1 Timothy 4:16 Take heed to yourself, and to the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself, and them that hear you. The text consists of three parts. It presents — 1. An object of watchful care. 2. An admonition to persistency in watchfulness. 3. A reason for this care in its happy results. I. THE OBJECT OF WATCHFULNESS and caution is apparently twofold. Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching; but as we shall examine the admonition a little more carefully, we shall discover that the two parts are of one piece and made up of one thought. For the present, however, let us consider them separately. Take heed then, first, to thyself; or literally, hold thy attention fixed upon thyself. The gospel gives us two classes of admonition which, while apparently pointing in different ways, are nevertheless quite consistent, On the one hand, it is constantly directing our thoughts away from self; its very key-note is deny self; treat it as if it were not. On the other hand, it is most intensely personal. While it tells us that no man liveth unto himself, it also tells us that every man shall give account of himself to God. In one and the same breath we hear "Bear ye one another's burdens," and "Every man shall bear his own burden." In one place we find Paul insisting on the independent right of the individual conscience, asserting that every man stands or falls to his own master; and in another saying, "If meat make my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat while the world standeth." In our text we find the same thing. Timothy is exhorted to take heed to himself; but the last clause of the verse shows that not only himself but all his hearers are to be in his mind; that his very heedfulness of himself is to be for their sake quite as much as for his own. Hence our text, carefully studied, may show us how these two classes of admonition may be reconciled. "Bend thine attention on thyself." The fair inference is that self needs careful watching; that a man who undertakes to look after himself has a great piece of work upon his hands, and one which admits of no negligence. In a worldly sense most men find taking care of themselves a very serious business; it is an infinitely more serious business in a moral sense; it is transcendently serious in a Christian sense; at least our Lord seemed to think so when He asked, "What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit his own self." The difference between taking care of self in the ordinary sense and in the Christian sense, is very radical and lies in this; that the ordinary sense implies taking care of the natural self; gratifying its desires, encouraging its tendencies, assisting its proclivities, trying to make it by culture, on a larger scale, essentially what it is by nature; while the Christian sense implies making self something which it is not by nature; the development of a renewed, Christ-like self, the ideal self of the Gospel; the training of a new creature in Christ Jesus. We often hear people exhorted to be true to themselves, as if all virtue were summed up in that. There are not a few men who, if they were true to themselves would be false to every man. Certain people talk as though if a man only acts out that which he really is at heart, he is thereby shown to be virtuous. On the contrary, he may be shown to be essentially vicious. A serpent is true to himself when he stings you; a tiger when he rends you; a traitor when he betrays you. The burglar, the pickpocket, the assassin, the more false they are to themselves the better for us. The gospel, therefore, challenges this fine moral sentiment, and admits it only under conditions. Be true to yourself, yes; but to what self? There is something before being true to yourself, and that is, "Take heed to yourself." Look well what that is to which you propose to be true. Christian training has not only to bring us to a certain point of attainment, it has also to detach us from very much; and it is to the work of detachment as well as to that of attainment that our taking heed to ourselves is directed. When a boy goes to West Point and is enrolled as a cadet, perhaps the most exasperating thing about his new life is that he is constantly being checked in doing the things which it is natural for him to do. The soldier self he finds out is something quite different from the schoolboy self, and the transition from one to the other is neither easy nor pleasant. "Look out for yourself. That is no way for a soldier to stand." His head or feet fall into their natural positions. "Take care! Eyes right!" And so at every point where the natural habits assert themselves, the boy is corrected and reproved. His natural self is the very thing he has to take heed to and guard against while he is cultivating the new soldierly self until it becomes a second nature. Just so, when a man sets out to become a good soldier of Christ, a great part of the hardness he has to endure grows out of the struggle with himself in the effort to develop the new and better self. Hence the emphasis is laid by the apostle justly upon this point. The first thing is that you yourself be right; that you yourself be under Christ's new law, pervaded by Christ's new life, guided by Christ's new unselfish principle of action; that you be such a self as Paul describes in the words, "Not I live but Christ liveth in me." Therefore, take heed unto thyself. Take heed too unto thy teaching. Christianity, such is our Lord's general principle, wherever it informs a life and a character, carries a power of instruction. Ye are the light of the world. The very quality of Christian