothy to have been written during Paul’s final imprisonment in Rome. If you go back through the book of Acts, you can follow Paul’s journey as he appeals to Caesar and eventually travels to Rome because of his Roman citizenship.

Paul is allowed some freedom while under house arrest, but he is not free to come and go as he pleases. And according to the traditional understanding of his story, he will eventually give his life for the gospel.

Paul has suffered, and he knows that more suffering is ahead.

So when he tells Timothy to share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus, he isn’t speaking from a place of comfort. He knows what it means to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel.

I’ve often talked with friends of mine in the military about some of the similarities between being a soldier and being a preacher. There are some commonalities. We have a commanding officer who sends us where we are needed, and we go where we are sent. We have a chain of command. We have responsibilities that are bigger than our own personal preferences.

Paul uses the image of a soldier who doesn’t become entangled in ordinary affairs because the soldier wants to please the one who enlisted him. He talks about an athlete who must compete according to the rules. And he talks about a farmer who works hard and deserves to share in the harvest.

Each of those images reminds us that faithfulness requires something of us.

We don’t always get to decide where life takes us. We don’t always get to choose the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And we don’t always get to control how things work out.

But we can remain faithful to the One we serve.

As a United Methodist pastor, I understand that God works through the structures of our church. I have a district superintendent, a bishop, and other people to whom I am accountable. I want to serve them well. I want to honor the commitments I’ve made and do right by the people entrusted to my care.

But ultimately, my greatest audience is the Lord.

I will give an account to God for how I have lived and served. And while I want to do right by my district superintendent, my bishop, and my Staff-Parish Relations Committee, I know that my ultimate calling is to be faithful to Jesus Christ.

That is the audience that matters most.

Paul understands that. He is suffering because of the gospel, but he knows that his suffering doesn’t mean the gospel has failed.

He may be in chains, but the Word of God is not chained.

Paul may be imprisoned, but God is not imprisoned. God’s Word continues to go forth. God’s grace continues to work. And the gospel continues to reach people.

Paul’s circumstances do not limit God’s faithfulness.

And that brings us to this wonderful little passage at the end, particularly verses 11 through 13.

At first, those verses can sound almost transactional. If we do this, God will do that. If we endure, we will reign with Christ. If we deny him, he will deny us.

It can sound like a series of conditions: We do our part, God does his part, and together we make the whole thing work.

But then Paul says something remarkable.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Friends, our faithlessness does not cancel God’s faithfulness.

When we get it wrong, God’s faithfulness remains.

When we fail to do what we ought to do, God’s faithfulness remains.

When we stumble, when we fall short, when we fail to live up to the person God has called us to be, God’s faithfulness remains.

That doesn’t mean our choices don’t matter. It doesn’t mean we should take God’s grace for granted or stop trying to live faithfully. Paul has spent this whole passage encouraging Timothy to endure, to work hard, and to remain committed to the gospel.

But it does mean that God’s character is not dependent on our performance.

God is not faithful to us because we have earned it.

God does not show us grace because we deserve it.

God shows us grace because God is gracious.

God is faithful because God is faithful and true.

Sometimes, we approach our relationship with God as though it were a transaction. If I do A, God will do B. If I pray enough, serve enough, give enough, or get enough things right, then God will do what I need God to do.

We start to imagine that we are negotiating with God as equals. I’ll do my part, God, and you do yours, and together we’ll figure this whole thing out.

But that’s not what grace is.

Grace is not a paycheck we receive for good behavior. Grace is a gift we receive because of who God is.

We do not earn God’s love. We respond to it.

We do not earn God’s faithfulness. We live in the light of it.

And even when we fail, God’s faithfulness is not diminished by our lack of faithfulness.

I love a scene from the old British television show Doctor Who. I’ve mentioned it before because it’s one of my favorite scenes.

The Doctor’s companion betrays his trust. She tries to trick him because she wants something and is afraid he won’t do what she asks. So she takes matters into her own hands, and things go wrong.

The Doctor discovers what she has done. He’s upset, and he confronts her. But in the end, he still does the thing she wanted him to do.

And she asks him why. Why would he help her after she betrayed him?

He responds with a question that has always stuck with me:

“Do you think I care for you so little that your betrayal would change the way I feel about you?”

I love that line.

Think about it for a moment.

Do you think I care for you so little that your betrayal would change the way I feel about you?

And I wonder how often we imagine God that way. We imagine that God is so fickle, so easily disappointed, so quick to turn away from us, that one failure on our part could somehow undo God’s love.

But do we really think the sovereign God of heaven loves us so little that our faithlessness could put an end to God’s faithfulness?

No.

God is not faithful because we are faithful.

God is faithful because God is good.

God is gracious because God is gracious.

God is loving because love is at the heart of who God is.

That doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about our choices. It doesn’t mean that our relationship with God is unimportant or that we can live however we please. It means that when we fall short, we don’t have to pretend we’re perfect or believe that we’ve somehow exhausted God’s grace.

We can confess our failures. We can repent. We can get back up and try again.

We can return to the God whose faithfulness has never depended on our ability to get everything right.

There’s an old contemporary Christian song by Chris Tomlin called My Redeemer Is Faithful and True. I think that captures the heart of this passage beautifully.

Our Redeemer is faithful and true.

And we can rest in that.

So, friends, let’s do our best to be faithful. Let’s do our best to stand for Christ, speak the truth of the gospel, serve our neighbors, and live out the grace we’ve received.

Let’s take seriously the calling God has placed on our lives.

But let’s also remember that even when we get it wrong, God’s faithfulness remains.

When we stumble, God is still faithful.

When we struggle, God is still faithful.

When our faith feels weak, God is still faithful.

Our hope rests not in our ability to be perfect, but in the goodness and faithfulness of the God who loves us.

And that is good news.

Thanks for being with us today. I hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday, and we’ll see you tomorrow morning.

Thanks for being with us!

In 2 Timothy 1:8–18, Paul writes about suffering, faithfulness, and the confidence that comes from knowing Jesus Christ. How do we reconcile our belief in a good and all-powerful God with the reality of suffering? There are no easy answers, but the Christian faith points us toward a God who does not remain distant from our pain. In Jesus, God enters into our suffering, and through the resurrection, we discover that suffering and death do not have the final word. Reflecting on Paul’s words and the hymn “I Know Whom I Have Believed,” we are reminded that we may not understand every mystery, but we can place our trust in the One who holds us in grace and gives us hope.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Tuesday morning. I hope you’re doing well today as we begin another day in 2 Timothy. I hope your week is off to a wonderful start.

All is well here in Starkville. We’ve got a great week ahead, and we’re looking forward to a great Sunday.

This Sunday is especially exciting because First UMC is celebrating the 100th anniversary of our sanctuary. We’re going to recreate a service from that time period, celebrate 100 years of worship in this space, and then have a potluck afterward—because there’s nothing quite like dinner on the grounds!

We’re also encouraging folks to contribute $100 to our centennial fund as a way of celebrating the sanctuary’s 100th anniversary and helping us carry its legacy into the future. If you’re in Starkville, we’d love for you to celebrate with us. And if you can’t be here in person, we hope you’ll watch online and be part of what God is doing here.

Today, though, we’re going to look at the rest of 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 8 through 18.

Paul encourages Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony about Jesus or of Paul, who is imprisoned for the gospel. Instead, he tells Timothy to join him in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.

Paul reminds Timothy that God has saved us and called us—not because of our works, but according to God’s own purpose and grace. He speaks of Christ Jesus, who has defeated death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Paul explains that he was appointed a herald, an apostle, and a teacher of this gospel, and that this is why he suffers as he does. But he is not ashamed, because he knows the One in whom he has placed his trust. He urges Timothy to hold on to the sound teaching he has received and to guard the good treasure entrusted to him through the Holy Spirit.

Paul also remembers those who have turned away from him and gives thanks for Onesiphorus, who was not ashamed of Paul’s imprisonment. Onesiphorus searched for Paul in Rome and found him, and Paul remembers the service he rendered in Ephesus.

So, we see Paul talking about suffering in this passage. We also see him talking about shame—about being ashamed of the gospel or being ashamed of the people who suffer because of it.

I was listening to something recently—I think it was a podcast—about suffering and how difficult it can be for us as Christians to understand it.

There’s a term in theology and philosophy called theodicy. It deals with a question that has challenged theologians and philosophers for centuries: How do we reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with our belief in a good and all-powerful God?

We believe God is good.

We believe God is all-powerful.

And we know that evil and suffering exist.

How do those things fit together?

If God is good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? If God is good but suffering continues, what does that mean? And if God is all-powerful, why doesn’t God simply put an end to it?

There’s a mystery here that we struggle with. And we can offer surface-level answers, but sometimes those answers don’t satisfy us. Sometimes they don’t even come close to addressing the pain someone is experiencing.

I think one of the hardest things about suffering is that we often want an explanation when what we really need is someone willing to sit with us in it.

We want to know why something happened. We want to know what purpose it serves. We want to know how a good God could allow it.

And those are fair questions. We shouldn’t be afraid to ask them.

But Scripture doesn’t deny the reality of suffering. The Bible is full of people who suffer, who cry out to God, who ask difficult questions, and who sometimes struggle to understand what God is doing.

Paul certainly knew something about suffering. He was imprisoned because of his faith. And yet he says he is not ashamed, because he knows the One in whom he has placed his trust.

I think that gets us to something important.

The Christian answer to suffering isn’t that suffering isn’t real. It isn’t that everything happens for an easily understood reason. And it certainly isn’t that we should tell people who are hurting to stop asking questions and simply have more faith.

The Christian claim is that we serve a God who does not run away from suffering.

In Jesus Christ, God enters into our suffering.

God comes among us. God experiences the pain and brokenness of this world. And Jesus is executed by the very people he came to save.

The cross reminds us that God does not remain distant from human suffering. God enters into it with us.

And the resurrection reminds us that suffering and death do not get the final word.

Now, I want to be careful here. I don’t think suffering is something we need to romanticize. We don’t need to pretend that suffering is good or that pain is somehow easy to endure. There are things that happen in this world that are genuinely awful, and we shouldn’t try to explain them away.

But I do believe that God can meet us in our suffering. God can sustain us through it. And sometimes, even in the midst of pain, God can bring about healing, growth, compassion, and redemption.

Suffering can shape us, though that doesn’t mean we have to be grateful for the things that hurt us. It means that even the painful parts of our stories are not beyond the reach of God’s grace.

I think of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. There’s something about the way he understands sorrow and suffering, about the way he can sit with the sadness of the world without giving up hope. He understands that the story is bigger than the pain of any one moment.

And I think that’s part of what faith calls us to do.

Sometimes we have to sit with our suffering. Sometimes we have to listen. Sometimes we have to grieve. Sometimes we have to admit that we don’t have the answers.

But we can do all of that while trusting that God is present with us.

There’s a quote from Henri Nouwen that captures this idea. He writes about not being an optimist or a pessimist, but about holding on to the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. The point is that Christian hope isn’t pretending everything is fine. It’s trusting that the suffering of the cross is not the end of the story.

The cross is real.

The suffering is real.

But so is the resurrection.

And the cross and resurrection belong together at the very heart of our faith.

So, yes, we will suffer. We will experience pain. We will have days when we don’t understand what God is doing. We will ask questions that don’t have easy answers.

And God is with us even there.

Now, I didn’t necessarily intend to talk quite so much about suffering today. That wasn’t where I thought this reflection would go. But this passage has one of my favorite verses, and it’s one that has inspired one of my favorite hymns.

I’ve got my hymnal here with me.

In verse 12, Paul says that he knows the One in whom he has placed his trust and is convinced that God is able to guard what he has entrusted to him until that day.

Does that sound familiar?

Maybe not in the wording of the NRSV, but what if I put it in the language of an old hymn?

“I know whom I have believed.”

That’s United Methodist Hymnal number 714, I Know Whom I Have Believed.

I love that hymn. I love how often Scripture has inspired the hymns we sing and how those hymns have helped us carry the words of Scripture into our daily lives.

The hymn reflects on the things we don’t know. We don’t understand everything about God’s grace. We don’t understand everything about Christ’s saving work. We don’t understand all the ways the Spirit moves in our lives. We don’t know exactly when or how we will meet our Lord.

But the refrain keeps bringing us back to the same truth: we know whom we have believed, and we trust that he is able to keep what we have entrusted to him.

And, friends, that’s where I find hope in this passage.

I don’t know the answer to every question about suffering.

I don’t know all the answers to the mysteries of faith.

I don’t know why some things happen the way they do. I don’t know why some prayers seem to be answered in the way we hope and others don’t. I don’t know why some people endure things that seem almost impossible to bear.

I don’t know so many things, y’all.

But I know whom I believe in.

I know the One in whom I have placed my faith.

And I know that the faith we find in Jesus Christ is my hope, my joy, and my everything.

I am thankful for the salvation that has come to me through Jesus Christ. I am thankful for his grace, which gives me hope even in the midst of suffering. And I am thankful that suffering does not have to have the final word in any of our stories.

The cross is not the end.

The empty tomb is coming.

And our suffering, as real and painful as it may be, is not the whole story.

God can meet us there. God can sustain us there. And God can work through even the most difficult parts of our lives to bring us closer to himself and to help us become people who reflect his love.

So, I know whom I have believed.

That’s a great hymn, and I hope it’s one you know, too.

