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Recently
our seven-year-old, Benjamin, approached with a game he had created. Taped
to the bottom of a low-sided box were four toilet paper tubes with lines drawn
between them. A marble rolled around in the cardboard maze.
"What's the goal?" I asked.
"To start the
marble here and get it through all the tubes and back to here," he explained.
Ben then demonstrated how to do it with the skill of the game's
inventor. My time was longer the first few attempts I made!
When I looked at Ben's game I could only guess at what the goal was. With
instructions from the creator the pattern made sense and the experience wasn't
frustrating.
As Paul wrote his treatise to Timothy he wanted
to make sure the young senior pastor understood the goal behind his writing.
If Paul's motives weren't clear the message could be discouraging or frustrating.
Paul declared, "The goal of our instruction is love from
a pure heart, and a good conscience and a sincere faith." (1 Timothy 1:5) In other words, he was saying
his motives were pure and he was speaking out of love.
When
a pastor is called upon to say hard things to his flock, hopefully that messenger
is living a life that demonstrates love. We should pray the message stems
from purity, goodness and sincerity. You should also be thankful that God
cared enough to give you a pastor who bears God's message lovingly.
All Scripture references are from the New American Standard
Version unless otherwise noted.
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The Goal!
