1 Timothy 6:3-5 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
We make lite of OCD do we not? If you do not suffer from OCD it is hard to understand the issues of obsessive compulsive disorders. We look to the behavior of people who suffer from OCD with a detached interest. We as laymen do not have the training or skills to treat the disorder.
Where in my opening verses is the OCD?
Doting, in the Greek noseō, to be taken with such an interest in a thing as to amount to a disease, to have a morbid fondness for.
That sounds serious does it not? We glaze over words and phrases without understanding the serious implication of the behavior associated with the text. We in turn will often, like OCD, make lite of it, because we do not understand it. But what does it look like in our Christian walk?
Ever run across someone who keeps asking the same question over and over again? Perhaps it is a subject in question that they can never stop talking about. It is the verbal equivalent to constantly brushing all the tassels of a rug because one fiber was not flat and perfectly parallel with all the rest. That becomes tedious to watch and in speech tedious to listen to all the time.
How about a person that cannot let go of their opinion? You end up agreeing to disagree. With people who do this, unity cannot be establish.
Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
“… he has a morbid desire for controversies and word-battles, out of which come jealousy, dissension, insults, evil suspicions, and constant wrangling among people whose minds no longer function properly and who have been deprived of the truth, so that they imagine that religion is a road to riches.”
1 Timothy 6: 4b-5 CJB
I would have over looked the DOTING had you not pointed it out. And that’s just what the CJB translation says, “morbid desire”. It also says that people can get to a point where “their minds no longer function properly”.
It says, ” from such withdraw thyself.” Do you think that this is more of a general direction given to us? Or a direction given for those that are young in their walk with God and not necessarily for others who are more mature in their walk? Or should we all follow this direction because it is ultimately a waste of time and breathe because the person is not totally in their faculties any more and is stuck in certain ways and thoughts only leading to arguments as it says and no hope for any words of truth to get in?
Good thoughts Lauren. Withdraw yourself is aphistemi in the Greek which in the active voice means to fall, to stumble, or falling away. The image is one trips another, becomes a stumbling block of sorts. It is not associated with new believers, this behavior is not iinnocent, t is proud, stiff-necked, and indicates a life spent away from the truth in search of self importance. We are not to try and reason with them, but rather pray the Lord might put them in their right mind.
Thank you! This brings to mind Romans 1.