Mary C

We have a obligation to take care of our parents and grandparents to repay them for all the years that they cared for us. Paul is telling us that if we don't take care of them as they are older we are worse then a unbeliever. It should be counted as a blessing to take care of your parents in their latter years.

Godliness if following the Lord and a life that produces fruit. To produce godliness in a life of the believer they need to seek God thru prayer and bible study. They need to listen for that still small voice and have self controll. Sometime it is hard in world we are living in. Godliness will produce fruit in your life and following the law will give the outward appearance of godliness but inward the person is not godly and may not even know God.

When they follow the Jewish law they are working on the outward apparences and sometimes is eaiser to do then to work on the inward spiritual part of their life. It does not produce any fruit. I call it a do's and don't religion, do this and don't do that. If you are following the true gospel it will produce fruit in your life. If you let the Holy Spirit lead you then he will convict you of what you should be doing and you will have peace in whatever way the Spirit is leading you.

Paul was reminding Timothy to teach the truth in love and warn the church about the false teachers, they were following the devil and not the Holy Spirit, their consciences had been seared. I think in many churches today they are not teaching the word and gotten into teaching to tickle the ears of the hearers. Paul is trying to get the church to wake up and see what is happening.

The qualifications of elders and deacons were almost the same. Elders were to be the overseers, teachers of the church to encourage, preach and exhort and refute those who opposed it. Elders children were to be believers and it doesn't say that deacons children had to be believers. Deacons were to be the assistance to the elders doing alot of the administrative work.

If they have the above tendencies they could lead the church in the wrong direction and the church would suffer.

It is important to look at the way they conduct themselves with their familes, in the business world and every other aspect of their lives. If you look at all of these areas very carefully you can tell what kind of person they are. Everyone is tested to one degress or another. You can see a persons true charcter when they are under pressure or stress.

I believe he meant one wife, that may not mean the man could have had another wife at one time what if she had died? Altho if he is devoriced and remarried I don't know if he should be in a leadership position. You can tell alot about a man by the way his children act. If the children are bad and unruly I think there is something wrong in the household. If the children have a loving relationship with the father means he is a very good dad.

I believe in todays world people are more prone to accept women in the ministry, there are a lot of women teachers today. I do believe that God does call some women into the ministry. However this is a touchy subject. God did place the man over the household and over his wife, I think he intended for them to walk side by side and that the man should not lord submission over his wife. He should love her as Christ loves the church.

I assume the women in the church were not dressing themselves in a appropriate manner and it was not a good witness for the church. In the church today women should be modest in their dress and have a quiet and gentle spirit.

The men at the church at Ephesus were quarreling and had anger against one another and Paul was bringing this to their attention. God will not listen if you are not right in your heart, he wants you to humble yourself and forgive and if you have anything against your brother go to him and repair the problem.

Evidently there was alot of strife in the church and Paul wanted them to repent and get their lives back in order. They had wandered far from the gospel with all their false teachers. The danger of worshipping with anger in your heart you will not get answers to your prayers. You need to humble yourself before God and ask his forgiveness that you may forgive those that have traspassed against you.

I believe Paul was reminding Timothy so he would point this out to the people. God had sent his son to die on the cross so all people might be saved. He wanted them to remember in who they had at one time trusted and to remember that Jesus was their savior, mediator and he paid the ransom for them. Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father forever making intersession for us. We pray and he brings our prayers before God.

Paul was reminding them of their purpose, the church had gone off in left field and were teaching false doctrine. They should have been teaching and preaching to all people Instead they were teaching myths and other false doctrine. It suggest that the leaders in the church was not focusing on evangelism and they were back into teaching to law to the jewish people only. They had lost sight of thier purpose.

He didn't want Timothy to lose sight of his calling and wanted him to continue the good fight of faith. He wanted him to hold fast of his faith and lean into God to fullfill his calling Faith is a substance of things hope for and things not seen, so fighting the good fight of faith means to hang onto Gods word regardless of the circumstances, even tho it doesn't look like anything has changed around you. Because Paul had seen how some had fallen away from sound doctrine, they had gone back to the law and they were not trusting and having faith in God. A lot of false doctrine was being taught and he did not want Timothy to fall away from the truth. I believe Timothy was under a lot of warfare from the enemy. Paul wanted to encourge Timothy to lean into the word of God and keep the faith.