Page 49 - Pastoral Epistles I & 2 Timothy, Titus

I Timothy 4 and 5

Connect…

Mark Price was an all-star guard from 1986 to 1996 with a professional basketball team called the Cleveland
Cavaliers. The star of that same team for a number of years was LeBron James.
Mark Price had exceptional basketball skills, but he was only 5’10” tall.

One time, in front of a group of men and boys at his church, he was asked how someone his size could be so
good at playing basketball – a game usually played by men who are much taller than him.
His answer was something like this: on most Friday nights, while all my friends were either on
a date or at home, I was alone in the gym – practicing both free throw shots and long-range
shots.

He also said his dad worked with him to help his shooting and his blocking skills. He
practiced non-stop. In high school, he was chosen to play on an all-state team. In college, he
was honored to be chosen as an all-conference player from Georgie Tech – a big basketball
college in America.
Then he was signed by the pros.

Physical strength and excellence require training and hard work. Spiritual strength and maturity require the
same things. Training, dedication, and hard work. It doesn’t just happen. But too often we become satisfied
with mediocre results while we watch others live for Christ. Today, let’s see what it takes to develop spiritual
strength and maturity…

The Lesson ...

1 Timothy 4 and 5.

Our Bible reading is never just for seeing, never just for learning and
doctrine. It is not even just for savoring, if that savoring is thought of in a private
way that leaves us unchanged in our relationship with others. No. We read the
Bible—we always read the Bible—for the kind of seeing and savoring Christ that
transforms us into his likeness.
― John Piper, Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory
of God in Scripture

1 Timothy 4:1-16.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves
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to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are
seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with
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