Misinterpreting The Faith
MISINTERPRETING THE FAITH
1 TIMOTHY 6:3-10
This passage points to how we should live: simply, generously and joyfully.
Paul comes back to the thought of false teaching which he has already opposed (4:1ff.). It is important that we take Christianity for what it is and not impose our own pattern on it, making it what we wish it to be. That is the way of pride (6:4), the way which in effect means (whatever its exponents may say) that those who express it think they know better than Christ and his apostles. A concern for orthodox teaching does not come simply from an innate conservatism. It comes from a firm conviction that there is a finality about God’s sending of his Son. People cannot improve on the teaching of the Son of God or on what he committed to his apostles. The apostles gave definitive witness to Jesus and to reject this is to walk in the way of pride and self-sufficiency. The false teachers Paul has in mind also had a love for controversy. Discussion of issues can be a useful way of clearing up the points involved. But it can degenerate into “disputes about words” and result in angry wrangling (6:4f.).
Mixed in with the heretical teaching was a concern for material profit. Regrettably, throughout the centuries there have been those who have used religion as a means of personal profit, and such a sorry story is not yet over. Paul points out that to imagine that “godliness is a means of gain” is to be “depraved in mind and deprived of the truth” (6:5). But this enables him to make the point that godliness does indeed bring gain, though of a very different sort than money. The end of this passage discusses the way in which the love of money can harm spiritual life. This should be closely studied in our own materialistic age. It is the case that people will often keep their faith in the face of difficulties and even persecutions, but surrender it in the times of peace and prosperity. The love of money and all it brings is insidious. It can and does corrupt the most unlikely people, and bring in its train all kinds of evils (6:10).
Notes 6:9: “desire to be rich” means “set their will on being rich.”
Consider “Content” (6:8). Does this describe my inner feelings today in regard to what I possess, what I have achieved and what I want? How far should it?