Trained in the Truth
1 Timothy 4:7 NIV
"Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather train yourself to be godly."
"Step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back!" I would sing this phrase as a young girl, dodging cracks in the pavement like my mother's life depended on it. Where I'm from, many people strongly believe in wives' tales and myths. For example, if one spills salt, they must throw it over both of their shoulders or else they'll have bad luck. Many believe that one should wait 30 mins to an hour after eating before swimming. And of course, I was told many times during both of my pregnancies that, if I had heartburn, then my baby would have a headful of hair. While these common myths and wives' tales may be harmless, most of them aren't true. Nevertheless, we still tend to live our lives abiding and believing in them. Looking at this a little closer, we can even see that, in doing so, we are believing what people say over the truth-what God says.
In 1 Timothy, Paul expresses the importance of training ourselves to be Godly. This can only be achieved by first, reading and knowing the scripture. When we dive into scripture and train ourselves in God's truth, we will find that these little sayings aren't in alignment with our faith. Once we realize this, we are better able to abide by God's truth and act on it by living it out in our daily lives. Through our efforts to know God's truth, and then apply such truth to our daily lives, we will begin to see ourselves growing in the godly direction that Paul emphasized. Verse 8 tells us, "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." If we want to know what is true and what is false in this world, we must first start conditioning ourselves in the word of God, found only in the Good Book itself. In it, we will see only what God says, not what man says.
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