John Wesley encouraged Methodists to keep a few important things close at hand as they traveled and served: the Bible, a hymnal, and the Book of Discipline.

I hope you have access to all three of those in your life. The Bible to ground you in God’s Word, the hymnal to help you sing and remember the faith, and the Discipline to guide us in the life we share as United Methodists.

Those are good things to keep close.

But above all, may we keep close to the One in whom we have believed.

Thanks for being with us today. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we’ll pick up with chapter 2 tomorrow morning.

Thanks. See you!

Today we begin 2 Timothy with Paul’s encouragement to Timothy: God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love, and self-discipline. What does that power look like? Not arrogance, domination, or being the loudest person in the room. Christian power is rooted in Christ, expressed through love, and sustained through disciplined faithfulness. Paul also reminds Timothy of the faith he inherited from his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, reminding us that none of us stands alone—we are shaped by those who have gone before us and entrusted with passing faith on to those who come after us.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Monday morning. I hope you’re doing well.

I hope you had a great weekend. It’s good to be starting a new day, a fresh new week, and a new book of the Bible in our daily reflection.

We finished 1 Timothy on Friday, and today we’re going to pick up with 2 Timothy. We’re going to keep rolling through these pastoral letters: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and then we’ll finish out with Philemon.

After that, we’ll jump back into the Old Testament and figure out where we want to go from there. We may spend some time in the Psalms. We’re getting close to Thanksgiving, so maybe we’ll focus on some of those passages. We’ll see.

But today, we’re starting 2 Timothy.

We’re going to look at the first chapter, verses 1 through 7.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise that is in Christ Jesus,

To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God, whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did, when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day, recalling your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

That’s a pretty good way to end that little section.

And you may be like me. You’ve probably heard that last verse before.

“God did not give us a spirit of fear.”

Sometimes we hear it quoted that way.

But notice what Paul actually says.

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.

Rather, God gave us a spirit of power.

Okay. Power.

And then he says: love.

And self-discipline.

And when I hear this verse quoted sometimes, I hear it almost like one of those speeches in the movies.

Like Braveheart.

Or one of Aragorn’s speeches in The Lord of the Rings.

You know, rallying the troops.

“Go out there! Win the battle! Be strong! Be powerful!”

And Paul says, “God did not give you a spirit of cowardice. He gave you a spirit of power.”

And then you expect him to say something like, “So go out there and be the biggest and baddest person in the room.”

But that’s not what he says.

He says power is accompanied by love.

And self-discipline.

That’s an interesting understanding of power.

Because we often think of power as being loud.

We think of power as being the person who can dominate the room.

The person who can yell the loudest.

The person who can flex the biggest muscle.

But I don’t think that’s what Paul is talking about.

Great power is often seen in control.

The most powerful person in the room usually isn’t the one yelling.

It’s often the person who is quiet and controlled.

There is a strength that comes from being rooted.

And I think that’s what Paul is talking about here.

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.

He gave us a spirit of power.

But how is that power expressed?

Through love.

Love for God.

Love for one another.

And then through self-discipline.

And self-discipline is another one of those things that we don’t always think about very much.

We tend to think about self-discipline in terms of self-improvement.

You know, eat the salad instead of the steak.

Exercise.

Get healthier.

Become the best version of yourself.

And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things.

But I don’t think that’s what Paul is talking about here.

I think the self-discipline he is talking about is Christian discipline.

Staying rooted in Christ.

Staying rooted in the identity and worth we have in Jesus.

Staying deeply rooted in the Spirit of God.

Because if we are disciplined in Christ, then the things that come at us don’t throw us off quite so easily.

The waves come.

The storms hit.

The challenges come.

The temptations come.

Life happens.

But we are rooted.

We are grounded in Christ.

That’s power.

Friends, that’s power.

Power is not necessarily loud.

Confidence isn’t necessarily loud.

And I think power works the same way.

I think about some of the spiritually powerful people I know, and almost all of them have a sense of humility about them.

A sense of rootedness.

They’re not strengthened by their own ability.

They’re strengthened by the ability and strength of Jesus.

So when Paul says, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline,” I think that’s what he’s getting at.

Our power is not found in machismo.

It’s not found in arrogance.

It’s not found in being the biggest or loudest person in the room.

Our power is found in being so rooted in Christ that we can face what comes our way with love and self-discipline.

And there’s another part of this passage that I really love.

Paul talks about his ancestors.

He says, “I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did.”

And then he reminds Timothy of his own family.

He says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

I love that.

Because one of the great gifts we can have as Christians is knowing that we didn’t get here by ourselves.

None of us stands alone.

We stand in the midst of those who have gone before us.

Parents.

Grandparents.

Great-grandparents.

People who poured into us.

People who taught us.

People who shaped us.

People who showed us what faith looks like.

Their faith molded us.

Their faith shaped us.

Their faith helped make us who we are.

And so we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

Paul had ancestors who worshiped God.

Timothy had Lois and Eunice.

And many of us have people in our own lives whose faith helped form ours.

And if you’re fortunate enough to have had Christian parents or grandparents or great-grandparents who poured faith into you, remember them.

Remember their stories.

Remember their prayers.

Remember the things they taught you.

Remember the ways they lived out their faith.

Because you are part of a story that started long before you.

You are not the first person to love Jesus.

You are not the first person to wrestle with faith.

You are not the first person to try to live faithfully.

You are simply the next person in a long line of people who have sought to follow Christ.

And maybe someday, someone will look at your life and say the same thing about you.

That their faith was shaped by yours.

That they learned something about Jesus because of the way you lived.

That’s a pretty incredible responsibility.

So today, remember who shaped you.

Remember who formed you.

Remember the faith that was handed down to you.

And then, as Paul tells Timothy, rekindle the gift that God has placed within you.

God did not give you a spirit of cowardice.

God gave you a spirit of power.

A spirit of love.

And a spirit of self-discipline.

Not power rooted in arrogance.

Not power rooted in domination.

But power rooted in Christ.

Power expressed through love.

And power sustained through the discipline of following Jesus.

So let’s live into that today.

Let’s be people who are deeply rooted in Christ.

Let’s love God.

Let’s love one another.

And let’s have the discipline to keep following Jesus, even when life gets difficult.

Thanks for being with us today.

I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we’ll see you tomorrow morning.

Thanks.

Today we finish Paul’s first letter to Timothy with a call to active faith. Paul tells Timothy to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness; to fight the good fight; and to take hold of eternal life. We are saved by grace through faith, but that doesn’t mean we are passive in our faith. Every day we have choices to make—to pray, read Scripture, serve our neighbors, show grace, forgive, love, and focus our hearts on the things that draw us toward Jesus. Following Christ isn’t about moral perfection or getting everything right. It’s about chasing after Jesus with all that we are and allowing his love to transform the way we live.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re doing well.

I hope you’ve had a great rest of your week. And be careful out there with the weather this weekend. I know there’s a hurricane coming through. It looks like we’re probably just going to get rain here in Starkville, but wherever you are—particularly if you’re on the coast—please be careful. It looks like it’s going to be pretty nasty.

We’re praying for safety for everyone as the storm comes this way, and hopefully, when it’s all said and done, we’ll just have a bunch of rain.

So be safe in the storms, wherever you are.

And if you’re in the Starkville area, we’d obviously love for you to worship with us Sunday at First United Methodist Church. It’s going to be a good day as we continue talking about the fire God is wanting to start in our lives. We’re talking about the burning bush this week, and it’s a great story.

So we’d love for you to come worship with us this Sunday if you’re in town or anywhere in the Golden Triangle area.

Today, we’re going to finish 1 Timothy. We’ll finish out chapter 6 and finish the book, and then Monday we’ll move into 2 Timothy.

So let’s look at 1 Timothy 6, beginning with verse 11.

Paul says:

“But as for you, man of God, shun all this. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called…”

And he goes on to encourage Timothy to keep the commandment without spot or blame and to place his hope in God rather than in riches.

He tells those who are wealthy not to be arrogant or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but instead to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.

And then he ends the letter by telling Timothy to guard what has been entrusted to him and to avoid profane chatter and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

And it’s interesting to me that one of the things that kind of circles back at the very end of 1 Timothy is something we’ve seen throughout this entire letter:

Idle chatter.

Profane chatter.

Meaningless talk.

Endless controversy.

Paul is encouraging Timothy to keep himself grounded in what matters. To stay grounded in the hope of Christ. To stay grounded in the faith that has been handed down to him.

And to avoid all those things that distract us from what is actually important.

I think that’s such an interesting through line in this entire book.

I haven’t read through 1 Timothy like this in a long time, and one of the things that has struck me over and over again is Paul’s warning to Timothy to avoid idle talk, avoid endless speculation, avoid those things that draw us away from the true faith and substitute something else in its place.

A faith that isn’t really grounded in Jesus, but is grounded in myths, arguments, controversies, or simply the thoughts of the moment.

Instead, Paul says: Pursue what matters.

Righteousness.

Godliness.

Faith.

Love.

Endurance.

Gentleness.

And fight the good fight.

Take hold of eternal life.

Paul uses a lot of language in his writings about fighting the good fight, running the good race, training ourselves, and working out our salvation.

And we need to read Scripture in conversation with itself.

Because it can be very easy when we read Paul to focus on certain verses about grace through faith—about the fact that we are not saved by our works, that we cannot earn our salvation, that salvation is a gift of God.

And all of that is true.

But if we aren’t careful, we can misunderstand that to mean that we can simply be passive in our faith.

That all we have to do is believe certain things intellectually and we’ve done everything God asks of us.

And Paul, over and over again, says, “No.”

Fight the good fight.

Run the race.

Train yourself in godliness.

Take hold of eternal life.

Be faithful.

We are not passive in our salvation.

We are saved by grace through faith.

But that faith has to show itself in our lives.

If nothing else, we have to respond to the grace God offers us.

God gives grace freely, but we have to respond to it.

And I think that’s what Paul is saying to Timothy:

Take hold of this.

Fight the good fight.

Take hold of eternal life.

Keep the commandment.

Be faithful.

And then he warns those who have wealth not to put their hope in their possessions, but instead to be rich in good works—to be generous and ready to share.

So our richness doesn’t ultimately come from our possessions.

Our richness comes from faithfulness.

And I guess that’s what I want us to think about today:

Don’t be passive in your faith.

Don’t be passive.

You have a responsibility in your faith.

Paul says in Philippians that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work within us.

We are not bystanders in our faith.

We have a partnership, if you will.

God saves us.

But we respond to the salvation God offers.

And we make those choices every single day.

Every day you choose whether you’re going to read Scripture.

You choose whether you’re going to pray.

You choose whether you’re going to spend time listening for God.

You choose whether you’re going to serve your neighbor.

When you see your neighbor in need, will you help?

Will you just be nice to your coworker?

You’ve heard me say before that sometimes the most Christian thing we can do is be nice to the checkout girl at Walmart.

Will you choose to show grace to the people around you?

Will you choose, instead of going down the roads of division and conspiracy, to focus on what is good and noble and pure?

Will you choose to focus your heart on things that point you toward Jesus?

Or will you choose to focus on things that draw you away from Jesus?

We choose to love.

We choose to forgive.

We choose to be faithful.

Now, none of those things save us.

We’re saved by grace through faith.

But they put us in a position to have our faith strengthened, to have our hope increased, to receive grace, and to stand.

So many people call us to “stand” on our faith, right?

“Take a stand for Jesus.”

There’s an old hymn that says, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus.”

Well, today you have a chance to stand for Jesus.

What does that look like?

Paul tells us.

Pursue righteousness.

Pursue godliness.

Pursue faith.

Pursue love.

Pursue endurance.

Pursue gentleness.

Fight the good fight of the faith.

Take hold of eternal life.

It’s not about power or might or strength.

It’s not about getting everything right.

It’s not about moral perfection.

It’s about chasing after Jesus.

Chasing after Jesus with all that you are.

And letting the love of Jesus so infuse your life that you can’t help but love him and love others.

So don’t be passive in your faith today.

Be active.

Do your part.

Know that God has saved you.

And then respond—over and over and over again—to the grace God offers you.

So, thanks for being with me today.

I hope you have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Monday as we pick up with 2 Timothy, starting with chapter 1.

Have a great weekend.

See you then.

In 1 Timothy 6:3–10, Paul warns about controversy, discontentment, and the danger of loving money. Today we wrestle with what that means in a world filled with online outrage, suspicion, wealth, and endless distractions. Money itself isn’t the problem—our relationship to it is. Wealth can be a tremendous blessing when we understand it as something God has entrusted to us, but it becomes dangerous when it becomes our master. The question is ultimately about our first love: What are we really serving? Because we cannot serve both God and wealth—or God and anything else that takes first place in our lives.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Thursday morning. I hope you’re well today and that your week is going wonderfully.

It’s good to be with you as we continue studying Paul’s first letter to his mentee, Timothy.

Yesterday, we talked about slavery, and I really appreciated some of the conversations I was able to have with friends who watch these reflections or listen to the podcast. I hope this is a useful exercise for us—to take Scripture seriously while still wrestling with it.

Because it’s in the wrestling that we grow.

I think about one of my favorite passages in the Bible, in Genesis 32, when Jacob wrestles with God. I love that passage because, for me, faith sometimes does feel like hand-to-hand combat with God.

