“But you, as a person dedicated to God, keep away from all that. Instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, love, endurance, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith and lay hold of that eternal life you were called for and made your good confession for in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you before God who gives life to all things and Christ Jesus who made his good confession before Pontius Pilate, to obey this command without fault or failure until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ – whose appearing the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, will reveal at the right time. He alone possesses immortality and lives in unapproachable light, whom no human has ever seen or is able to see. To him be honor and eternal power! Amen.”
— 1 Timothy 6:11-16
Previous paragraph and following paragraph discuss those with riches. Paul rebukes the wealthy and then gives them commands on what to do instead of pursuing money. Then here in the middle are commands for Timothy, his young protege/ambassador left at Ephesus to oversee the churches there. (Not the pastor)
First, he should keep away from pursuing/dreaming about money. As many have said, having money is fine but building one’s life around it is so dangerous and actually pointless. We’d have to look at previous passage for why. “All kinds of evil.”
Paul (assuming he wrote these books for now) lists several other attributes worth pursuing. Lay hold of eternal life may sound strange to someone with background of strong “assurance of salvation.” But over and over in NT we see emphasis on endurance, need to pursue eternal life while following Jesus. Yes, God preserves/keeps His own, but faithfulness on our part is important. Not really worth debating, since passages emphasize both sides.
Paul says to seize it, and not make it questionable basically. Timothy made confession either at his baptism or ordination of some sort. Lots of witnesses just as Jesus had at His trial.
Without failure?? Wow, high standard, but wavering (at least for Timothy) has consequences. A faithful life is necessary. Not pursuing riches but righteousness and and gentleness and love.
Just read a book that focused on this term of Jesus’ appearing not coming, as if He will just become visible, not necessarily descend in clouds. Basis of thought depends on where heaven actually is (he thought another dimension basically, and heaven will become one new earth. Heaven and earth overlap now). There are other reasons for Jesus not to descend, per se, since a descent on one side of earth is an ascent from the other hemisphere. But God can do things however He wants. There are verses that say all will see Him. I’ll focus on that.
He alone has immortality. So we don’t have immortal souls? We won’t live forever? Same author reached this conclusion. God gives immortality/eternal life to those who believe. What about unbelievers? This position is annihilationism, and has some merit, but I’m not there yet. Does God give immortality to all people to give eternal life or judgment forever? Hmm.
Paul doesn’t focus on these implications. He jumps straight to praise for all that God is. He alone is worthy.
Then he gets back to yelling at the haughty rich people.
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