The Necessity of Continuance
oneself leads to hypocrisy. Biblical stewardship requires both. The leader must watch his life and his teaching with equal vigilance. His heart must be guarded from pride, from lust, from bitterness, from greed. His doctrine must be guarded from error, from imbalance, from novelty, from neglect.
The two guards must stand watch together. A failure in either watch opens the city to ruin.
The Necessity of Continuance The Christian life is not a sprint; it is a marathon. The doctrine that saves is not the doctrine we hear once, but the doctrine we cling to until the end.
The writer of Hebrews warns, "We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip."
The image is of a ring slipping from a finger or a boat drifting from its mooring. Drift is not intentional. No one warns a congregation, "Let us drift from the gospel this year." Drift occurs through neglect. It occurs when the familiar truths are assumed but not rehearsed, when the core doctrines are believed but not prized, when the means of grace become mechanical rather than vital.
Continuance is necessary because the pressures to abandon sound doctrine are constant. Paul told Timothy that "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to
themselves teachers, having itching ears." People do not naturally gravitate toward truth that convicts. They gravitate toward teaching that comforts them in their sin. The steward must therefore resolve to continue even when it is unpopular, even when it is costly, even when the church itself begins to ask for something else. His allegiance is not to the preferences of the crowd but to the commission of Christ. He is not a weather vane, spinning with every cultural wind. He is a signpost, planted deep and pointing steadfastly to the same eternal realities.
Continuance is also necessary because maturity is a process, not an event. The doctrine that seemed simple at conversion deepens over decades.
The cross we sang about with childlike faith becomes the anchor of our theology in suffering. The sovereignty of God we affirmed in Sunday school becomes the bedrock of our hope when life makes no sense. The resurrection we celebrated at Easter becomes the ground of our courage in the face of death. We do not move on from these truths. We move deeper into them. The steward must model this for the church. He must show that the gospel is not the entry point to Christianity but the center point of all