CIRCLES OF LIFE
"(but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?)," 1Ti 3:5
How shall he who cannot perform the lesser function, perform the greater and more difficult? These words were used by the Apostle when he was giving Timothy instructions as to the orderly government of the Church; and their first application was to those who were to exercise oversight, that is, to be bishops or overseers, the pastors. They contain a principle which applies to the whole field of Christian service. It may be said tbat every Christian witness is a center around whom concentric circles are drawn in which his or her witness will operate. We may illustrate by saying that in the ordinary life of every Christian believer, the circles are those of home, church, city, nation, race. While the influence of a life may not seem to affect all these, it certainly does so in a measure. Necessarily it is more evident in the first circles. Now the principle involved in this statement is that we are only able to exert the true influence in the wider circles as we do so in the first. The question of the Apostle has a self-evident answer. If a man is not able to regulate the affairs of his own household, if his own children are unruly, he cannot guide and guard the Church of God so as to ensure its orderliness and power. That is so for two reasons.
First, that he lacks the power to rule. If he possessed it, he could rule his house.
Second, that his failure in his own house must negative any attempt he may make in the Church, for men will only obey an authority which is evidenced by results.
We may pass back to the central fact, and say that fitness for the guidance of others, in home or Church, or anywhere, is created by the control of one's own life as it is wholly under the sway of the Lord.
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