Do You Need All the Answers to Have Faith? | 1 Timothy 1:3-7

But before I get to your questions, I wanna talk about the goal of a good question.

It's laid out in this passage.

1 Timothy 1, verse 5, is the Apostle Paul writing to his spiritual son, Timothy, who he's asked to take over his favorite church in Ephesus.

And he says, Paul was perhaps the most prolific preacher that we have recorded in the Bible.

He probably didn't preach to the most people in history.

There's other folks that would have gotten to that because of transit and technology.

He obviously wrote more scriptures than anyone.

And so, but he's telling it that the goal is not to defeat his enemies.

The goal is not to put other people into a bind.

The goal is not to try to make other people look foolish, even though he can.

Could, did, still does.

The goal of reading the scriptures, the goal of diving in is very clear.

He wants people who are listening to him, who hear him, and my heart echoes this as well, to be filled with a greater love.

Not to be filled with greater knowledge, not to be filled with greater facts, not to be filled with greater understanding of different things.

For the sake of understanding.

Because he says some people have missed the whole point.

Now, 1 Timothy is written somewhere around mid to late 50s AD.

So we're already 20 to 25 years after Jesus' death and resurrection.

And already there are people who are traveling and teaching in such a way that they are turning people away from loving God, turning people away from that, and spending all their time in meaningless things.

discussions where they wanna talk for the sake of talking, not for the sake of moving forward.

This is really important for us to understand that as we go through these and we answer these questions, we're not trying to go, now you've got things that will stump other people.

We're not trying to stump other people.

We're trying to find ways to unlock and untie knots of doubt or stumbling blocks in your faith to help you become a better believer, help you believe more clearly, and to live more faithfully to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And when I can, I'm going to answer questions with the Bible.

But the Bible doesn't speak specifically to everything that was asked or everything in our life.