As I’ve shared with you before, I don’t have the gift of faith in quite the same way my wife does. My wife just has faith. She just naturally believes. I would give anything sometimes to have the kind of faith she has.

For me, it’s often intellectual wrestling—with myself and with God. So I’ve always identified a little bit with Jacob wrestling with God.

And I don’t want you to feel discouraged if, when you read the Bible, there’s some wrestling sometimes.

That’s not a bad thing.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have faith. It doesn’t mean you don’t believe the Bible. It doesn’t mean you don’t trust Jesus.

Sometimes we wrestle with these things.

And that’s okay.

Today is another passage where Paul gets all up in our business.

We’re in 1 Timothy 6, verses 3 through 10. Paul talks about those who teach things contrary to the sound words of Jesus. He describes people who have a craving for controversy and disputes about words, and he says that from these things come envy, dissension, slander, suspicion, and constant wrangling.

And then he talks about godliness and contentment.

He says that if we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of it. If we have food and clothing, we can be content with these things.

And then he gets to verse 10:

“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

You’ve probably heard that verse ten thousand times.

So let’s put it in context.

First, I think yesterday’s conversation about slavery helps us with something. For me, studying Scripture is always about looking at the principles Scripture teaches and then asking how we apply those principles to our daily lives.

The words matter.

But the words are pointing us toward something bigger.

So listen to what Paul says about controversy and think about the world we live in today.

He talks about people who have a morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words. From that come envy, dissension, slander, suspicion, and wrangling.

Does that not sound like the world we live in?

Does it not?

We live in a world full of controversy.

Envy. Dissension. Slander. Suspicion.

And I think so much of this is amplified by the controversies we consume on the internet. Our conspiracies and controversies often paint our enemies in the worst possible light. They encourage us to assume the worst about other people, to debase them, and to think less of them.

And Paul says, “Don’t do that.”

Don’t go there.

Don’t develop a morbid craving for controversy.

If we have a morbid craving for controversy, I think we need to check our walk with God and make sure we are walking in accordance with what Paul calls the sound words of Jesus.

When I read that passage, I thought, “Huh. That sounds a lot like the world we live in today, doesn’t it?”

But then let’s talk about this phrase: “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

Paul is talking about something very specific here.

And this is another place where I don’t want us to nuance ourselves into hell.

Jesus has some very clear teachings about the dangers of wealth.

He says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. He tells the rich young ruler to sell what he has and give to the poor.

But we also see people of significant means following Jesus.

Joseph of Arimathea, for example, provided a tomb for Jesus. That would have been an act of significant generosity. We see the woman who pours expensive ointment on Jesus.

There are people of wealth throughout Scripture who follow Jesus.

And we see this in the Methodist movement as well.

In the early days of Wesley’s movement, people were organized into class meetings. Sometimes the leaders of those class meetings were among the wealthier people in the community. Part of their responsibility was to help care for those who could not afford the small cost of participating.

Wesley certainly had plenty to say about wealthy people who claimed to be Christians but weren’t living faithfully. But there were wealthy Methodists.

So I don’t want us to simply say, “Well, Jesus wants everybody to give everything they have away.”

I think what Jesus wants is for us to be willing to give everything we have away.

There’s a difference.

Because when we’re willing to give everything away, our wealth no longer becomes an anchor to our souls.

It becomes a tool.

Resources, wealth, and money can be a great blessing.

I have seen it with my own two eyes in ministry.

I’ve seen people who have means care for others and do incredible things for others. I’ve seen it here in Starkville. I’ve seen it in Madison, in Pearl, in Ripley, in Choctaw County, and in the Delta.

I’ve seen it over and over and over again.

And I could tell you stories of people who have given in ways that almost nobody would ever see or know about. And they would probably come beat me up today if I told you what they did.

But I’ve seen it.

And these are people with means.

They understand that the means they have been given are meant to be a blessing to others.

That’s the warning Paul is giving here.

Especially for Christians—and especially for Christian leaders—we cannot give away our integrity, our soul, or who we are in the pursuit of wealth.

That’s the danger.

And that’s why Paul talks about the love of money.

Because what did Jesus say?

We cannot serve both God and wealth.

We can serve God and have wealth.

But if we serve God and have wealth, we understand that the wealth we have is simply a tool God has given us to support ministry, to care for others, and to build up the body of Christ.

We cannot serve God and wealth.

We can only serve God.

And by the way, that fills in the blank for anything else.

We cannot serve both God and SEC football.

We cannot serve both God and our hobbies.

We cannot serve both God and school.

We cannot serve both God and our careers.

We cannot serve both God and anything else.

But we can serve God and enjoy SEC football.

We can serve God and have hobbies.

We can serve God and be a good student.

We can serve God and have a good career.

Those things can become tools that help us grow closer to God, love God more, and serve others.

It’s about your first love.

And if your first love is anything other than Jesus, you’re going to be in trouble.

That’s what Paul is talking about.

He’s talking about people who are willing to sell their souls, their integrity, their very being, in pursuit of something as temporary as wealth.

You know, I’ve heard the old saying that some people are so poor, all they have is money.

And there’s another old joke about a man who dies and tells his family, “When I die, I want you to put all my money and all my gold in my casket.”

So he dies, and he gets to heaven with a wheelbarrow full of gold.

He gets to the gates, and Peter says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And the man says, “Thanks, Peter. But there’s one thing I wanted to know. Could I bring this wheelbarrow in with me?”

Peter looks confused.

“I guess.”

The man says, “Oh, good! I wanted to bring this with me.”

And Peter says, “But I don’t understand. Why would you want to bring a wheelbarrow full of gold into heaven?”

Because remember what Revelation says about the streets of heaven being paved with gold?

The point is that gold is the most valuable thing we can imagine here.

But in heaven, it’s asphalt.

It’s what you walk on.

It’s pavement.

So we can have wealth. We can have positions. We can have success. And most of us in the West have far more resources than most people throughout human history ever had.

But we can’t serve those things.

We can only serve God.

And then we can use whatever God has given us as a tool to serve him.

So the question today is simple:

What is your first love?

What is the thing you are ultimately serving?

Because if your first love is Jesus, everything else can find its proper place.

Hope this is helpful.

I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we’ll pick up tomorrow with verse 11 of chapter 6.

Thanks. See you.

Today we tackle one of the difficult passages in 1 Timothy: Paul’s words about slavery in 1 Timothy 6:1–2. How do we understand a passage like this in its first-century Roman context, especially when we know the terrible history of slavery in America? More importantly, how do we read Scripture when a particular passage seems to conflict with the larger story of the Bible? Today we’ll talk about the importance of context, translation, and reading difficult verses through the greater story of Scripture—the story of God moving toward freedom, justice, mercy, and liberation for the oppressed.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Wednesday morning. I hope you’re doing well and that life is going well for you.

We are in the midst of a busy season here at First UMC. We’re in stewardship season. We talked about it Sunday, and I’m looking forward to this coming Sunday when we’ll talk a little bit more about God’s fire in our lives.

Next week, we’re going to celebrate our 100th anniversary in the sanctuary with some really cool things, a potluck, and a lot of other good stuff. Then we’ll have our time of commitment at the end of the month.

I’ve always loved stewardship. When I first started preaching, I didn’t really like talking about it. But now I’ve come to see it as part of a bigger whole of our lives. I never want to browbeat people about giving. I just want us to understand that God deserves all that we have and all that we are.

And speaking of God deserving all that we are, today’s passage is a hard one.

I want to provide a little bit of context, but I also want to talk about how we read the Bible.

Today we’re in 1 Timothy 6, verses 1 and 2. Paul writes:

He talks about those who are “under the yoke of slavery” and tells them to regard their masters as worthy of honor, so that the name of God and the teaching might not be blasphemed. He then addresses slaves whose masters are believers and tells them not to take advantage of that relationship.

Two verses.

But there is a lot here.

So I want to do three things today. First, I want to provide some context for slavery in the Roman world. Then I want to talk about slavery in the American context. And finally, I want to talk about how we read Scripture.

First, slavery in the Roman world.

I’ve shared with you before that biblical translation is more of an art than a science. There are so many words in Greek that don’t translate perfectly into English.

Here Paul talks about those who are under the “yoke of slavery.” Some translations use the word “bondservant,” and there’s a real debate about which term is more appropriate. There isn’t always a perfect one-to-one translation.

But whatever translation we use here, we need to understand that this passage is talking about slavery. These were people who, for all intents and purposes, were owned by another person. They were not free agents. They were not employees. They were slaves.

Now, there are some important differences between slavery in the Roman world and slavery in the American context.

Some people in the Roman world entered slavery because of debt. Others were enslaved as a result of warfare and conquest. And slavery could take a variety of forms.

Slavery in the Roman world also was not based on race in the way that American chattel slavery was.

That distinction is incredibly important.

American slavery was a racialized system in which Africans and their descendants were enslaved. The American system of chattel slavery was one of the great evils of our history, and its racial character was a fundamental part of that evil.

Roman slavery and American slavery were not identical systems.

But that does not make Roman slavery good. Slavery is still the ownership and exploitation of human beings.

And this is where we have to be very careful when we read Scripture.

Because before the Civil War, many American Christians used passages like this one to defend slavery.

I read a great book a few years ago called The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, and one of the things it discusses is how the Civil War became a theological crisis for American Christianity. Christians were reading the same Bible and coming to radically different conclusions about slavery.

Many people who supported slavery pointed to passages like this one and said, “The Bible clearly supports slavery.”

Others took a more moderate position and said, essentially, “The Bible may regulate slavery, but the overall direction of Scripture bends toward freedom.”

And abolitionists often struggled with how to use Scripture in the argument because they knew there were passages like this one.

But here’s something I think is incredibly important:

African American Christians, including enslaved Christians, often read the Bible differently.

They didn’t read the Bible primarily as a book about slavery.

They read it as a book about freedom.

Why?

Because they understood the story Scripture was telling.

What is one of the dominant narratives of the Old Testament?

Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery.

God hears the cries of enslaved people, delivers them from Egypt, and leads them toward freedom.

And you see this movement throughout Scripture toward inclusion, justice, mercy, and freedom.

Then Jesus comes, and one of the first sermons Luke records Jesus preaching is about proclaiming release to the captives.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously talked about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice.

And I think there’s something important about that idea when we read Scripture.

The story Scripture is telling is not a story that glorifies slavery.

It is a story that moves toward freedom for the oppressed.

That’s why I think the African American church was able to read these difficult passages in a different way. They understood the story the Bible was telling, and they placed the hard verses within the larger story of Scripture.

And that brings me to the final point: How do we read Scripture?

I was talking with a young man recently about Scripture and about understanding its depth. We were talking about how important it is to apply nuance and to understand context.

But I told him something I’ve said before:

We can nuance ourselves to hell.

We can explain away almost anything if we want to.

So we have to read the Bible with integrity.

And that means we have to read the whole thing.

We can’t just read the parts we like.

We can’t ignore a difficult passage because we don’t like it. We have to wrestle with it.

This passage is hard.

Christians throughout the ages have struggled with passages like this one. Paul was writing in a particular context, to people living in a particular world. We need to understand that context.

And at the same time, we need to read Paul alongside the rest of Paul.

Paul also says that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, because all are one in Christ.

Paul condemns those who engage in kidnapping and enslaving people.

So we have to read the hard verses.

But we also have to read them in the broader context of what Scripture is telling us.

Be very careful of what I sometimes call the “clear reading” of Scripture.

“Well, the Bible plainly says…”

Okay.

Let’s look at the translation.

Let’s look at the context.

Let’s look at the broader story.

And let’s ask what Scripture is really telling us and where the story is pushing us.

I’ve told you before: read the hard parts through the easy parts.

But I actually think we need to go one step further.

Read the hard parts through the greater story of the Bible.

Because sometimes it’s not just one verse against another verse. Sometimes the greater story of Scripture gives us the framework for understanding a difficult verse.

That’s how I think we have to approach passages like this.

And I understand people who struggle with the Bible because of verses like these.

I really do.

It grieves me that verses like this have caused harm.

It grieves me that preachers have preached sermons defending slavery and used passages like this to justify it. It grieves me that the Bible was used to justify families being separated and people being treated as property.

So we have to wrestle with these things.

We have to understand the world Paul lived in.

We have to understand the terrible reality of American slavery.

And we have to understand the larger story of Scripture—the story that bends toward freedom, justice, mercy, and liberation for the oppressed.

If we’re going to read the Bible faithfully, we have to read all of it.

Even the hard parts.

Especially the hard parts.

So thanks for being with me today. I hope this has been helpful.

I’ll pick up tomorrow with the rest of chapter 6.

See you then.

In today’s reflection, Andy looks at 1 Timothy 5:17–25 and Paul’s advice about church leadership, ordination, spiritual formation, and integrity. Andy reflects on why the church should not ordain people hastily and why the formation of a minister’s character is ultimately more important than the public skills of preaching, teaching, or leadership. He also shares personally about the sacredness of ministry, the generosity of God’s people, and the responsibility of receiving income that comes from people’s acts of worship. Ultimately, this passage reminds us that talent should never outpace integrity and that faithful ministry is formed in the quiet work of prayer, accountability, mentorship, and spiritual growth.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning. It’s good to be with you on this Tuesday morning. I hope you are well today and that your week has started off well.

