{"id":5125,"date":"2022-10-06T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=5125"},"modified":"2022-09-20T15:18:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T21:18:43","slug":"the-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=5125","title":{"rendered":"The Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We leave 2 Corinthians and start 1 Timothy, the next book in our <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/11_bp84PjJK4vaGjUQdsHVq12ESqWnZkI\/view?usp=sharing\" target=\"_blank\">New Testament Reading Program.<\/a> The letter from Paul to Pastor Timothy starts with a bang:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1.3 &#8211; 5, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Timothy\u2019s purpose at Ephesus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Charge \u201ccertain persons\u201d &#8211; local teachers\u2026<ul><li>NOT to teach any different teaching<\/li><li>NOT to devote themselves to \u201cmyths and endless genealogies which promote speculations\u201d<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>The objective?<ul><li>Love&nbsp;<ul><li>from a pure heart<\/li><li>Good conscience<\/li><li>Sincere faith<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The alternative is \u201cvain discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Timothy 1.6, 7, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can&#8217;t tell you how many men&#8217;s Bible studies I&#8217;ve dropped in on and discovered, within one minute at most, that they are precisely about &#8220;vain discussion.&#8221; Debating fine points of doctrine, talking about different radio preachers they listen to, or otherwise finding ways NOT to put what they&#8217;re reading into practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s always the same. People want the authority and mystique that comes from being a teacher. They want secret knowledge, previously unknown. They want to \u201cdiscuss\u201d the Bible but they don\u2019t want to put the Bible into practice. They don\u2019t want the simplicity of teaching real truth that leads to love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bottom line is a life of love. How quickly we leave that! Jesus was clear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13.34, 35, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We leave 2 Corinthians and start 1 Timothy, the next book in our New Testament Reading Program. The letter from Paul to Pastor Timothy starts with a bang: As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=5125\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Purpose<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1kF","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5126,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125\/revisions\/5126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}