Train Yourself for Godliness (Part Three)

Train Yourself for Godliness (Part Three).  Of all the sociological models of human development, none are sufficient at depicting the spiritual growth of a Christian. Whether the indigenous Wheel of Life model (Maiden, Mother, Mage, Crone), Aristotle’s Three Stages of Man (Youth, Prime of Life, Old Age), Hippocrates’ Seven Stages of Life which Shakespeare put into As You Like It (Infant, Schoolboy, Lover, Soldier, Judge, Pantaloon, Second Childhood), or Erik Erikson’s standardized Stages of Psychosocial Development (Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood), all these theories of development are linear, flattened, and intentionally non-religious. However, a Christian’s individual spiritual growth and a congregation’s collective spiritual growth are progressive and participatory, though not precisely formulaic.

Nevertheless, a faint sketch emerges in the Bible of the spiritual growth of individual Christians and local congregations. With some effort, landmarks and causeways on the spiritual map to maturity appear. “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11). “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:24-26). “[Build] up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children” (Eph. 4:12-14). “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7).

The training vocabulary that Paul lifts from the culture and repurposes for discipleship (Greek, gymnazo, like English, gymnasium) is a fixture in the Greco-Roman world. The ancients valued highly physical training. However, Paul speaks of a different kind of training at a different kind of gymnasium. “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8).