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"You will be a good minister of Jesus Christ..."

Text: 1 Timothy 4:6

BEING A GOOD MINISTER FOR THE LORD

Being a good minister should be the dream of every servant of God. What does it take to be called a “good minister”?

“If you instruct the brethren in these things,
you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ,
nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine
which you have carefully followed.”

1 Timothy 4:6

1. “If you instruct the brethren in these things”

a) A good minister will be deeply committed to the task of teaching.

b) He will teach diligently the things of the Lord.

c) He will teach gently as if he was talking to “brethren”.

i) The sense of being “brethren” is very strong in the New Testament era.

ii) The apostle Paul used this word very frequently in all his epistles.

2. “You will be a good minister of Jesus Christ”

a) The word “minister” in this text is the same word used to describe “a deacon”.

b) However Paul was not speaking about Timothy serving as a deacon.

c) He was explaining to Timothy how he should go about fulfilling his teaching ministry.

i) He must teach with great humility.

ii) A good minister is a humble one.

3. “Nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine”

a) A key goal of teaching is the nourishment of the souls of the brethren.

b) The good minister will also find that he himself is nourished by the things that he teaches.

4. The contents of teaching are very clear.

a) Words of faith (better, “the words of the faith” – a more literal translation of the text).

b) The good doctrine.

5. The source of the content

a) Timothy had been well instructed by the apostle Paul himself.

b) He had carefully followed what Paul had taught him.

c) A good minister is one who faithfully teaches what he has first carefully learned from a reliable and authoritative source. There was none sounder than the apostle Paul.