Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Love the Wrong Thing? | New Testament | 2 Timothy 3

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Misplaced love is a dangerous thing, and what you love matters. So, what do you love? Do you love anything more than God? In today's episode, Jensen looks at 2 Timothy 3 to discuss Paul's warning against loving the wrong thing. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Timothy 3

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. When I had my daughter a few months back, I chose a television show to watch in the downtime while my older son was sleeping and I was nap-trapped by a newborn. And I chose to re-watch Downton Abbey. If you've never heard of it, it's a period drama set in the early 1900s following a family and their staff on their large estate. And in a recent episode, they followed the lives of four of the young. staff members, two girls and two boys. In this group of four, one girl likes a boy, but that boy

doesn't like her. The other boy likes the first girl, but we know she doesn't like him. It's the second girl who likes him, which leads to a lot of heartbreak and drama on the show. And in the midst of this dramatic love triangle, the cook says something to the effect of, it's not a problem that they're all young and in love, but it's a problem that they're all in love with the wrong people. See, their problem wasn't that they loved, but that they loved the wrong person,

the wrong thing. And the show continues to play out showing us just how destructive it is for these four people to go on loving the wrong person. And it made me think about a quote by the well-known writer, David Foster Wallace. He says, because here's something else that's weird but true.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. He goes on to say that there may be a compelling reason to worship a God from some religion because otherwise you end up spending your life worshipping money or things or beauty or sex and all of those things will end up letting you down and destroying you. Now, David Foster Wallace is not a Christian, but here he hits on a truth that Christians

have held for ages. See, humans were created to love. We were created to worship, but when that love and worship is misplaced, things go terribly wrong. Think about the garden. Adam and Eve had everything they needed, everything they could ask for. lived in paradise, loving and knowing the God who created them intimately. But the serpent tempted them, made them think there was something better out there for them to love, to desire, to worship.

He made them distrust the love that God had for them, and when they chose to place their desires elsewhere, the whole of creation was broken. Misplaced love is a dangerous thing. In his book, You Are What You Love, author James K.A. Smith puts it this way. and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behaviors flow. See, what we love matters, because what we love dictates our behaviors, our actions, our emotions, how we live our lives. And this isn't a new idea. Paul knew this when he wrote his second letter to Timothy. In chapter three, we read this, but understand this, that in the last days they will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self,

lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous without self-control, brutal, not loving good. Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and let astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. But just as Jans and Jambris oppose Moses, so these men also oppose the truth. Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith, but they will not get very far,

for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. Did you catch it? See, in the times of difficulty, we're going to find people who are lovers of self, lovers of money, not loving good, but loving pleasure rather than God. And we learn that this misplaced love leads to pride, arrogance, abusiveness, disobedience, slander, people who pretend to be godly, but deep down have no knowledge of truth. And because of this, no love for God. See, Paul warns Timothy of the very truth we've talked about.

These deceitful people living in destructive ways, causing harm to others, leading people away from God, haven't fallen away because they're unable to love, but because they deeply and wholeheartedly love the wrong things. It's a dangerous and slippery slope. Paul warns that they can appear to be godly at first, but in the end their folly will be plain to all, because eventually out of their true loves will become behaviors and actions that cannot be equated. with godliness. And while Paul is warning about the dangers of those out there who have disordered loves, I can't help but pause for a moment and wonder where my loves are placed. What do my actions, my behaviors, my choices say about what I love? Maybe we should all take a moment and ask the same questions. What do I give my money towards? Where do I spend my time? What do I talk about

most often, ruminate on? What do I spend hours worrying about, planning, preparing for each week? When I have free time, how do I spend it? Because if my love shape my behaviors, then as I look at my behaviors, I may begin to see where my love is going towards. Now, as you ask these questions, you may find yourself, like me, a little worried, maybe realizing that you may be loving the wrong things. Sometimes I pass as godly, but if I really looked at my answers to all those questions, I'd probably see a love of materialism, a love of self, a love of gossip that is destructive in my life and the lives of those around me. But I don't want to be stuck there. I don't want us to be caught up in the wrong loves. And I think the words that Paul shares next with Timothy can give

us a little insight into how to reorient our loves back to where they were created to be. Verse 10. You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and suffering that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Leistra, which persecutions I endured. Yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. So Paul first reminds Timothy that those who desire a godly life will not have an easy road ahead of them, but to continue to live with disordered loves will lead from bad to worse, further into deception.

Continuing on, verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And so, even knowing that it will not be easy, Timothy is to continue in what he has learned through his relationships with other believers and from Scripture. And finally, Paul ends with a verse that you've probably heard before. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for

every good work. You see, those who live in deceit and so destruction love the wrong things, but those who love God will live lives immersed in Christian community and saturated in the word of God. And so if we want our loves to be reoriented, retrained to be focused on God, we must know the truth of Scripture and seek out the accountability of other believers. Again, James K.A. Smith says it so well when he says this. Jesus's command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with His, to want what God wants, to desire what God desires to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all, a vision encapsulated by the shorthand.

the kingdom of God. See, to follow Jesus is to align our loves and longings with His. And to do so, we must know who God is and what God wants and what he desires and what he is building in his kingdom. And we cannot know that apart from Scripture. See, Paul tells us that scripture is God breathed. Its power comes from its authenticity as the true divine word of God. It teaches us, corrects us, trains us, and as it does this, it reorders our loves to align with God's loves, so that we may be equipped to live the life that God has called us, to build his kingdom in the world around us. What we love matters. Our loves can lead us towards Jesus and His kingdom or away from him.

We all have a choice. We all love something. See, I don't want to be counted among those Paul rebukes in this chapter. I don't want to be foolish, not knowing truth, allowing my loves, my desires to be shaped by the world, by my heart. I want my loves to be shaped by the enduring truth of Scripture. I want to love the God I was created to love, to seek out the good of those around me, to love goodness, to love others, to love justice and mercy. I want to faithfully follow Jesus Christ, and in doing so, begin to be shaped by all that he loves. And if that is your desire too, then we have to begin where

Paul points us. We have to know truth, to read scripture, to allow its power to transform our lives, our loves. Maybe we all begin today by spending time in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to begin showing us our loves. And as we dive into scripture, that those loves would be reoriented towards our Savior. and that over time, as we all spend time in prayer, in Christian community, in the powerful word of God, that our actions and behaviors would be shaped more and more by our love for all that Jesus loves.