By Will Kynes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Samford University
The Benefit of Spiritual Disciplines
1 Timothy 4:1–10
According to Jim Wilson, author of “Soul Shaping,” spiritual disciplines are the “small things Christians intentionally do to open themselves to God’s work of conforming them to the image of Christ.” However, there is nothing small about the mindset behind these disciplines.
Jesus compares the Kingdom of heaven to a treasure hidden in a field. The man who found it “in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (Matt. 13:44). The spiritual disciplines are the process of selling all one has to purchase the more rewarding treasure of the kingdom of God.
The world seeks to distort the good things of God. (1–3)
Discipline may be difficult, but the order it provides to life is something all desire. Few, in fact, live without any discipline at all. Despite their lives’ apparent disarray, drug addicts can be remarkably regimented in their habit, sacrificing everything dear to pursue it. Anarchy quickly becomes tyranny of another sort.
Thus, in 1 Timothy 4, those who forsake the Spirit’s leading do not find freedom, but the control of “deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” This distortion of God’s good guidance leads to greater restrictions: marriage forbidden and foods prohibited. God’s gracious gifts, created to be received with thanksgiving, are instead renounced in a hypocritical piety for false gods.
Focus on and lift up the truth of God. (4–7a)
Notice the rhetorical contrast Paul sets up in this passage. Those who “abandon” the faith follow the teaching of demonic deceptive spirits taught by hypocritical liars who will force them to forego marriage and abstain from certain foods. The rejection of God’s will leads to a life that is twisted and empty, shaped by “godless myths and old wives’ tales.” Faith in God, however, frees one up to enjoy God’s “good” gifts in creation and the nourishing “truths of the faith” and “good teaching.”
This same contrast is evident in Moses’s final charge to the Israelites: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deut. 30:19).
Discipline and train yourself in godliness. (7b–10)
Choosing life requires discipline, whether training one’s body or soul. But the sacrifices made in training oneself in godliness are far outweighed by the value it has for this life and the next.
Only a firm hope in God’s saving work on behalf of all who believe can provide a foundation solid enough to ground those sacrifices.
As athletes train to win a prize, so we exercise the spiritual disciplines for the treasure that is greater than all we could pay. Paul returns to this image again and again. He speaks of how all runners run, but only one gets the prize, and so encourages us to run with the determination to receive “a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:24). His example encourages us, like the man who sells everything to gain the hidden treasure, to forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead: “the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward” (Phil. 3:13–14).
This effort does not replace faith, but is built upon it. Without belief that the treasure is worth more than all he could sacrifice, the man in Jesus’s parable could not sell all he has with “joy.” Similarly, the spiritual disciplines, though they may cost us time and energy, should be sources of great joy as we anticipate the prize of everlasting joy.
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