life is that something should go out from it to enlighten and purify. Here, therefore, is the point of connection with the former charge. Take heed to thyself, because that self teaches; because no man liveth unto himself; because you cannot be a Christian and not give men some impression about Christ and Christianity. You must teach. You cannot help it. Men will learn something from you whether you will or not, Thus, then, all that has been said thus far is easily summed up. Clergy and people alike are admonished simply on the ground of their discipleship. Discipleship in every case carries with it a power of teaching. That power resides first of all in the disciple's Christian personality; in what he himself is as a Christian. I repeat it — you all teach. Every one of you who professes faith in Christ is a teacher in virtue of that fact. You teach by your spirit. This is a thing hard to define or explain. If one should ask you to explain the odour which fills your room from that beautiful climbing honeysuckle, you could not do it; but you are conscious of the fragrance none the less. II. We come now to the second element of the text — PERSISTENCY. Continue in these things; that is, in care for yourself and for your teaching. Christian self-culture requires continuous care. The old self is like the treacherous ocean lapping at the dykes and assailing the smallest break, and must be constantly watched. The new self is a growth, not a complete creation, and like all growths must be tended. And this persistency is related also to the teaching power of the Christian self. It is behind all the good and lasting impressions which holy character makes. When a man strikes a blow which stuns his adversary the effect is sudden; but behind that lightning-like stroke are years of slow muscular compacting and gymnastic training. When intellectual power goes out of another man to you, and you instinctively recognize, in your first contact with him, an intellectual king, behind that impression are years of mental discipline and laborious study. Just so spiritual character often makes itself felt at once. It takes no time nor reasoning to convince you that you are talking with one who has walked with God: but crude character, shallow character, half-way character does not and cannot affect you thus. Such impression is made by the man who has long taken heed to himself, who has been scarred in many a fight with the old self, and has watched and tended with prayer and tears the growth of the new man in him. Then again, even when character is not ripened there is a lesson in steady, persistent growth. A double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, ceases to be a lesson except of warning. When a man's whole life is seen to be concentrated upon the service of God and the attainment of a heavenly recompense, that life is a lesson. Many a time, as you have been walking the street, you have seen a man stop at a corner, and look fixedly upward at something or other. Your first impulse is to look up too. There is always a peculiar interest in anything that is above this earth, though it may be only a little way above. Then you stop, and still look up. Perhaps you ask, "What is it?" The next man that comes along and sees you two looking up, stops also, and the next, until a crowd is gathered, for no other reason than that one man in the hurrying throng stood steadfastly looking upward. And this familiar incident is a type of something better. When a man is seen living for heaven; when every day's life says to men, " One thing have I desired of the Lord: that will I seek after," there is a power and a lesson in that fact. Men ask, "What is it he sees which we do not see? What is he after which thus concentrates his energy, and makes him live in this world as if his home were elsewhere?" III. And now the third element of the text — THE RESULT OF THIS CAREFUL AND PERSISTENT SELF-CULTURE. "Thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." In the economy of this world for a man to take heed to himself means to let other people go; not to save them, but to let them be lost if they will. In the Christian economy, to take heed to oneself is to save not only the self, but others. Thou shalt save thyself. It is very clearly implied that salvation is not an easy matter. Salvation is not a thing which God works out for us while we take our ease. But this promise, "thou shalt save thyself," is bound up with our influence upon others. You know very well that in teaching another any branch of knowledge, you broaden your own knowledge. You know how the labourer who toils for the sake of wife and little ones, strengthens his own arm; and in like manner, the exertion of spiritual energy for the sake of others, reacts to make the man who puts it forth spiritually stronger. The man who feels that he must take heed to himself because his life affects other lives, and who watches and disciplines himself, not only for his own salvation, but to save others — himself grows apace in spiritual power. So, too, you shall save them that hear you. There is a saving power in a life which is watchful over itself as in God's sight. Here we strike, I think, the true idea of the Church of Christ. The Church is ordained of Christ to save. Men talk of revival. For one I want a revival on a larger scale than is popularly conceived. A means of saving men — a mightier means than any temporary or spasmodic efforts. I long to see whole Churches, as bodies of Christ, glowing with the radiance of concentrated character. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. |
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