It’s great to be with you as we continue our time in 1 Timothy. We’ve broken chapter 5 up into several sections, and today we’re going to finish out chapter 5. Tomorrow we’re going to look at one of the more challenging parts of 1 Timothy. There are a couple of challenging passages in this letter, especially when Paul talks about women, which you can go back and read if you want to. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what Paul says about slavery, and there’s a lot to unpack there.

But today, we’re going to finish chapter 5 as Paul talks about elders and those who lead the church. So let’s read 1 Timothy 5:17–25.

“Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; for the scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves to be paid.’

“Never accept an accusation against an elder on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I warn you to keep these instructions without prejudice, doing nothing on the basis of partiality. Do not ordain anyone hastily, and do not participate in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.

“No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.

“The sins of some people are conspicuous and go before them to judgment, while the sins of others follow them there. So also good works are conspicuous, and even when they are not, they cannot remain hidden.”

There’s just some general counsel here that Paul gives Timothy, and then we get this interesting little verse in verse 23: “No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.”

I don’t want to delve too deeply into all the biblical stuff about alcohol, but the people of that day knew that wine had certain medicinal properties. They didn’t necessarily understand why it worked. They just knew that it helped.

One of the great examples is the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan finds the man on the side of the road who has been beaten and injured, and he pours oil and wine on his wounds. They didn’t understand everything about germs and infection the way we do today, but the alcohol in the wine could help kill bacteria and clean the wounds.

Apparently Timothy had some stomach problems. As somebody who has some stomach issues myself, I understand that when your stomach is hurting, life is no fun. So Paul is giving Timothy a little medical advice: “Hey, maybe drinking only water isn’t helping you. Take a little wine for your stomach.”

John Wesley actually wrote a book of ailments and home remedies called Primitive Physick. He drew on some of the medical knowledge of his time and offered various home remedies. So there’s a little connection here between Paul saying, “Hey, Timothy, do this for your stomach,” and Wesley later offering practical remedies for people in his own day.

But then Paul gets into something that I think is really important. He says that the sins of some people are obvious, while the sins of others follow them. The same thing is true of good works. Our lives eventually reveal who we are.

And then there’s this verse that really catches my attention:

“Do not ordain anyone hastily.”

And then he says, “Do not participate in the sins of others.”

In other words, just because somebody else is doing something doesn’t mean you should do it too. As our parents used to say, “If someone jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too?”

No. You don’t just follow somebody because they’re doing something.

And I really appreciate what Paul says about ordination: “Do not ordain anyone hastily.”

I was talking with someone one time about ordination in our connection as United Methodists. I told them that, from the time you start the process—really, if you start the process before you even enter seminary—it can be at least six or seven years before you are ordained, and probably longer depending on when you accepted the call.

Even after you finish seminary, in our tradition it is a minimum of three more years, and it can be as many as five years before you are ordained.

And you know what?

That’s a long time.

And it should be a long time.

I used to sit on our conference Board of Ordained Ministry, the group that helps approve people for ordination, and I really believe it should take a while.

If the church is entrusting you with the care of other people’s souls, that should be something that takes time.

Not just for your education, although obviously education is important. But for your spiritual formation.

You need to be formed by the church. You need to be formed to lead, to pray, to preach, to care for people. And preaching is important. It really is.

But to me, as a pastor, spiritual formation and maturity take precedence over the skills—the things you see, the public parts of ministry.

Today, everybody sees the preaching. Everybody sees the videos. Everybody sees the podcasts. Everybody sees the public parts of ministry.

But honestly, that’s not the vital formation of ministry.

The vital formation of ministry is the quiet formation that comes through prayer and study, accountability, mentorship, coaching, and relationships with people who are willing to speak truth into your life.

And those things don’t stop when you’re ordained.

I’m still being formed in the same way I was when I was going through the ordination process.

I was ordained in 2006, so this is my twentieth year in ordained ministry. And I’m thankful for it. But I’m still being spiritually formed by mentors in many of the same ways I was when I was going through the ordination process.

And it should be that way.

Don’t ordain anyone hastily.

If you’re in ministry, or if you’re entering the ministry, you shouldn’t be afraid of people testing your call. Bishop Swanson told us years ago, “When someone questions your call, that’s an opportunity for you to explain your call story.”

And I think that’s exactly right.

We should be tested.

People should ask us questions. People should lean into our calling. People should make sure that what we say we are called to do is actually being lived out in our lives.

Because Paul says, “Do not ordain anyone hastily.”

Then he talks about those who lead being worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

He says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The laborer deserves to be paid.”

I’m not going to say too much about that from my own perspective because, as a pastor, I don’t really want to spend a lot of time talking about my salary or things like that.

My dad was a truck driver.

I’m doing okay.

I’m very thankful. I’m very thankful for the life that my churches have afforded me, and I’m incredibly thankful for the generosity of God’s people.

But I’ll tell you something that I share with my staff, and I think about this a lot.

I take very seriously the sacredness of ministry.

And I understand that every dollar I’ve ever been paid by the church—whether it’s my salary as a pastor or an honorarium for speaking somewhere—is sacred.

Why?

Because it was the gift of someone’s worship.

Someone gave their tithe and offerings to the church as an act of worship. And those gifts are what pay the salaries of the clergy and the staff.

So I try to impress upon my staff not only the sacredness of our task, which is incredibly sacred, but also the sacredness of our income.

The dollars that we receive are sacred because they were given by the people of God as an act of worship.

So when I read this passage as a pastor, it humbles me.

It really does.

I’m humbled by the faithfulness of God’s people and by the grace that God’s people have shown to me throughout my years of ministry.

I’ve been under appointment since 1999. I was preaching before I was ordained. And I am so humbled—so humbled—by the goodness of God’s people who have allowed me to serve them.

It’s humbling to come to you each morning and spend this time in reflection.

So thank you for allowing me to do it.

Paul tells Timothy that our ministers should be tested and tried.

They should be.

And we as ministers shouldn’t feel bad about that.

And if you’re a layperson, you should want your clergy to be tested.

You should want your clergy to be people of integrity.

There was a podcast a few years ago about a pastor who essentially imploded, and there was a line from that podcast that has stuck with me ever since. It said:

“His talent outpaced his integrity.”

That has always stayed with me.

I want to make sure that my integrity always goes first.

Because the public parts of ministry—the preaching, the teaching, the podcasting, the videos—those things are important.

But they are not the foundation.

The foundation is who we are when nobody is watching.

It’s the quiet work of prayer.

It’s the spiritual formation.

It’s accountability.

It’s integrity.

It’s becoming the kind of person who can be trusted with the care of other people’s souls.

So Paul’s words to Timothy are good words for all of us: don’t ordain anyone hastily, don’t participate in the sins of others, and make sure that your life is being formed in such a way that your character can carry the weight of your calling.

Thanks for being with me today. Tomorrow we’ll pick up one of the more challenging parts of 1 Timothy, when Paul talks about slavery.

There’s a lot to unpack there, so we’ll spend some time talking about it.

Thanks for being with me. Have a great day, and I’ll see you in the morning.

In today’s reflection from 1 Timothy 5:9–16, we continue Paul’s discussion of widows and the church’s responsibility to care for those in need. But the passage also raises a larger question about Christian vocation and service. Not every Christian is called to full-time professional ministry, but every Christian is called to serve. Our work, our families, our churches, and our communities can all become places where we live out that calling. The question isn’t whether God has called you to serve—it’s where God is calling you to serve. Today, consider where your gifts, your life, and your circumstances might be an invitation from God to serve others.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning. I hope you’re doing well today on this Monday morning. I hope you had a great weekend, and wherever you found yourself, I hope it was a good one.

It’s fall break here in Starkville. There was some fall break last week, there’s some more this week, and there’ll be some more next week. So it’s going to be a little bit of a different week here at church. We don’t have Wednesday night programming, which is going to be different. It’s one of those firsts as I’m still learning my routines up here.

I tell people when you move somewhere new, it takes about six months to figure out where all the bathrooms are. So there’s always something to learn and something to observe.

Today we’re going to be in 1 Timothy 5, verses 9 through 16. This is really a continuation of what we talked about Friday with widows and the church’s responsibility toward them.

Paul makes a distinction between widows who are truly without support and those who still have family or other means of caring for themselves. The widows who are placed on the church’s list are described as women who have been faithful in their lives—women who have raised children, shown hospitality, served others, helped the afflicted, and devoted themselves to doing good.

So this isn’t simply a status that comes from a circumstance of life. It’s a circumstance of life accompanied by evidence of faithfulness.

And I think there’s something important for us to consider here when it comes to how we serve the church.

Especially in churches that are more interconnected and hierarchical, like the Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, or the Catholic Church, there’s a real understanding that the church has a role in discerning how we are called to serve.

In my own discernment about ordination and my call to ministry, I always came back to the question, “What does the church say?” I can feel called to ministry. I can feel called to something. But ultimately, I have to ask, “Where does the church believe my gifts fit best?”

And in some ways, serving the church means giving up some ownership of yourself. It means being willing to say, “I’m going to serve wherever God and the church believe I can best serve.”

And I think that’s important because it’s humbling.

Our world seeks power. Our world seeks fame. Our world seeks status and control. But in some ways, service in the church is about giving those things up. It’s about allowing the Spirit to lead and allowing the church to say, “You have this gift, so we want you to use it here.”

That’s what I think we see with these widows.

The older widows Paul describes aren’t simply people who have experienced a tragedy in their lives. They are people who have also demonstrated a life of faithfulness and service. They’re essentially saying, “For whatever time God gives me on this earth, my life belongs completely and totally to God.”

Now, Paul makes a distinction with the younger widows.

And just a little bit of context is important here. Women married incredibly early in that culture, so it would not have been uncommon for a woman to become a widow fairly early in life, when she was still young enough to remarry and have children.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s nothing wrong with being a widow. There’s nothing wrong with remarrying. There’s nothing wrong with having children. The issue Paul is addressing is the making of a promise and then violating that promise.

If these women make a pledge to remain widows and devote themselves to this particular form of service, then they need to take that pledge seriously.

But there are other ways to serve God.

And I think that’s really important for us to remember.

Your vocation is not simply your job. Every Christian is called to vocation. Every Christian is called to service. But that does not mean every Christian is called to full-time, professional employment by the church.

I heard Sky Jethani, the Christian podcaster, make a distinction that I really liked. He said the question isn’t simply, “Are you called to ministry?” The question is, “Are you called to be paid for ministry?”

Because all of us are called to ministry.

And I think that’s the distinction Paul is making here. These younger widows are no less called to serve the church than the older widows. Their service may simply look different.

For some, their service may involve raising a family. For others, it may involve serving in other ways. For these older widows, their particular calling may involve a more full-time vocation of service to the church.

But one call is not better than another.

I’m called to preach. That’s not a better calling than your calling to be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer, a ditch digger—whatever it is you’re called to do.

I have a different call. It doesn’t make it a better call.

And we all have a call to serve the church.

I was joking with somebody recently about retirement. I’m 50 this year, and hopefully I’ve got a lot of life left in me. But I also know I’m closer to the end of my ministry than I am to the beginning.

I’ve been preaching for nearly 30 years. I’ve probably got somewhere around 20 years until traditional retirement age, although I may not do that.

But there’s going to come a time when I retire from full-time pastoral ministry, and I still want to serve. But I might also want to go fishing.

And that’s okay.

We all have lives apart from the church. But our faith continues outside of the church.

I think that’s the thing.

Our Christian vocation and our Christian service aren’t simply about what happens inside the church building.

In our United Methodist membership vows, we promise to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. And I’ve always thought there’s an important distinction between service and witness.

Service is how we serve within the church.

How do we serve? Maybe it’s preaching. Maybe it’s ushering. Maybe it’s teaching. Maybe it’s working with children. Maybe it’s picking up trash. Whatever it is, all of those areas of service matter. They’re all needed.

But witness is how we live out our faith beyond the walls of the church.

So we have a calling to both.

And I think that’s what we see here. The older widows have a particular calling to vocational service within the church. The younger widows have other callings, including family and other forms of service.

But here’s the reality, friends:

You’re called to serve.

You’re called to serve.

If you’re a Christian, if you’re a baptized believer, you have a call to service.

The question is not whether you’re called to serve.

The question is: Where?

Where is God calling you to serve?

I used to, when I was younger, whenever a little kid would come to church dressed up in a suit or something, I’d say, “Oh, are you going to be a preacher?”

I’ve stopped making that joke with kids.

And here’s why: I don’t want a kid to ever internalize the idea that the only way they can serve God is by becoming a preacher.

The Lord needs all kinds of Christians all over the world.

So it’s not, “Are you called to serve?”

It’s, “Where are you called to serve?”

So have a great day. Serve today, and see what God does with it.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

In 1 Timothy 5:1–8, Paul moves into practical instructions for how Christians should live together. He talks about treating one another as family, speaking with respect and honesty, caring for widows, and balancing our responsibilities to our families with our responsibility to the wider community. Today we explore the idea that our theology should affect how we live together. What we believe about God should show up in how we speak, how we disagree, how we care for one another, and how we carry one another’s burdens.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning, friends. It’s good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope you’ve got some big plans for the weekend.

It’s a big weekend here in Starkville. State and Alabama are playing, so I think the SEC Network is coming to town. It’s going to be an 11:00 kickoff, so I hope you’re making your plans to come up to Stark Vegas and be part of all the fun happening around here.

