1 Timothy 1:9Plain English VersionWe have to remember that God gave that law to punish the people that do bad things, not the people that do good things. That law is there to stop bad people, and cheeky people, and people that forget about God and everything that belongs to God. It is there to stop people that want to kill their own father or mother, and people that want to murder other people. See the chapter |
Remember that story about Abraham, that old man that lived a long time ago. God promised him that one day the people born into his family would be great people everywhere in the world. And Abraham believed that word that God promised him. Abraham didn’t have the law at that time. He just believed God, and then God said that Abraham was good, and God promised to look after his family.
But maybe somebody is asking, “Why did God give his law to his people?” This is the answer. His people kept on doing bad things, so God gave them his law. And he wanted them to follow that law until Abraham’s special grand-son came. This was the grand-son that God was talking about a long time ago when he promised good to Abraham. You see, God gave his law like this. He used his angel messengers to tell it to Moses. He was a man that stood in the middle, between God and the people, to help those people listen to God.
They want things that belong to other people. They get drunk. They have wild parties and do all sorts of bad things. Listen, I’m telling you again what I told you before. People that keep on doing those bad things will never be in God’s family. They will never get the good things that God will give to the people in his family.
Then that really bad man will come with that power, and he will show himself to everyone. That bad man never does anything that God wants. But then later, Jesus our leader will come and kill him. Jesus will just talk, and his words will kill that man. Jesus will finish him up when he comes with power.
All right, Timothy, God gave you his good message, so you have to look after it properly. Make sure nobody changes it around. There are some people that talk a lot in a stupid way, and they say bad things about God. Don’t listen to them. They might reckon they know all about it, and they might say that you are wrong, but really, they are the ones that are wrong.
Most people will only love themselves, and they will love money. They will think that they are smart, and they will tell everyone they are smart. They will say bad things about other people. They will never do what their parents tell them to do. They will never thank anyone for anything. They will not respect things that belong to God.
Now I want to tell you what church leaders have to be like. They have to be really good people, so that nobody can say anything bad about them. A church leader can only have one wife, and he can’t sleep with any other woman, like a husband sleeps with his wife. His kids have to believe in God, and they have to do the right things and not get into trouble. His kids have to do what he says.
You know, we were like that before we believed in Jesus. We did silly things too. We didn’t do what God told us to do. People tricked us, and we believed things that were not true. And we wanted to do all sorts of bad things. We couldn’t stop ourselves. If anybody had a lot of things, we wanted those things for ourselves, and we were angry with those people. We hated people, and people hated us.
And you mob do that. You trust Jesus. You know that he is important. But people that don’t trust him don’t know that he is important. God says this about them in his book, “Some work-men built a house out of stones, but the work-men thought one of the stones was rubbish, so they chucked it away. They were wrong. That stone was properly good, and now God made it the most important stone of all.”
A long time ago, they didn’t listen to God, and they didn’t do the things God told them to do. That was at the time when Noah lived. God waited at that time, he didn’t punish anyone yet. God waited, and Noah built that big boat. Only 8 people got into that boat. Then God sent a very big rain. Water covered everything, and everyone drowned. God saved only those 8 people that were in the boat.