v 16 – “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”

  • Pay close attention
    • We must carefully evaluate our own ministry as given to us by God. Not on the basis of our own feelings or on comparison with what we assume others are doing. We, in a Romans 14 way, do not know the hearts or minds of people, nor do we know the work which God has placed on another person. We are only responsible for our own walk and our own work in keeping the commands of Christ. That said, we are responsible in that we have been given a ministry in God, fueled and enabled to act on the commands of God by both the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and provisioned for the work by the gifts we have received, and we will need to pursue it to the result that God is glorified through our actions. Not that these works save us, nor guarantee our salvation, but that they flow naturally from the heart of a changed and converted soul to the service of God.
    • We must not allow this statement to result in useless navel gazing – where our whole being is wrapped up in self critique. God knows our frame, our failures, our proclivities, and our struggles. He enables us to his service, knowing that we are failures who would rather serve ourselves than him any day of the week had we not been so empowered by his Holy Spirit inhabiting our conscience and our being.
  • Yourself and to your teaching
    • We, as Christian leaders, are held to a higher standard. While others “can” do some things in the service of God, we cannot because we must be mindful of the fact that our office carries weight and authority. Whereas a lay leader may have a little more freedom in his Christian liberty, an elder or deacon does not have this right. We are, whether we like it or not, held to a higher standard by those in our circle of influence, and therefore while the actions of a normal church goer may have some minor influence on the view of the church of God in general and Christ in particular – those of the elder/deacon carry more weight. You only hear about a member of a church who violates the societal understanding of “Christian values” if they commit grievous societal sins, but an elder/deacon may have their name and reputation dragged through the mud for any list of presumed societal sins. It is because of this that the Christian leader must place significant scrutiny upon his own life (applied theology) and teaching (doctrinal instruction).
  • Persevere
    • This is not a fun job nor is it enjoyable, but it is necessary. It is a daily struggle whereby we must pursue our own character and evaluate it by the example given by Christ. We will certainly fail, and we need to trust in the promises of God upon our lives, thanking and praising him for his faithfulness despite our own failures to keep his standard of perfection, but we must also ultimately understand that our continued failure to keep his standard may lead God to remove us from our position of authority.
  • Save … yourself … others
    • Again, our salvation is bound in the finished work of Christ upon the cross, not in our own work, but our perseverance in the statements in 1 Tim 4 (show yourself as a model in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity; command and teach the truthfulness of the service of God; be nourished by the word of God and use it to fuel you to service; etc) will
      • save yourself
        • Again, not be the catalyst and guarantor of your salvation, but it will keep you focused on the continued service of God and you won’t have time for worldly pursuits which may entice you to serving self and worshipping your own desires.
      • save others
        • Your example will result in inspiring those in the church – in your circle of influence – to continue in pursuing their own personal holiness and service to God in their own lives. This has, as in your own life, the added effect of keeping your hearers from worldly pursuits, leading them to pursue Godly service in their own lives.
      • Conversely, terrible pastors – those who serve out of sense of duty, desire for wealth, or pursuit of power, lead others to terrible results as their implied and direct actions result in the expression of their applied theology.