Week 49 1 Timothy
While I’ve been reading-through this year I’ve had one Big Focus – to read everything right through. But back in about February I decided to tack on a secondary exercise, and that was to record verses that said something about what the Lord is like.
So I struck gold in chapter one. Paul is talking to Timothy but then it’s like all-of-a-sudden he’s addressing the Lord: now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
I think Paul is mainly showing respect for the Lord here, but in the process he names specific features about him.
I added three to my What’s-the-Lord-Like list:
The Lord is eternal, there’s a Permanency of Existence quality;
The Lord is invisible. A spirit doesn’t register on my optic nerves (so if seeing-is-believing then I’m in trouble); and,
The Lord is unique; there’s just nothing else to compare him to.
I haven’t tried subdividing my list but if I did I’d put these three under something like Difference-Emphasizing Qualities. All of them tend to put quite a bit of distance between the Lord and me – actually quite-a-bit-more than quite-a-bit. The discrepancy between us gives me a sense of unease.
Still, feeling unease about the Super-Qualities of the Lord isn’t a deal-breaker for me because I figure that the more closely I could identify him & me the less & less like God he becomes.
Note: quote from 1 Timothy 1:17 (NASB)