Dear Community! Dear friends!
Among the captivating letters of the Apostle Paul, came "to the post" of Timothy, an essential letter for the followers of Jesus Christ!
Parts of the letter says:
This commandment, Timothy, I charge you, so that according to the prophecies that were made before you, you militate for them the good militia, keeping the faith and good conscience, discarding which shipwrecked as for the faith some.
1 Timothy 1: 18-19
The Apostle Paul narrates in this text that some, having rejected the good conscience, came to be shipwrecked in the faith.
Conscience is a capacity of the mind, and implies the ability to perceive the relationship between one another and an environment. The corresponding Greek word that the apostle Paul used was syneidesis, which has as its meaning the faculty of the soul that distinguishes the right from the evil and impels the person to choose the first and avoid the second.
Then, we can conclude that good conscience is the ability to perceive our experiences with the environment and people in a profitable, useful, honest and straight way. It is the ability we have to differentiate and understand the right and in this way always choose the right.
One of the miracles performed by the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian is to give him a new heart, in which the law of God is already recorded.
"After those days, the Lord says: I will put my law within them and write it in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31.33)
The conscience of the Christian happens to have an important role in his life, because she expresses the law that is engraved in the heart.
The problem is that many have taken the attitude of not giving importance to their conscience and stop hearing it. This makes them hard-minded, insensitive and shipwrecked in faith.
Paul instructs Timothy of a duty:
Combat, the good fight, signed in the prophecies that he had received.
Timothy was advised to take action and not to think that the prophecies, in his regard, were going to be fulfilled automatically. But it was not to take action in any way; Paul instructed him to maintain faith and a good conscience.
It is possible for people to take action and do incredible things, but if you lose your dignity and dignity along the way, you do not take advantage of what you do.
That is why it is advisable not only to maintain the faith, but also the good conscience. Paul makes us understand that without a good conscience faith would not be enough to make prophecies (promises) if they fulfilled in Timothy's life, because some having rejected it came to be shipwrecked in faith. Faith has no strength without good conscience.
In the Christian walk, many events will receive guidance from our conscience. She helps us, for example, to recognize when we err against our brothers in Christ; when we speak words without love that hurt them; when we do not care if what we live and teach has biblical support or not; when we act according to the flesh, even as an act of piety; when we were hypocrites; when we are being judges, etc.
Christians who begin to despise good conscience begin to act like fools who do not hear what others tell them about their actions. Gradually they are closing in on their world and losing their good relations with others.
The language used is "shipwrecked in faith."
It is when a ship leaves a point A with the destination of point B, but in this objective, before reaching point B it sinks not fulfilling its destiny.
He did not have like Timothy to reach the concretion of promises without good conscience.
I think what Paul wanted to express was:
"Timothy if he does not develop the ability to maintain a good experience with people in his day to day in a profitable, helpful, honest and straight way and have the ability to differentiate and understand the right of what wrong (choosing the right thing) you can believe anything and nothing will happen, even, having promised God."
