My Reflections on 1 Timothy

I've been going through 1 Timothy with my wonderful girlfriend recently and I thought now would be a good time to post some of my reflections on it.

There were two things that really hit me about 1 timothy this time. The first was:


The fact that desiring the position of overseer is a noble task. 

I really felt that this is something I should pursue for myself, and as such the characteristics that Paul lists.

• above reproach
• the husband of only one wife
• sober-minder
• self-controlled
• respectable
• hospitable
• able to teach
• not a drunkard
• not violent but gentle
• not quarrelsome
• not a lover of money
• manage his household well
• keep his children disciplined
• moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders

These are the criteria I want to be judged on. 

In some of these they don't directly apply (I don't have any wives...yet, though obviously this would mean 1 girlfriend and to be committed to that relationship and I don't have any children!) however, others are areas which I can judge myself on right now.

Am I a lover of money? This has been an area which I have really been challenging myself on this year and I am certainly improving and trusting god more over money. Am I there yet? Have I defeated the god of money? I hope so but I do still greed in my life so I can't honestly say i'm there yet.

The other are is Paul's charge to Timothy.

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

 It's a call to be the best person he can be, to not waste time but to live the good life. Sometimes it can be really easy to excuse wasting time on the basis of needing a rest or having done enough good for this week but this can't be the case. I'm not saying that we have to be slaving away all the time [and we definitely need to be able to say no to certain requests] but rather it's when people just expect things to fall into place.

I know this because I can be guilty of it, I can just say that I'm living a good life, not doing anything too bad, that's good enough right? However I'm not really pursing anything. That's the important thing, Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

So those are my two things from 1 Timothy.

 Why not read it and share your thoughts? How are you doing at these things?

Hello I'm... What's your name?

When teaching language skills we focus on tasks, skills and communicative goals and not teaching a set of grammar or vocab (unless they achieve these goals) [At least in theory!]

Typical the blog post title is the first skill that a language speaker learns in any language. Introducing themselves. After all being able to introduce yourself is usually the foundation in any use of language [even within such things as Airtrafic control pilots have to use such lexical phrases as "this is flight..." or "this is the control tower" a form of introduction in their field.] As such it is interesting to see what Jesus's introduction is.

Jesus being introduced by others

In the gospels Matthew starts by showing us Jesus linage before going on to detail his birth with Joseph being visited by an angel before hand.

In Mark Jesus is first spoken about by John before he is then baptised and God's voice declares him to be his son.

In Luke he talks about John's birth before Introducing Jesus and explaining how an angel tells Mary she will give birth to the Messiah.

In Johns he introduces us to "the word" who was with God and is God.

This is no normal man.

Jesus Introducing himself

The first time Jesus introduces himself  in Matthew[I'm discounting with John the baptist as he knows who he is and the temptations by the devil for the same reasons] is to call people to repent and follow him.

The first time in Mark is for the same purpose.

The first time in Luke is when he declares the year of Jubilee has come with him and that the kingdom is now here.

The first time in John is actually when Jesus ask other people! (also in John 1 v 35-39) He starts with the question "What do you want?" and then invites them to "come" [this is to two of John's disciples who hear John call Jesus the Lamb of God].

Now I don't know about you but I've never had anyone introduce themselves and tell me to follow them. I've never had anyone tell me to "Change direction" when they've first met me. The way Jesus introduces himself and the language he uses tell us so much about him.

A new layout and less sidebars

So you can probably see that I have changed my layout to be a lot simpler and to have less sidebars. There are a few reasons for this (It seams that when ever I do something it's always a few, never one or two, always a few).

The first is that it looks nicer and less complicated. In an internet age when you have social media sites which have a mini version of the social platform held in the top right corner of the page it's nice to have things simple and basic.

The second follows on from this as having less things to load onto the blog each time will mean that it takes less time to load up whenever you come and visit! How nice of me.

Also if you look at the top bar there is a new page link to my new teaching blog. Called A noobs guide to TEFL, you can read more about it here.

I'd like to make a request. Think of someone who might like this blog... and invite them. That's all.

Why are people having fewer kids

Many people look to the growth of contraceptives and reduced infant mortality as the cause of lower birthrates but perhaps they are more the means rather than the cause. I wonder if this comic perfectly sums up why some people in the west would rather have no or a very small number of children.

Thanks to XKCD for there very funny, usually very geeky comics

The Big 450!!!

Well I've reached 450 published posts and I thought it would be a good point to do a little review and look to the future.

As I've entered my second year of teaching I decided it would be a great time to start a specifically Teaching English as a foreign language blog, called A noobs guide to TEFL, and seperate it from this private blog. Why have I done this despite thinking only a few months ago that I didn't like this idea?

Well first I want a to have more comments about my thoughts on teaching. I want more experienced teachers to correct and aid me in my growth as a teacher. Having a Blog with such a wide range of topics hinders this. It makes it harder to search for, can provide a false first impression [or a very accurate one] of the main topics that interest me or that they would see me comment on and discourages returning visitors and subscribers.

In addition it will also provide me another clear goal for writing about teaching and thus force me to work on two of my goals for the year [more and better blogging, improving as a teacher.] However I also hope this will allow me to attract more people to this site and thus at the same time still not keep my on-line life in separate boxes but show how linked they are.

This Blog is going to become more focused in two ways, firstly there will be more on living in the Ukraine and on my experiences out here. Thus it shall continue the function as a personal update to all my friends and family back home. Secondly It shall be more focused on the best focus of all.

On Jesus, what he has done, what he is doing, what he will do.

As such I'm going to do more studies of passages. More about what I feel/know God has been saying to more, More prayer requests. More parables, More graphics, maybe the odd song, and Hopefully the odd video too! [though I left my USB cable in the UK!]

I want your input though. What would you like more of? What would you like less of?

I really wanted the challenges to work and maybe I bit off a bit more than I could chew with the last one so the next one will need less effort to do but there will be a suitable reward as well.