And if you are planning to come to Starkville this weekend for the ball game, like I said last weekend, make plans to stay and worship with us at First United Methodist Church.

We had a great Sunday last Sunday, and we’ve got another great Sunday planned. I’m excited about what God is doing here at First Church.

So if you’re coming to Starkville for the ball game, bring your church clothes, stay the night, and make plans to worship with us at 10:00 on Sunday morning.

Starkville First, right downtown, right in the heart of downtown. Just come on down, and there we are.

We’d love to have you with us.

Today we’re starting 1 Timothy chapter 5. It’s a longer chapter, but it breaks up really well. So even though my Bible doesn’t necessarily divide it into all the sections we’re going to use, I’m going to break it up.

Today we’re going to look at verses 1 through 8. Monday we’ll look at verses 9 through 16, and then we’ll keep going from there.

Paul says:

“Do not speak harshly to an older man, but speak to him as to a father; to younger men as brothers, to older women as mothers, to younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”

Then he moves into a discussion about widows and the responsibility of families and the church to care for one another.

Paul has given Timothy a lot of instructions so far.

Teach this.

Stay away from that.

Act this way.

Don’t act that way.

And chapter 5 is really practical.

That’s actually a pattern you see throughout Paul’s letters.

I made this joke in Bible study the other night, but it’s actually pretty true. Paul has a pattern.

First, he introduces himself: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.”

Sometimes he spends a little time defending his apostleship.

Then comes the second part: some wonderful theological statement or beautiful word of praise about God and God’s work.

And then comes part three.

Some correction.

Some practical instruction.

Usually a little fussing.

I saw a meme once that basically summarized it as, “I’m asking you, for all that is holy in the world, for five minutes, just act like you have some sense.”

And then, of course, part four is the greetings at the end.

“Timothy says hello.”

“Greet everybody for me.”

So we’re moving into the practical part of Paul’s letter.

And I think there’s something really important about that.

Our theology should affect how we live together.

What we believe should show up in how we treat one another.

Our theology can’t simply be something we believe in our heads. It has to affect how we speak to one another, how we work together, how we disagree, how we care for one another, and how we live together.

If our theology doesn’t affect our life together, then we have to ask ourselves whether we really believe our theology.

Because what we believe is ultimately demonstrated by how we act.

So Paul begins by talking about how we speak to each other.

Treat older men like fathers.

Treat younger men like brothers.

Older women like mothers.

Younger women like sisters.

In other words, how we speak to each other matters.

And I think that’s incredibly important in the life of the church.

We should speak kindly to one another.

But I don’t think “kindly” is the only word that matters.

We should also speak honestly.

And honestly, with love.

Speaking honestly doesn’t mean that we paper over every conflict.

Sometimes churches become unhealthy because nobody is willing to say, “Hey, we disagree about this.”

There may be theological disagreements.

There may be practical disagreements.

There may be things happening in the life of the church that aren’t working well.

And it can actually be unhealthy if we refuse to acknowledge those things.

So treating each other like family doesn’t mean that we pretend everything is always wonderful.

Families disagree.

Families have hard conversations.

Families have conflict.

But healthy families learn how to have those conversations with honesty, love, respect, and care.

That’s what I think Paul is calling us to do in the church.

And then he turns to widows.

Widows are an interesting part of the life of the early church.

You may remember in Acts that one of the early conflicts in the church involved widows not receiving the food and care they needed.

In this particular passage, Paul is talking about widows who have no other support.

If a widow has children or grandchildren, Paul says that the family has a responsibility to care for her.

But if someone is truly alone, without family or other support, then the church is called to step in and care for her.

And I think there’s an important principle here.

The church has a responsibility to care for people who are vulnerable.

But individuals and families also have responsibilities.

We have responsibilities to one another.

I think one of my primary responsibilities as a Christian is to care for my family—to care for my wife, to care for my children, to support them and make sure that they are taken care of.

But that’s not the end of my responsibility.

Once I’ve cared for my family, I’m called to care for others.

It’s not either/or.

It’s both/and.

Sometimes I’ve heard people say, “Well, we just need to take care of our own families.”

No.

That’s not the whole Christian story.

We’re also called to love our neighbors. We’re called to care for people beyond our immediate circle. We’re called to be like the Good Samaritan and see the needs of people around us.

But there is also a responsibility to our families.

And I think Paul gives us a healthy balance here.

We care for our families.

We care for our church.

We care for our neighbors.

We care for the people God places in our lives.

And here’s the other thing: there may come a time when I can’t take care of myself or my family.

There may come a time when I need the church.

There may come a time when I need my friends.

There may come a time when I need someone else to help take care of me.

And I want to be part of a community where we do that for one another.

Paul tells us elsewhere to bear our own burdens and to bear one another’s burdens.

We’re called to take responsibility for ourselves as much as we’re able, so that we can also help carry the burdens of other people.

Because eventually, every one of us is going to have a season when we can’t carry everything ourselves.

And when that time comes, we need one another.

So I think there’s a really beautiful picture of Christian community here.

Take care of your family.

Take care of one another.

Take care of the church.

Take care of your neighbors.

Speak to one another with honesty.

Speak with love.

Speak with respect.

And live out what you believe.

Because our theology should show up in the way we live together.

We’ll continue looking at Paul’s instructions for how we live together next week.

Thanks for being with us today.

And again, if you’re coming to Starkville this weekend for the ball game, come see us at First United Methodist Church on Sunday morning at 10:00.

Have a great weekend, friends.

See ya.

In 1 Timothy 4:6–16, Paul encourages Timothy not to let his youth or his perceived inadequacies keep him from leading faithfully. Instead, Timothy is told to set an example, train himself in godliness, and—perhaps most importantly—not neglect the gift God has given him. Today we talk about inadequacy, comparison, spiritual training, and the unique gifts God has given each of us. We may not have someone else’s gifts, abilities, or calling, but God has given each of us something to use for the good of the kingdom. The question is: Are we using it?

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning, friends. It’s good to be with you on this Thursday morning. I hope you’re doing well.

It’s good to be back in my normal abode after yesterday’s road trip. It’s nice to be back in my office with a computer in front of me, my iPhone up there, my Bible here, no motorcycles passing by, and a little bit of sun coming in the window.

Of course, I’m recording this late in the afternoon, so the sun is shining directly on top of me. Maybe the sun is my angelic glow that we all know and love so well.

Although, as I tell people when I say I sing like an angel, I’m often reminded that Lucifer was a fallen angel.

So, you know… potato, potahto.

Today we’re going to finish up 1 Timothy 4. We’re going to read verses 6 through 16.

Paul is giving Timothy some very practical instructions about what it means to be a pastor, a minister, and a follower of Jesus.

And there’s one verse in particular that really catches my attention.

Paul tells Timothy:

“Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct and love and faith and purity.”

Timothy was young.

We don’t know exactly how young he was, but he was young. Paul was older, more experienced, and more seasoned. Timothy was the younger person who was now being asked to lead.

And I think it would have been very easy for Timothy to feel inadequate.

Maybe people would dismiss him because of his age. Maybe people would look at him and think, “What does this young guy know?”

And so Paul says, essentially, “Don’t let that define you. Instead, set an example.”

And I think that’s a word that all of us need to hear.

We all have something in our lives that makes us feel inadequate.

I don’t know what yours is.

Maybe it’s your age.

Maybe it’s your education.

Maybe it’s your history.

Maybe it’s some failure you’ve experienced.

Maybe it’s something somebody said about you years ago that you’ve never quite gotten over.

We’ve all got something.

And if you think you don’t have an inadequacy, maybe your arrogance is your inadequacy.

We’ve all got something.

For Timothy, it was his youth. It was the thing that other people could use to discount him or disregard him.

Paul says, “Don’t do that.”

Instead, set an example in your speech, your conduct, your love, your faith, and your purity.

Read Scripture.

Teach.

Exhort.

Pay attention to what God has given you.

And then Paul says something else that I really love:

“Do not neglect the gift that is in you.”

Friends, you have a gift.

I don’t know what your specific gift is.

I don’t know what it is that God has uniquely given you.

But you’ve got something.

Every one of us who is breathing God’s air today, every one of us who is living this life, has some kind of giftedness.

There’s something that you can do for the good of God’s kingdom.

And it is so easy to ignore that.

It’s so easy to feel inadequate.

And it’s so easy to compare ourselves to other people.

Comparison is a thief of joy.

We look at somebody else and say, “Well, I don’t have what they have.”

Maybe it’s a particular gift.

Maybe it’s an ability.

Maybe it’s their personality.

Maybe it’s their career.

Maybe it’s their preaching.

I know I’ve done this.

I hear some preachers and I think, “Man, I wish I were that good.”

I think I’m okay, but there are certainly preachers who make me feel inadequate.

Or administration.

I’ve had to work hard at administration. I see people who are naturally gifted at it, and I think, “Man, I wish that came naturally to me.”

But Paul doesn’t give Timothy the option of saying, “Well, somebody else has a better gift, so I’ll just sit this one out.”

No.

You’ve got a gift.

Timothy had a gift.

Paul says, don’t neglect it.

Use it.

Practice it.

Pray about it.

Pay attention to it.

And then Paul gives us another image that I really love.

He says to train yourself in godliness.

He says physical training has some value, but godliness is valuable in every way.

And I think that’s an important reminder for us.

We spend a lot of time training our bodies.

We want to be healthy. We want to take care of ourselves physically.

And that’s a good thing.

But are we training ourselves spiritually?

Are you training yourself spiritually?

Are you stretching yourself?

Are you challenging yourself?

Are you attempting things that require you to depend upon God?

I remember a book from probably twenty years ago called Fit Body, Fat Mind. The basic idea was that sometimes Christians are very concerned about physical fitness but don’t spend nearly as much time training their minds and their spirits.

And Paul is saying, train yourself in godliness.

One of the ways we train spiritually is by attempting things for God that we can’t accomplish entirely on our own.

Think about physical training.

When you lift weights, you don’t lift something that’s easy. You lift something that’s difficult.

You stress the muscle, your body recovers, and you become stronger.

There’s a similar principle in our spiritual lives.

If we only ever do things for God that we know we can accomplish entirely through our own strength, we’re probably not going to grow very much.

So when was the last time you tried something big for God?

When was the last time you swung for the fences?

When was the last time you looked at something and said, “I can’t do this on my own strength. But I’m going to try it anyway, because I believe God can work through me”?

That’s training for godliness.

Read your Bible.

Pray.

Fast.

Serve.

Give.

Love people who are difficult to love.

Take a step of faith.

Try something that stretches you.

Because we want to be physically healthy, yes.

But we also want to be spiritually fit.

Paul tells Timothy, “You’ve got this gift. Don’t neglect it.”

And I think that’s the word I want to leave with you today.

Don’t neglect what God has given you.

Don’t let your inadequacies convince you that you have nothing to offer.

Don’t let comparison convince you that somebody else’s gift makes yours insignificant.

God has given you something.

So live into it.

Practice it.

Train yourself.

Use it.

And use whatever God has given you for the purpose God has placed in front of you.

Thanks for being with me today, friends.

Have a great rest of your day, and we’ll pick up tomorrow with 1 Timothy chapter 5.

See you in the morning.

In 1 Timothy 4:1–5, Paul warns against a kind of false holiness that focuses on rules, appearances, and denying things God has created rather than allowing God’s grace to transform our hearts. In today’s reflection, we look at the early church’s debates over food, Jewish dietary laws, and food sacrificed to idols, and then consider what holiness really means. As a Wesleyan Christian, Andy understands holiness ultimately as perfect love—the grace of God transforming us so that we love God and love our neighbors. The goal isn’t to look like a super-Christian; it’s to actually become more like Jesus.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning, friends. I hope you’re doing well today as we continue together in our daily reflections through 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, and then probably Philemon.

If you’re watching this on YouTube or Facebook, you may be thinking, “Why is Andy in the Bahamas?”

I’m not.

I’m at T-Bones in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

As you know, I record early, so it is actually Tuesday afternoon as I’m recording this. I came down to Hattiesburg early today to work out of a coffee shop. My daughter has a concert tonight at 6:00 at Southern Miss, so I decided to get up early, get started, and drive down here.

Instead of wasting the day, I figured I’d come on down and work. That’s why God gave us laptops and the internet, right?

I’ve been working here, and now I’m recording outside on the porch at T-Bones.

I also got a Willie Nelson record today for about fourteen dollars, so I’m pretty excited about that.

I’m going to head over to Southern Miss in a little while, watch my daughter’s concert, and then head home tonight. So Wednesday morning, I’ll be back at church, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Well, maybe.

You may hear Hardy Street in the background. And if you hear some other noises, well, that’s part of the joy of recording outside.

So today we’re in 1 Timothy, chapter 4. We’re going to read verses 1 through 5.

Paul says that the Spirit has made it clear that, in later times, some will turn away from the faith by following deceptive spirits and teachings. He talks about people who forbid marriage and require people to abstain from certain foods—things God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

And then Paul makes this statement: everything created by God is good when it is received with thanksgiving, and it is made holy through God’s word and prayer.

Now, food is a constant issue in the early church, and there are really two major reasons for that.

First, you have the Jewish dietary laws.

In the Old Testament, particularly in the Levitical laws, there were certain things that people could and could not eat. These laws were connected to holiness—to being set apart.

God is holy, and God’s people were called to be holy. So there were practices that distinguished Israel from the people around them.

