1 Timothy 1:5Plain English VersionYou see, you have to teach people to do what is right, and to believe in God properly, and to never do bad things. Then they will properly love each other all the time. We want people to follow the things that we teach, so that they live that way. See the chapter |
One of the men at the Jewish Leaders Council meeting was the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies. His name was Ananias. Paul stood up in front of Ananias and all the men at the Jewish Leaders Council meeting, and he looked straight at them, and said, “My brothers, I have respected our God all my life, and I have always done whatever I reckoned was right.” As soon as Paul said that, Ananias told the men that were near Paul to hit him on the mouth.
Sometimes you might know that something is all right, so you think you will eat it. But if you know that another Christian will get upset when you eat it, then don’t eat it. Leave it. If you love other Christians, you will not do things that hurt them. Remember, Jesus Christ died for those people, so don’t eat that food. You know that it is all right to eat it, but leave it anyway. Then nobody will blame you.
You see, we can have power from God, but if we don’t love people, we are nothing. Suppose we talk in the languages of other people and even talk in the languages of angels, but if we don’t love people, all of that is useless. We will only be making a noise, like somebody banging a drum or hitting a bell.
But if God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things. You know that a good fruit tree always gets good fruit on it. Well, like that, a person with God’s spirit does good things. If you let God’s spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble. And he will get you to be friendly to other people, and he will get you to do good things. He will make you the sort of person that other people can trust.
Timothy, you are like a son to me, so I’m telling you to do these things. Remember that the Holy Spirit told the Christians there a message about you, some time ago. Well, you have to think about that message, so that you can stand up against things that are wrong, like a soldier that stands up and fights against an enemy.
I thank God for you, Timothy, and I pray for you all the time, in the day time and also at night. I work for God, and I really want to work properly for him so that I always feel good about it. (My father wanted to work for God properly too, and so did my grand-father, and my family that lived a long time ago.)
Lots of young people just follow their own feelings, and then they do bad things. But you have to keep away from anything like that. Keep away from anything that will push you into doing something bad. Instead of that, you have to try to do good things, and always trust God, and love people, and don’t fight anyone. Some people live like that. They pray to God, and they only want to do good things. Well, make those people your good friends, and you live like that too.
You know, if people just want to follow God’s way, they don’t have to worry about people’s rules. They are clean inside, so everything is all right for them. But nothing is all right for people that don’t want to follow God’s way. They can only think in a bad way. They don’t know what is right and what is wrong.
But when you trust God, you go close to him, and when you do that, he will come close to you, and he will help you. So you have to stop doing bad things. Don’t even think about doing bad things. Don’t think that maybe you will go the right way, or maybe the wrong way. No, forget the wrong way, and just go the right way.
That water is a picture of the baptism ceremony. Like the time our Christian leaders put us under the water to baptise us. They didn’t do that to wash the dirt off the outside of us. No. It’s like that water washed the shame from inside us. When we asked those leaders to baptise us, we asked God to make us clean on the inside, so that we will not feel shame any more. So God saves us and gives us new life. Yes, we can have new life because, after Jesus died, he came back to life again.