Have you ever trained for something? I used to swim and we would train for meets and train to get as fast as we could get. This would take serious time, many hours at the pool, in the weight room, working on technique. Granted I did not put in as much effort or training as some, and there is one reason for that. Training is hard. You work yourself hard and push yourself to the limit. This is not easy, it is not a cake walk. Many people when faced with training will go the other way, they will seek a path of less resistance.
But training is a way of life. We train all the time, we train in our jobs, we train for education, we train to do some skill or task better or faster. We are a people that are in constant training. So why is it that we break from that when it comes to what we believe? So many people will move away from this training mentality when it comes to matters of the faith. For some reason they will see faith or matters of the faith as something which requires no training. How further from the truth could they be! Logic compels us to think that if everything else requires training, should not what we believe and how we live it out require training as well?
1 Timothy 4: 7-8 states “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
Paul stresses here that training does not stop just with our body, or even with school, but that it extends into our faith. We are to train ourselves in godliness, we are to train ourselves in the ways of our faith. We can see the value of training in every other realm of our lives. We see training helping athletes win medals, helping the military perform missions well, helping students pass courses and earn good grades. That same benefit can also be applied to our faith.
The sad thing is that so many people don’t see the benefit or don’t realize what training can mean for their faith. They don’t take the time and the effort to really train themselves in what they believe. This leads to people not understanding what they believe, not knowing how to apply it to their lives, not living it out, and not being able to articulate it to others. These people find it hard to impact the world without that training. God can use them and does use them to reach people, but they are not good stewards of what God has given them.
Take apologetics for example. This is just a big word for talking to people about what you believe and what they believe. So many well wishing Christians will set out to open a dialogue with a non-believer and to try to give them reasons and arguments for why Christianity is true. Well, if these Christians don’t have the training in what they believe, if they have not spent the time they will not be able to articulate the Christian faith. And when someone that believes something different and has studied and trained argues with them, they can be shaken in their own beliefs, because they will not know how to respond. The fact of the matter is that more non-believers have trained for what they believe than Christians. Non-believers had to fight and figure out what it was they believed and so can articulate it. This doesn’t make it right, it just makes them trained in a way of thinking. But it is the Christians that should be in constant training. We should be constantly seeking to edify ourselves in the way of the Lord.
How has your training been going?
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