And many Jewish people today, particularly Orthodox Jews, continue to observe kosher dietary laws.

I remember a story my late friend Sam Morris used to tell about taking a group of pastors to Israel. And, of course, there’s not much that we like better in the South than a good sausage biscuit.

Well, you’re not going to find a lot of sausage biscuits in Israel.

The group had an opportunity to ask a rabbi some questions, and one of the pastors asked, “Why can’t we have sausage and biscuits?”

The rabbi said, “Because we keep kosher.”

And the pastor said, “Well, what’s wrong with sausage and biscuits?”

The rabbi said, “Nothing.”

And he said, “Well, then why can’t we have them?”

“Because we’re Jewish.”

And I think that’s actually a helpful way to understand the issue.

The sausage itself isn’t evil.

The food isn’t inherently sinful.

The point was that Israel was set apart. The dietary laws were part of the way God’s people were distinguished from the people around them.

Then you get into the Gentile context, where you have another food issue: food sacrificed to idols.

This comes up repeatedly in Paul’s writings.

Food could be offered to Roman gods as part of meals, trade guilds, or various other social and religious practices. And Christians had to wrestle with whether they should eat that food.

Paul’s basic argument was that idols aren’t really gods, so the food itself isn’t magically changed by being associated with an idol.

But Paul also says that we have to be careful about how our freedom affects other people.

So again, the food itself isn’t really the point.

The question is: What does this mean? What is the purpose? What is the intent?

And that’s what I think Paul is getting at here.

He talks about people who “forbid marriage and abstain from certain foods.” My Bible calls this false asceticism—the idea that denying yourself certain things somehow makes you more spiritually holy.

And I think God is much more concerned with us actually being holy than with us appearing to be super holy.

Our holiness, our sanctification, our faithfulness, isn’t something we do for the eyes of other people so that we can look impressive.

It’s not about appearances.

Jesus talks about this in the Sermon on the Mount. When you pray, don’t pray simply so other people will see you praying. If you’re doing something for the praise of other people, then their praise is your reward.

And I think Paul is making a similar point here.

Don’t focus so much on the things that make you look holy.

Don’t focus so much on religious legalism that you can check off a list and then convince everybody else that you’re a super-Christian.

That’s not what holiness is.

Holiness is about receiving what God has given us with thanksgiving and allowing God’s grace to transform us.

And, as a United Methodist and a Wesleyan, I understand holiness ultimately as perfect love.

The grace of God is shed abroad in our hearts. That grace transforms us so that we love God and love our neighbor.

That’s holiness.

It’s not simply perfect outward behavior.

It’s not legalism.

It’s not religious optics.

It’s love.

Paul says it beautifully in 1 Corinthians 13: If we can speak beautifully, if we have incredible faith, if we can do amazing things, but we don’t have love, then we’ve missed the point.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

That’s the kind of holiness God is after.

So everything God created is good when we receive it with thanksgiving and allow it to be sanctified through God’s word and prayer.

And I think that’s an important word for us today.

If you want to listen to K-Love, great.

If you don’t, that’s fine, too.

If you want to wear Christian T-shirts and Christian products, great.

If you don’t, that’s okay.

If you want to post a Bible verse on Facebook, great.

If you don’t, that’s okay.

Those things may be good things. But they aren’t the measure of your holiness.

Your holiness isn’t ultimately seen in the outward optics of looking super Christian.

Your holiness is seen in the perfect love of God being poured into your heart, transforming you so that you love God and love your neighbor with everything you have.

So let’s keep the main thing the main thing.

Let’s not become so focused on the optics of holiness that we miss holiness itself.

Instead, let’s allow God’s grace to transform us—to make us more like our beautiful God and Savior.

Thanks for being with me today. I hope you enjoyed the motorcycle that just went flying past me.

That’s the joy of recording outside.

We’ll be back in our normal space tomorrow.

Have a great day, friends.

See you!

As a kid, I used to joke that I was the only Methodist I knew. There weren’t many Methodists (of any stripe) at my school, and most of my church friends went to another school. As a teenager, looking for identity and uniqueness, that Methodist identity became a key part of who I was. In some ways, at that point I felt like I was more proud of being a Methodist than I was of being a Christian. As I grew spiritually and theologically, that Methodist identity, but especially as I came to understand it as my United Methodist identity, became even more a part of who I was. When my wife and I were engaged, we struggled at one point about whether we were actually going to get married. She (like everyone else in Mississippi) was Baptist, and I was a United Methodist pastor. And you know what United Methodist pastors do to their babies? They baptize them. To a good Southern Baptist, that’s a lot. So, we had to figure that out. But I wasn’t going to leave my identity as a United Methodist or my call as a pastor. It was too much a part of my family and me. A few months after we were married, my wife told me that if something ever happened to me, she’d stay United Methodist. It is a core part of who we are. When my brother died, the United Methodist cross and flame is actually on his tombstone. It reminds me of an old saying I’ve heard (with a little addition from me): (United) Methodist born, (United) Methodist bred, and when I die, I’m (United) Methodist dead.

We are a few years out from what I jokingly call the “Methapocalypse” when many United Methodist Churches had moments of decisions and votes. I have zero, none, no desire to relive anything that involved the disaffiliation process within the UMC. Some churches were very fortunate and did not have a vote, or if they did, the church had a real sense of unity and clarity. Others had very painful votes that resulted in the church being ruptured and relationships being forever changed.

But a few years out, we find ourselves where we find ourselves. As I mentioned above, I have no real desire to explore the recent past. But I have been thinking about something. I find myself as a 50-year-old pastor of a First UMC in an SEC town. My United Methodist identity remains as strong as it ever has. I deeply love THE church; I deeply love my Annual Conference, and I do, warts and all, love the United Methodist Church. Sometimes it reminds me of the famous line uttered by Churchill about democracy:

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

The UMC is a terrible system and is broken in many ways. Yet I find it better for me than other forms of church.

But here is a problem. I am not convinced we've given an adequate reason or vision of why someone would want to be a United Methodist. We’ve encouraged and celebrated people who stayed, but that often seems to be based on institutional survival, and a story of survival is not a compelling story. We have talked a lot about Good Friday. We need to talk about Easter. I want to talk for a minute about why I love this church. Why are we here? Why should you want to be us? What does this identity mean, and why does this membership matter? I believe in this church. Why is that? Why do I have that hope? Why do I really believe in the United Methodist Church, and am proud to be an Elder within it? Here are a few reasons.

The first is something I’ve talked about before: our theological method as understood by the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. I believe the way we do theology produces the kind of Christian I’d like to be when I grow up: graceful, service-oriented, intellectual, and Christ-centered. In short, our method is this. We interpret the Bible through the lens of reason, tradition, and experience. What is so beautiful about this is that if we swing too strongly to any of those four tent poles, we’ll be off-center. The Bible is primary; it is the inspired word of God, our source for truth and revelation (we’ll talk more about it in a second). But we interpret it. We all do. If we read only the Bible without tradition, reason, or experience, we would still be interpreting it, but our interpretation would be our personal lens. We need the wider lens of each to understand it better.

But likewise, we do not want to swing too strongly to tradition, or experience, or reason, apart from the other understandings. We need to have a balance between these, which then helps us rightly understand Scripture. This method, or seeing Scripture through these lenses, I believe, truly produces a moderate, balanced understanding of God’s word and forms that type of theology.

And I think this theological method best produces the kind of Christian I’d like to be. I’ve seen these types of Christians in United Methodist churches across our state and nation. Across different races, genders, socioeconomic classes, and any other label you could think of. What do they have in common? This method of understanding.

Another strength of who we are is our understanding of Scripture. I really like how our Book of Discipline states it in one of our foundational theological statements:

We believe the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our salvation. It is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice. Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential to salvation.

Scripture teaches everything needful for Salvation. That is its purpose. I tell people this is the Bible. Genesis 1 and 2, our creation. Genesis 3, the Fall that corrupts all of creation, humanity included. Genesis 4 through the end of the Bible: God’s plan to restore all of creation through covenant, or relationship. That’s what Scripture is for. It is true, and it contains truth. But it is not a collection of all world knowledge or history. It has a specific purpose, for which it is perfect, to show us who we are and how we are saved. As John 20: 31 tells us:

But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

This theological understanding produces truly Christ-centered disciples. These folks, produced by our United Methodist way of life, are the kind of folks who interpret the Bible, and all of life, through Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:15 tells us:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation

If you want to know the Father, look to the Son. Our method tries to help us center everything in and through Jesus. Everything- scripture, worship, service- is about and points to Jesus. Jesus is, and must be, the ultimate lens through which we see the world. I want to interpret the Bible through Jesus. I want to see my neighbor through the lens of Jesus. I want to see my enemy through the lens of Jesus. I want Jesus to be my very center of life and being.

As my people often hear me say. It’s always, only about Jesus.

As United Methodists, as we center on Christ, we grow through His grace, experienced throughout all of our lives, but especially through the Sacraments (Communion and Baptism) and the Means of Grace (Scripture, Prayer, Communion, Fasting, and Conferencing). This growth leads to holiness, and we understand that holiness as perfect love. We strive for perfect action. But we must have perfect love. Because here’s the thing. Perfect action will not always be rooted in perfect love. But perfect love will show itself in perfect action. And it is that love that matters. As 1 Corinthians 13 tells us

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

This perfect love shows itself in several paths that are so important to our lives as United Methodists. We truly value diversity. I remember a recent conversation I was part of with other United Methodist leaders across the state of Mississippi. The question was posed: What do we offer that no one else does? As I sat with that question, I felt it deep within me, and I responded, “If we live our vision, we can be the only truly interracial unified body in the State of Mississippi.” That is what we offer, especially in the context of my home state. We will not be a place that doesn’t see color. We will see color, because color shapes our experience. As a middle-aged, gray-haired male, I cannot say that my experience is the same as a young African-American male or young Hispanic woman. I don’t want to pretend it’s the same. In fact, quite the opposite. I am, and all of us are, better when each of these perspectives and lived experiences can voice what they have seen to be true. When we do it right, as United Methodists, we can do just this. We can love despite our differences. When Jesus is in the center, our diversity is truly a gift. But we must keep Him in the middle, or we will destroy each other.

We can show people what unity in Christ truly looks like. But we value this - unity, not uniformity. We focus on loving alike, not always thinking alike. We believe and strive to live out unity and diversity that transcends every human line of division - race, politics, gender, borders, every human condition or orientation—for God so loved the world. That means everyone. I want a church full of all kinds of people, white, black, liberal, conservative, everyone.

We are an egalitarian church, valuing the call and giftedness of both men and women in every part of the life of the church. Our calling flows from our baptism. It is that mark of God’s grace in our baptism that is the foundation of that call to ministry. All baptized members are called to ministry and service, whether it be lay service to our church or full-time vocational and ordained ministry. If we would not allow females to enter into that full vocational ministry, then we should not baptize female children. Ministry is an extension of our baptism. All can be baptized, so all can serve.

Now there are so many other things we do well: our liturgy, our social holiness and evangelism, and our leaning into life with grace, not judgment. Others do that as well, so I want to focus on some of our theological distinctives that shape our way of life.

In the end, our way of life produces a moderate, practical people. Our moderation shows itself in our desire to maintain relationships above ideology. Our practicality shows itself in how much we want to be truly faithful and change the world for God. I want to focus on what works and what makes a difference. I want to focus on Jesus, not ideology. I want to focus on all the world knowing Him. I believe, deep in my soul, in the importance of evangelism. People need this. They need Jesus; they need this hope, and I really do believe that the way of life that we live out as United Methodists is the most beautiful, graceful path that we can walk. That is why I take evangelism so very seriously. We need this.

And friends, that is why I think the United Methodist vision is so compelling. When we are at our best, truly living out our identity and calling, we are a church radically focused on loving God and neighbor with every fiber of being. A church not driven by the cultural winds of division but a church focused solely on loving everyone we meet with the love of Jesus Christ. As CS Lewis said in The Weight of Glory:

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.

We are called to love. Love God and Neighbor. That’s who we are. That’s our vision. That’s what I truly believe in.

(United) Methodist born, (United) Methodist bred, and when I die, I’m (United) Methodist dead.

As imperfect as we are, these are my people.

In 1 Timothy 3:14–16, Paul reminds Timothy how we are to live as the household of God and then gives us a beautiful confession about Jesus Christ: revealed in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, proclaimed throughout the world, and taken up into glory. But Paul calls all of this “the mystery of our religion.” In today’s reflection, we talk about the incarnation, the humanity and divinity of Jesus, and the mystery at the heart of our faith. We don’t have to understand or explain everything about God in order to trust God. Sometimes the mystery itself is part of faith’s beauty.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Good morning, friends. I hope you’re doing well and that your Tuesday is off to a good start.

It’s been a great week here at First Church. There are lots of good things happening around here, and we’re grateful to see what God is doing. We’re looking forward to the next month and all the things we have planned and all the ways we hope God will continue to work through us.

Today we’re going to finish up 1 Timothy 3. We’re just going to look at verses 14 through 16. It’s only a couple of verses, but there’s a lot here.

Paul says that he hopes to come to Timothy soon, but he’s writing these instructions so that, if he’s delayed, Timothy will know how people ought to behave in the household of God—which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

Then he gives us this beautiful statement of faith:

“Great indeed is the mystery of our religion.”

