1 Timothy 1:8-10 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;… is not a thing separate from its purpose. It is not spoken from heaven merely for the sake of informing men's minds. Is not this the heresy pervading Christian teaching; that Christian teachers have thought of doctrine as something given them that they might exercise their minds upon it, rather than as something which came to them in order that what God supremely loves — a holy life — might be built up? The one great thing which has perverted man's study of the Christian gospels is, that men have dared to forget that the gospel came to a world of sinners that they might be reclaimed from the paths of sin and brought to righteousness again. Wonderfully few are the mistakes which men make when they read the Bible as the law of life. Wonderfully few are the men able to read the Bible rightly when they fasten their eyes on it for speculation. The soul which goes to the Bible to get the thing for which it was given, gets the thing it goes for. The soul laying hold on the heart of the New Testament finds what was in the heart of God. It is expressed by St. Paul in the phrase, "the will of God, even your sanctification." It is certainly easy to find in the New Testament the truth of Jesus Christ. A man comes to the Bible and says, "Is not this strange and mysterious?" And he points to some marvellous proof he seems to have extorted from the plain text of the New Testament. He is using the Bible for that for which it was not given. He is sure to go wrong, and gather from it some strange doctrine, a fantasy which never was in .the simple teaching of the Holy Spirit. Another man goes to the Bible hungering for a better life, desiring to escape from sin; weary of the barren sinfulness of this world he goes to the Bible for a picture of the kingdom of heaven; goes to the Bible to learn how this world can be made the habitation of the Holy God. That man can understand, not perhaps every truth there, for there are truths yet to be developed by certain exigencies of the world; but he will come away full of the learning which he at present needs. The New Testament will become to him a book of life. When St. Paul writes back from Europe to Asia, he bids Timothy teach the disciples that the law is to be used lawfully. He tells him and them the same lesson which we need. Let us go to our Bible for our Bible's purpose, inspiration, and a law of life, and the idea of what God would have man to be, and the power to become what it is the purpose of our Father that we should become. This is the teaching of the First Epistle to Timothy. The fundamental thing which Paul said to Timothy was that he should send the Ephesians to the Bible for the Bible's purpose. Always, spirituality is to go back to morality. The idea that man is to be wise with the wisdom of God is to refresh itself with the idea that man is to be good with the holiness of God. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;WEB: But we know that the law is good, if a man uses it lawfully, |
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