"Fight the Good fight of Faith"

Unit 1 Choice 2: 1 Timothy 1–6. “Be Thou an Example of the Believers”

So, I've decided that I go crazy when I try to answer these questions verbatim. I get bogged down in the detail of everything and don't really enjoy learning key gospel truths. So, I went through, read the assignment and tried to understand what the teacher wanted me to learn from doing the assignment - then I went out to learn it. I used the scriptures and reference he listed, but I also referred to other ones that I thought related. 

Here are the concepts I feel my professor wanted me to understand:

1. What Dress Standards Christians are asked to follow and why these standards are important, The sacred nature of our bodies, And the application of these two principles in our current lives. 

2. The deterioration of the true Christian Church and how the love of money can contribute to individual and collective apostasy. 

Dress Standards, Bodies, and Application:

I have found that many Christian women, inside and outside the Latter-day Saint sphere, hold themselves as valuable. Paul expresses that women aren't intended to be flashy, glitzy, or sexualized. Satan just does that because it can be done so well. 

In a recent general conference address, the comment was made "Dressing immodestly not only negatively influences and affects others, but it….perpetuates in a woman's own mind that she can only attract attention to herself from her body." Although men hardly dress immodestly, the advice still applies to them also. 

On that note, our bodies are fascinating, wondering, and beautiful creations from an infinitely creative God! He crafted you! The Book of Mormon teaches of the eternal nature of the body and of the reality of the resurrection. Our bodies give us opportunities here on life to learn self-control. When they malfunction, get sick or tired, we are to be wise stewards of them and take care of them as we would take care of a sick plant. 

So it comes down to this - woman, you don't need to wear a low cut top and jeans that are so tight you want to throw up. Yes, look attractive! Do you hair, makeup, be well groomed, and wear clothes that fit you, but by all means give the men a little mystery! Stop competing against yourself of against others. We don't need to defile our bodies, and mortality is not a competition. 

Apostasy and Love of Money:

  

The early church started to go down hill pretty fast. The whole reason Paul was running around the known world at the time was to try and regulate affairs. You saw people coming up with their own ideas, incorporating pagan beliefs into church practices and changing key ordinances and principles. Paul specifically notes that people will abandon traditional marriage concepts, traditional and inspired heath concepts, and have a misconception of our bodies and divine nature. 

He then goes on to talk about the *love* of money being the root of all evil. Money itself it not evil, but when we come to be in love with it more than we love God, that is the problem. I once knew a man that made well over $400,000 a year. He made the comment "I think the harder challenge is to 'have' rather than 'not have'". When don't have something, particularly money, we recognize how much we need God. When we have money, it's easier to forget Him. So the real challenge is to be prosperous but not forget God in all that. Honestly, I think tithing is the best way to keep that balance. 

The importance of being an example - AKA PERSONAL APPLICATION!!!!

So, Paul has talked about sex, money, gender roles, modesty, and balance. Sound like issues in our day? 

The issues the early Christian church faced were not so different from what we face now as Christians. We face pressures to worship money, abandon our gender roles, not stand up for what you believe in, and mistreat our bodies. So what are we to do? I believe that we should follow the admonitions of Paul. One, we should seek after anything that is virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy, or of good report. Two, we should "be…an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 

While serving as a missionary in Southern California I came to understand how everyone watched us as missionaries but also as members. To any member who thinks that people don't notice, you're wrong. People do notice what you do, so keep on doing good. Keep on fighting the good fight, and keep on having faith. "Fight the good fight of Faith"