And then Paul gives us this little confession about Jesus: he was revealed in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the Gentiles, believed throughout the world, and taken up into glory.

Paul does this kind of thing throughout his letters. He’ll give us these little doxologies, these little songs of praise, these little statements of belief.

One of the things I really like about our United Methodist hymnal is that, in addition to all the hymns, we have these scriptural affirmations and creeds in the back. Sometimes I’ll use one of those as a confession of faith or a statement of what we believe.

And I think that’s what Paul is doing here.

But before we get to verse 16, there’s something important in verse 15. Paul says he’s writing these instructions so that Timothy will know how people ought to behave in the household of God.

He’s been talking about leadership. He’s been talking about what leadership in the church should look like.

And there’s a distinction between membership in the church and leadership in the church.

Everybody is welcome in the church. Everybody is invited to be part of the church. But leadership is something different.

I think that’s particularly important in a world where we have so many influencers and where ministry can sometimes become more about personality than integrity.

I remember reading something about Mark Driscoll years ago, after the difficulties surrounding his ministry. Someone said that his talent had outpaced his integrity.

I’ve always remembered that phrase.

I want to make sure that my integrity never gets behind my talent. I want to make sure that who I am is keeping up with whatever I’m doing.

That’s one reason I’m personally thankful for the long process of ordination in the United Methodist Church. It takes a long time, and I’m grateful for that.

When I entered the process, I didn’t simply assume that I would be ordained. I had to be willing to say, “The church may look at my life and say, ‘Andy, you’re not ready yet.’”

The church might have said there were things I needed to work on. Things I needed to improve. Places where I needed to grow.

And if that’s where the church had landed, then that’s where I needed to land, too, because I trust the church, and I’m serving the church.

Now, I believe everyone who is baptized is called to ministry in some way. Our ministry flows from our baptism. It’s an extension of our baptism.

But that raises another question: Are you called to full-time, vocational ministry? Are you called to paid ministry? Are you called to a particular form of leadership?

Those are questions that we wrestle with.

And Paul is telling Timothy, “I’m giving you these instructions so that you can teach other people how to live and lead within the household of God.”

Every household has expectations. Every family has standards.

And I think, particularly as a clergy person and as a leader in the church, I have to hold myself to certain standards. And I hope the church holds me to those standards. I hope the church holds other clergy and other leaders to those standards as well.

But then Paul moves from talking about the household of God to something even bigger.

He says, “Great indeed is the mystery of our religion.”

And then he gives us this beautiful statement about Jesus.

Jesus was revealed in the flesh.

That’s the incarnation.

Jesus wasn’t simply some spiritual idea. He wasn’t some abstract concept. He came among us in the flesh. He became human.

And I think one of the fascinating things about the early church is that we sometimes read the theology of the early church fathers as if it came to them as a finished product.

It didn’t.

They were wrestling with these things. They were learning. They were growing. They were trying to understand what it means to say that Jesus is fully God and fully human.

In some ways, we have the opposite problem.

We understand the divinity of Jesus pretty well. We struggle more with his humanity.

But his humanity is an essential part of who Jesus is.

He is fully God and fully human.

That’s the mystery of the incarnation: the Word became flesh.

Jesus took on our weaknesses and our frailties. He didn’t scorn us. He loved us.

He was vindicated in the Spirit. We think about his baptism, when the Spirit descended upon him and the voice affirmed him as God’s beloved Son.

He was seen by angels.

He was proclaimed among the Gentiles. That’s what Paul and Timothy are doing.

He was believed throughout the world. As Paul wrote these words, the gospel was already spreading throughout the Roman world.

And he was taken up into glory.

He ascended into heaven.

These are statements about what Christians believe to be true about Jesus.

But here’s the part I really love.

Paul calls it a mystery.

He gives us all these statements, but he doesn’t explain everything.

How exactly did the incarnation work?

I don’t know.

I believe it, but I don’t know exactly how it works.

How does the Trinity work?

I don’t know.

What exactly happens when we receive Communion? I know what we believe about it as United Methodists, but I don’t understand every mystery of God’s presence in the sacrament.

How does the Holy Spirit move in our hearts? How does the Spirit convict us of sin and draw us toward becoming more like Jesus?

I don’t know.

There’s a mystery to the movement of God.

And I think that’s okay.

We’re living in a time when we’re often tempted to think that everything has to make sense. Everything has to be explainable. Everything has to be reduced to something we can understand.

But maybe mystery is a good thing.

Maybe our faith can be a little weird.

Maybe we don’t have to explain everything.

I think people today are looking for something authentic. We’re looking for authentic relationships with Jesus. We’re looking for authentic relationships with one another. We’re looking for things that are true.

Not necessarily things that are easy to understand.

Not necessarily things that we can explain completely.

But things that are true.

And that’s what Paul is talking about when he says, “Great indeed is the mystery of our religion.”

The mystery of what we hold to be true is great.

We don’t understand it all.

We don’t have to.

There’s an old song by Caedmon’s Call that says, in essence, that we can be grateful that the truth doesn’t depend upon us.

And I’m thankful for that.

Because I don’t have to understand everything for God to be God.

I don’t have to explain everything for Jesus to be Lord.

I don’t have to know everything for the Holy Spirit to be at work.

So today, friends, don’t feel like you’ve got to understand it all.

You don’t have to explain it all.

You don’t have to know it all.

You just have to trust God and have faith in what God is doing.

Great is the mystery of our faith.

And thank God that at the center of that mystery is Jesus Christ.

Have a great rest of your day, friends. We’ll see you tomorrow as we continue in 1 Timothy.

See you!

In 1 Timothy 3:8–13, Paul describes the qualities expected of deacons, emphasizing character, faithfulness, integrity, and service. Today we explore the role of deacons across several Christian traditions and reflect on the deeper question behind the passage: If Christ calls us to serve, how are we serving? Church leaders should be tested and held to high standards, but none of us should expect perfection from them. At the same time, every Christian has a responsibility to use their gifts in service to God, the church, and the world. So the question for today is simple: How am I serving?

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Or, if you’d like to read the transcript of the video, keep reading!

Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Monday morning. I hope you’re well. I hope all is good for you.

And, just a little inside baseball: I always record these early, so I’m actually recording this on Friday. That means I have absolutely no idea what happened in the football games this weekend.

So, congratulations!

Or, I’m really sorry.

Depending on how things went.

And also, much like Punxsutawney Phil tells us what weather is coming on Groundhog Day—and Groundhog Day is one of the greatest movies ever made—today is the first sighting of Andy’s coat.

It is Friday morning, and I am cold.

So I am now wearing my coat.

I hope you enjoy your summer, because apparently mine is over.

As I told the folks here in Starkville in Bible study the other night, everybody who is just getting to know me here in Starkville and North Mississippi needs to prepare themselves for the amount of whining I am going to do during the winter.

Just get ready.

It’s going to be bad.

Because if I’m already wearing a coat and it’s not even October yet, guys, it is not going to be good.

So just get ready.

Pray for me.

Pray for my church, because they’re going to have to hear my whining.

And pray for my wife, because she’s really going to have to hear my whining.

Anyway, I hope you had a great weekend, and I hope all is well as we begin this Monday together.

Today we’re going to continue in 1 Timothy 3.

On Friday, we talked about the qualifications for an overseer or bishop.

Today, we’re going to talk about deacons.

Paul says that deacons likewise should be serious, not double-tongued, not controlled by alcohol, not greedy for money. They should hold firmly to the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. And then he says something I think is really important:

They should first be tested.

They should prove themselves.

Then they can serve as deacons.

The word “deacon” comes from the Greek diakonos, and it is a word associated with service and ministry.

And I think that’s really important when we talk about the role of a deacon.

As we talked about Friday, every church has a different form of church government—what we call church polity.

But one thing you see across many Christian traditions is that when churches have deacons, the role is often closely connected with service.

I’ve seen that in Baptist churches.

I remember serving Concord Baptist out in Philadelphia and having experience with Baptist deacons. I’ve also known deacons in Presbyterian churches, where the deacons have a particular calling to service while elders have more of the responsibility for governance and teaching.

And I really appreciate that model.

In those traditions, deacons are laypeople who have a particular ministry of service within the church.

In the United Methodist tradition, it’s different.

Our deacons are clergy who are ordained to a particular ministry of Word, Service, Compassion, and Justice.

They generally do not serve in the same role as elders who are appointed to lead congregations, but their calling is very much connected to helping the church serve the world.

And I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t shared this very often.

When I was going through the ordination process, I spent some time praying about whether I might actually be called to the Order of Deacons.

At that point in my life, I was thinking maybe my calling was more toward the academic world. I was considering getting a doctorate and perhaps teaching in a seminary or college setting.

But I kept feeling this tug toward the local church.

I felt called to preaching and teaching, to the sacraments, and to the ordering of the church.

So I discerned that the Order of Elders was where I was called.

But I have tremendous respect for my brothers and sisters who are called to the Order of Deacons.

And I have tremendous respect for anyone, in any Christian tradition, who feels called to a ministry of service.

Because ultimately, that’s what we’re talking about here.

Service.

And I think verse 10 is especially important.

Paul says, essentially, let them first be tested. Let them prove themselves.

I think that is an important principle for church leadership across the board.

In my tradition, it takes a long time to become ordained.

And I think that’s a good thing.

It should take time.

It’s good for people’s doctrine to be tested.

It’s good for their character to be tested.

It’s good for their virtues to be tested.

It’s good for their calling to be tested.

I always think about something Bishop Swanson said to us when I was younger in ministry.

He said that anytime somebody questions your calling, that’s an opportunity for you to explain your call story.

And I think that’s true.

We should know why we’re doing this.

We should know why we’re serving.

We should be able to talk about how God called us.

And I think that’s important not just for clergy but for all of us.

Now, I don’t think we should hold our leaders to a standard of perfection.

Our leaders are not perfect.

They’re not Jesus.

They didn’t die for your sins.

And we shouldn’t expect them to be perfect.

I certainly don’t claim to be perfect.

And I’m not above criticism. Trust me, people can criticize me all they want. That comes with being in public ministry.

But we should have high expectations of our leaders.

We should have high expectations of our clergy.

We should have high expectations of our lay leaders.

We should have high expectations of our bishops.

That’s a good thing.

And we should expect our leaders to be people of character, integrity, humility, and service.

We see some of those same themes here in the qualifications for deacons.

They’re not supposed to be greedy for money.

They’re supposed to manage their households well.

They’re supposed to be people of integrity.

And ultimately, they’re called to serve.

That is really the heart of the word.

Serve.

And I think that gives us a question that applies to every one of us.

If the deacon is called to serve, and if the deacon is called to help lead the church into service, then what does that mean for me?

How am I serving?

How am I serving?

Because if the model that Christ has given us is one of service, then all of us ought to be asking that question.

How am I serving?

How am I using the gifts God has given me?

How am I helping my church?

How am I helping my community?

How am I helping my neighbor?

How am I serving the people around me?

As the great theologian Bob Dylan once said, “You gotta serve somebody.”

So who are you serving today?

If you’re a deacon in your church, whatever tradition you’re part of, thank you.

Thank you for serving.

And if you’re a layperson in the church, how can you serve?

How can you support your leaders?

How can you hold your leaders to high expectations while also recognizing that you have a responsibility to serve?

Because we can expect things from our leaders—and we should.

But we also have to ask what we are doing.

How am I serving?

There is a world in need of service.

And I believe the Lord has sent us here to do exactly that.

So let’s go serve somebody today.

Thanks for being with me.

I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we’ll see you tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul gives Timothy a picture of the qualities that should characterize Christian leaders: integrity, hospitality, wisdom, gentleness, self-control, and a good reputation both inside and outside the church. Today we consider what those qualities might mean for Christian leadership in our own time, especially in an age of social media influencers and outrage-driven conversations. Is being combative really a sign of faithfulness? What if the church valued gentleness and empathy as much as it values having the “right” answers? Paul reminds us that our witness matters—and that the way we treat people outside the church is part of how we show them the love of a God they cannot see.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

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Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’ve had a good week, and I hope you’ve got some great plans for the weekend.

We’re excited here in Starkville. Mississippi State has a home game Saturday night, and Holly and I are going to go. We’re excited to go to our first State football game.

I’ve been to a State football game before. I’ve been to several baseball games over the last year, but it’s been a long, long, long, long time since I’ve been to a football game. I think the last one may have been when we were in Philadelphia—or maybe it was in DeSoto County. I went to a game with some friends.

So I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to hang out with some church friends, see some people, and enjoy the game.

And if you’re coming up to StarkVegas for the weekend for the football game, bring your church clothes! It’s a late game Saturday night, so stay over. Go to bed, wake up, get your coffee, and come worship with us at First UMC on Sunday morning.

We’d love to have you.

I always like to say that we want to be everybody’s second-favorite church. Your favorite church is your home church—the church where you worship most weekends.

But Historical First is always glad to be your second-favorite church when you’re in town for a football game!

Today we’re going to be reading from 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 7.

Paul says that anyone who aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. And then he begins to describe what that person should look like: above reproach, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

Paul talks about managing one’s household well. He says that if someone doesn’t know how to manage their own household, how can they take care of God’s church?

He says that they shouldn’t be a recent convert, and they should also be well thought of by outsiders.

There are a couple of interesting things here in the Greek.

