On Guard!

          Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith. (I Timothy 6:20-21)

          Guard duty. It sounds boring, but it’s a sacred and deeply ingrained duty. Soldiers guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier twenty-four hours a day, through any and all weather. Good parents guard their children against those who might do them harm – even, sometimes, from themselves. When someone entrusted to guard does something wrong, somehow, we think it much worse than when someone else does it. Of course, guarding requires wisdom. Guarding a child against ever falling down means the child won’t learn to walk, and walking is a positive thing.

         Timothy was given specific instructions as a pastor to guard what was entrusted to his care. So what was it that was entrusted to his care and how was he to guard it? Paul’s instructions were to turn away from specific sorts of chatter and ideas. This means that what he was entrusted to him wasn’t really the people he pastored. It was the gospel, the teachings of Christ and the apostles. Again, I have to go back to the frequent claim that people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care, and to the idea that people and their feelings have the primary priority in our lives. Again, I return to the idea that it doesn’t matter what we believe, as long as we are sincere and kind. That’s not what Paul is telling us here.

           Paul told Timothy that what mattered for Timothy was that Timothy “color within the lines” and that he protect that picture, that others didn’t add, subtract, or move lines in it. He was to turn away from godless chatter, and ideas that some were calling “knowledge” but that opposed what he’d been taught. There are now, as there were then, many groups and individuals who teach against what Scripture teaches. They sometimes present it as truer or equally true with what is in Scripture. Sometimes, they even proclaim what they teach to be in line with Scripture.

         One such teaching is the idea that the public square and government should be entirely secular. In other words, it is to be godless, and those who are involved with the government should be godless. All conversation – not just chatter – is to be godless. Paul tells us to turn away from this. In order to turn away, we must refuse to tolerate the teachings that promote these ideas. We’re to reject secularism. Yes, our government is forbidden to establish a state religion, and we should be thankful for that, but that’s not the same accepting godlessness as a state religion/philosophy.

Claims of religiosity on the part of any political party should be suspect. Lip service is all too likely from any group or political party, but the group that expressly promotes godlessness is to be rejected no matter how “nice” they seem to be.

           Then, there are those who come up with ideas that are in opposition to Scripture, and proclaim them to be “settled science.” They are quite popular right now. There are those who claim human-centric  global warming to be settled science. Others claim that human genders being part of a spectrum and the whole LGBT bit to be settled science. They twist Scripture to try to force those who believe we should love one another to make the acceptance, approval, and celebration of those things part of Christian “love.” We are to add them to our picture even if they were expressly not included in the Scriptures. People who believe that all people should have the right to define themselves rejecting the Scriptures that teach that God knew us before we were born and that He knitted us together in our mothers’ wombs – that how He created our bodies and how He created our souls can be and often are in opposition to one another in spite of what Scripture teaches. Post Modernism teaches that the only thing that matters is what we decide for ourselves is true for ourselves. Paul tells us to turn away from these pieces of knowledge. 

         We should reject any group that expressly rejects God or the teachings of Scripture. No group is going to be 100 percent in line with Scripture, but there are some popular groups whose social and political positions are expressly anti-Scripture. No matter how good they look, sound, or smell, we’re to turn away from them. Giving candy to babies and offering children puppies is the way evil men seduce children into danger. It doesn’t change when we grow up.