Adventures in 1 Timothy

I'm going to give a go at something new here on the blog. Hopefully it will be something useful for you as a leader. Let me start at the beginning...

I was born a very young child. No, no, no. Not that far back.

Several days ago I had decided to take a different direction in my morning appointments with God. My wife Cheryl and I were both reading through a chronological Bible during our quiet times but realized it had become dry. (It's not the Author's fault...we had just made it dry.) So we each decided to make a course correction. We would read the chronological Bible passages together at night. And we would each pick a book of the Bible or passage to just go through devotionally in the mornings.

Well, the evening readings aren't working out so well and the readings are piling up, but that's a story for another time.

For my morning quiet times, I decided to study 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These are letters that Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus. Most of Paul's letters in the New Testament are written to churches in different regions, but these were written to individuals. Specifically, they were written to men Paul considered his "sons in the faith." In today's language, they might have considered Paul their "mentor." And he writes to them with great wisdom on leadership in the church.

So as I read these letters, I imagine myself as Timothy, and Paul is writing this letter to me, giving me some incredibly sound advice on being a leader in the church. So I take it personally, and I take it to heart. And I also take it with a further aim to help others in their leadership walk.

So I am beginning with 1 Timothy. I invite you to join the journey with me. As I am starting out here, I have no idea if I'll post daily or every few days or whatever. I have no plan to get through a chapter a week or even a verse a day. But I'm just lingering at each verse until I feel God is through teaching me.

I would encourage you to read through the entire book of 1 Timothy. It's only six short chapters and will only take about 15 minutes or so. By the way, I'm primarily using the New International Version.

Next post we'll talk about the setting and background of 1 Timothy...