The word translated “bishop” in the NRSV is episkopos. That’s where we get our word “bishop.” Other translations will often use the word “overseer.”

There’s another word that appears in the New Testament, presbyteros, which is where we get words like “presbyter” and “priest,” and it’s connected to the office we would call an elder.

In the United Methodist Church, my official designation is an elder in full connection in the Mississippi Annual Conference.

So these words have become titles that we use in different Christian traditions.

The word here in 1 Timothy is often translated “bishop,” but “overseer” is also a helpful translation because the idea is someone who has a responsibility for oversight and leadership within the church.

It’s a little bit of a “from above” role, if you will—someone who is watching over the church and helping provide leadership.

And every church has different systems of government.

The word we use for church government is polity.

I happen to like our United Methodist system. I like the connectional nature of our church. I think there is a lot of good theology behind it.

But I also don’t believe the Bible lays out only one particular form of church government.

The Bible doesn’t talk about charge conference.

The Bible doesn’t lay out the United Methodist Book of Discipline.

Those are structures that our tradition has developed based upon our theology and our understanding of Scripture.

That doesn’t make them unbiblical. It simply means that the Bible does not prescribe one particular organizational structure for every Christian church for all time.

So when Paul talks about an episkopos, I think “bishop” is a perfectly reasonable translation.

But if your church doesn’t have bishops, that doesn’t mean you can ignore this passage.

Because, in one way or another, every clergy person has some responsibility for oversight.

And Paul gives us a pretty good picture of what that leadership should look like.

Above reproach.

Temperate.

Sensible.

Respectable.

Hospitable.

Able to teach.

Not violent.

Not quarrelsome.

Not a lover of money.

And then I really like verse 7:

The leader should be well thought of by outsiders.

I think that is incredibly important.

One of the greatest temptations—and maybe one of the greatest challenges—the church faces right now is the influence of influencers.

And I realize the irony of saying that while you’re either watching this on Facebook or YouTube or listening to it on a podcast!

But there are a lot of people influencing Christianity today who aren’t connected to a local congregation. They’re not necessarily connected to a local church. They may not be accountable to a denomination or any particular Christian community.

And that can create some real problems.

Someone asked me the other night in Bible study, “Why does it seem like fear is such a common thing when it comes to teaching repentance and things like that?”

And I think part of the answer is that we have developed a culture of shock.

If you’re my age—or maybe a little older—you may remember the term “shock jock.”

These were radio personalities, usually morning hosts, who would say outrageous things simply to get a reaction.

And I think we have something similar happening in parts of Christian media today.

There are Christian influencers who say outrageous things simply because outrageous things get attention.

They say something shocking.

People get angry.

People respond.

The algorithm notices.

And suddenly they have more followers.

And sometimes it almost becomes a badge of honor to be despised by people outside the church.

“If people outside the church don’t like me, that must mean I’m standing up for Jesus.”

“If they’re criticizing me, that must mean I’m being persecuted.”

“If they disagree with me, that must mean I’m right.”

But Paul says something different.

Paul says that a leader should be well thought of by outsiders.

Now, that doesn’t mean everyone is going to like us.

It doesn’t mean that we should compromise the gospel just to make people happy.

Jesus certainly didn’t do that.

But there is a difference between being faithful and being quarrelsome.

There is a difference between standing for something and simply being combative.

There is a difference between having convictions and being mean.

And I wonder what the church would look like if we really took Paul seriously here.

What if we sought out leaders who were above reproach?

What if we valued temperance?

What if we valued wisdom?

What if we valued hospitality?

What if we valued gentleness?

What if our preachers were gentle?

Why do we sometimes act as though being quarrelsome is a virtue in a preacher?

Why do we sometimes think that the preacher who argues the loudest must be the preacher who is most faithful?

Why don’t we aspire to gentleness?

Why don’t we see empathy as a Christian virtue?

Why don’t we want our clergy to be people who are respected by those outside the church?

Paul isn’t saying that everyone is going to agree with us.

The world is always going to have different values than we do.

People are going to have different likes and dislikes.

People are going to disagree with us.

That’s okay.

But if we harden ourselves against the outside world, and if our only posture toward the world is combativeness, then we’re going to have a hard time sharing the gospel with that world.

I’ve said this in Bible study before, and it’s one of my favorite thoughts:

It’s really hard for people to believe that a God they cannot see loves them when a church they can see doesn’t seem to like them.

Think about that.

If the only thing someone experiences from the church is anger, hostility, judgment, and quarrelsomeness, why would they believe that the God we proclaim is a God of love?

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have convictions.

We should.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t stand for what we believe.

We should.

But the way we live those convictions matters.

Paul tells us that these are qualities we should look for in our leaders.

And frankly, I think they’re qualities all of us should aspire to.

Gentleness.

Empathy.

Hospitality.

Wisdom.

Faithfulness.

A good reputation.

Not quarrelsome.

Not violent.

Not driven by money or ego.

Those are good virtues for our leaders.

And they’re good virtues for all of us.

So be careful about the voices that tell you that being coarse, angry, combative, or constantly outraged is somehow a sign of Christian faithfulness.

Blessed are the meek, Jesus says, for they will inherit the earth.

Maybe gentleness is stronger than we think.

Maybe kindness is more powerful than we think.

Maybe hospitality is a better witness than outrage.

And maybe the church doesn’t need more people trying to win arguments.

Maybe we need more people who look like Jesus.

Hey, thanks for being with me today.

Have a great weekend.

And if you’re coming to Starkville for the football game, come see us Sunday morning at Historical First. We’d love to have you worship with us.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you Sunday.

Thanks!

In 1 Timothy 2, Paul calls Christians to pray for their leaders and reminds us that God desires everyone to come to know the truth. But the chapter also contains one of the most debated passages in Scripture concerning women teaching and leading in the church. Today we talk honestly about that difficult text, the importance of reading Scripture in context, and the need to interpret individual passages in light of the broader witness of Scripture. As a United Methodist and Wesleyan, I share why I believe this passage addresses a particular situation in Ephesus rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women preaching, teaching, and leading in the church.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

You can read today’s passage here.

Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.

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Or, if you’d like to read the transcript of the video, keep reading!

Good morning! It’s good to be with you on this Thursday morning. I hope you’re doing well as we continue together in our time in 1 Timothy.

It’s nice to be back in a more formal setting, with a formal microphone and my normal setup. We’ve been in a lot of different places over the last week or so. We had our contemporary service, and we weren’t able to record that service that day. That’s why the audio and video quality on Monday’s sermon podcast wasn’t quite what it normally is.

And then yesterday, as you know, I had to record later in the day. So it was just me and my sweet tea at Noodles at 8:30 at night—or whenever it was.

So it’s good to be back in the office with my trusty setup: my iPhone, my MacBook, and my microphone.

Today we’re going to be reading one of the more controversial and debated passages in all of Scripture. We’re in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, and we’re going to look at the whole chapter.

Paul begins by urging Christians to offer prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving for everyone—including kings and everyone who is in authority.

I love that.

Paul is telling the church to pray for its leaders.

If you’ve ever been to a worship service that I’ve led, you know that at some point during the pastoral prayer, I’m probably going to pray for our leaders—local, state, and federal. That’s a line I use nearly every time I pray in worship.

Because as Christians, we have a command to pray.

We are called to pray especially for kings and for those who are in positions of authority.

And remember when Paul is writing this. The authorities of his day were not exactly friendly toward Christianity. These are people living under an empire that could—and did—persecute Christians.

So this isn’t some neutral, arbitrary comment from Paul.

Paul is telling Christians to pray for their leaders even when those leaders may not treat them well.

We pray for wisdom.

We pray for clarity.

We pray for grace.

We pray that those who are in leadership will lead well.

And I would encourage you: pray for your leaders every day. Pray for your local leaders. Pray for your state leaders. Pray for your federal leaders. Pray for your governor, your president, your Congress, your legislature, your mayor, your city council.

And frankly, the more a politician annoys you, the more you should pray for them!

Pray for them.

Not simply that they will lead the way you want them to lead, but that they will lead with wisdom, justice, compassion, and integrity.

That’s part of what Paul is teaching us here.

Then Paul says something I really love in verse 4. He says that God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

That goes all the way back to John 3:16—God’s love for the world.

God desires that everyone come to know Christ.

That is God’s hope for the world.

And frankly, that’s our hope as well.

You’ve heard me pray this in worship. You’ve heard me pray over the offering that our desire is that the whole world might come to know Jesus Christ as Lord.

That’s what I believe the church should be about.

We should want people to know Jesus.

But now let’s get to the difficult part.

This is where we get to the rock and roll.

This is the passage that I have seen quoted over and over again on Facebook whenever a female clergy person says something.

You don’t even always see an argument.

Sometimes you just see:

“First Timothy 2:12.”

That’s it.

And I’ve seen that enough times to know exactly what people are talking about.

Paul says that he does not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man and says that she is to remain silent.

So what do I do with that?

I’m an egalitarian when it comes to church leadership. I believe women should preach. I believe women should teach. I believe women should lead the church.

I was ordained by a woman bishop, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward. I currently serve under a woman bishop, Bishop Sharma D. Lewis. I’ve had women serve as associate pastors in my churches. I have been taught by women. I have been shaped by women. I have been mentored by women.

So what do I do with this passage?

Well, the first thing I always want to remember is that we read Scripture in context.

And I think sometimes we find nuance in Scripture where we want to find nuance.

We take literally the things we want to take literally, and then when we come across something that challenges us, suddenly we start looking for context.

And it’s interesting how often what we call the “clear reading of Scripture” happens to line up with what we already believe.

The truth is, there really isn’t such a thing as a completely uncomplicated reading of Scripture.

All Scripture requires interpretation.

Because none of us are first-century Jews or Gentiles living in the world in which these letters were written.

We’re living in twenty-first-century America—or wherever you happen to be watching this.

So we bring our context with us when we read Scripture.

And that means we have to be careful.

I don’t ever want Scripture to simply agree with me.

If Scripture always agrees with me, then I’m probably reading it wrong.

Scripture should challenge me.

Scripture should push me.

Scripture should make me uncomfortable sometimes.

This Sunday I’m preaching on Matthew 25, and I can tell you: Matthew 25 always pushes me.

It makes me uncomfortable.

And I think that’s a good thing.

So what do we do with this passage in 1 Timothy?

Well, I think we begin by reading it in the context of the whole of Scripture.

For example, Paul talks about Phoebe in Romans 16. He describes her in a way that indicates she had an important role in the early church.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul gives instructions about women praying and prophesying in worship.

In Acts 2, when Peter quotes the prophet Joel at Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out on both men and women.

The Gospels give us women as witnesses to the resurrection, entrusted with the message of the risen Christ.

We see Deborah as a judge and prophet.

We see Anna in the temple.

We see women throughout Scripture teaching, leading, prophesying, serving, and bearing witness to God.

So when I come to 1 Timothy 2, I have to read that passage in light of all of those other passages.

And I also have to remember where Timothy is.

Timothy is in Ephesus.

And Paul’s letters are not abstract theological textbooks. They are letters written to particular people and particular churches dealing with particular circumstances.

First Timothy is written to Timothy in the context of his ministry in Ephesus.

And Ephesus was a church dealing with problems of false teaching, disorder, and questions about how the church should function.

So there are Christians who believe Paul is addressing a particular situation in Ephesus here rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women teaching or leading in every church for all time.

There are also different interpretations of the specific wording and context of the passage.

And for me, that’s where I land.

I read 1 Timothy 2 in light of the broader witness of Scripture, in light of Paul’s other writings, and in light of the particular circumstances of the church in Ephesus.

And when I look at that broader picture, I see too many places where women are exercising leadership, teaching, prophesying, and proclaiming the gospel for me to believe that Paul is making a universal statement that women can never preach or lead.

That is how I interpret the passage.

And I want to be clear: that is my interpretation.

I don’t think we should pretend that this passage isn’t difficult.

It is difficult.

And I think we need to be humble enough to say that Scripture sometimes challenges us, and sometimes we have to wrestle with it.

But I also believe we should apply the same standard to every passage.

We should read Scripture in context.

We should read individual verses in light of the whole of Scripture.

And we should be careful about taking one verse and using it as a weapon against someone else.

Because you can take almost any verse of Scripture out of context and make it say something you want it to say.

That’s true of Romans 9 through 11.

It’s true of a lot of difficult passages.

And it’s certainly true of this one.

Ultimately, what I keep coming back to is the fruit I have seen.

I have seen the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of so many women clergy.

I have seen women who have shaped me, molded me, taught me, challenged me, encouraged me, and poured into me.

I am thankful for their witness.

I am thankful for their ministry.

And I am thankful for the ways God has used them in my own life and ministry.

So when I read 1 Timothy 2, I read it in light of the rest of Paul’s teachings and the broader witness of Scripture.

And I understand Paul to be addressing a particular situation in Ephesus rather than establishing a universal prohibition against women preaching, teaching, or leading.

That’s where I land on it.

And that’s how I understand this passage within my tradition as a United Methodist and as a Wesleyan.

And I’d welcome your feedback.

Send me an email. Respond to me. I’d love to have a conversation about it.

Because this is one of those passages that is always interesting to talk about—and it’s certainly one that deserves more than a Bible verse posted underneath somebody’s Facebook comment.

So, thanks for being with me today.

Tomorrow we’ll pick up with chapter 3.

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you tomorrow.