According to 1 Timothy 2:7, Paul was appointed “a herald and an apostle..., a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.” Paul was a herald, an apostle, and a teacher in the sphere of faith and truth. Here faith refers to faith in Christ, and truth refers to the reality of all things in the economy of God as revealed in the New Testament. For instance, the Word becoming flesh, the death and resurrection of the Lord, and the Lord being the life-giving Spirit are all items of the truth, the reality in the economy of God. They are also the content of our faith, the items that we believe in.
Paul was sent not only to preach the gospel but also to teach people how to believe. This shows that we should not merely preach the gospel for people to be saved. After they are saved, we should teach them so that they understand what they have believed. This means that we should teach the realities, the truth, in the New Testament revelation as the content of the faith.
Second Timothy 2:15 says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman, cutting straight the word of the truth.” To cut straight in Greek means “to divide.” Just as a surgeon must know the human body so that he never randomly cuts a necessary part of the body, we must know the word of the truth so that when we expound the word of reality, the word of the truth, in the New Testament, we cut the word straight without any slant, curve, or distortion. When we expound the word of the truth incorrectly, we distort the word of the truth. Paul charged Timothy to learn to cut straight the word of the truth in the degraded situation of the church. In this way heresies and errors are avoided, and the factors of degradation are rooted out. This is a kind of inoculation.
The three “T” books also speak of faith, truth, and economy. Footnote 1 of 1 Timothy 1:1 in the Recovery Version shows the relationship between these three words. The faith is the contents of the complete gospel according to God’s New Testament economy. This gospel is not an ordinary gospel; it is the complete gospel according to God’s New Testament economy. The truth is the reality of the contents of the faith, and economy refers to the household administration of God. God is a God of economy. He has a dispensation, an arrangement, and a plan. God’s economy is His plan. In eternity God had a plan, a dispensation, related to His household administration. There is a relationship between faith, truth, and economy: God’s economy is His plan, faith is the contents of the gospel in God’s plan, and truth is the reality of the contents of the faith.
Another emphasis in the three “T” books is Paul’s charge to Timothy not to teach differently from God’s economy. First Timothy 1:3-4 says, “I exhorted you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach different things nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies, which produce questionings rather than God’s economy, which is in faith.” This portion shows that we should guard against and avoid teachings that differ from or distract from God’s economy. However, we need to know God’s economy, His arrangement, His plan. The primary matter is the gospel of God. The contents of the gospel of God is the faith, and the faith includes the reality of all the divine things. Therefore, what we preach must not differ from the words of reality in the divine things. This is our faith, this is the contents of the gospel, and this is the word of God’s economy.
In his Epistles Paul spoke many things to Timothy, but the most personal comment that he made to Timothy was, “Let no one despise your youth” (1 Tim. 4:12). This word, this charge, is inclusive in nature. It includes everything.
If a person receives teachings that are different from God’s economy, he is naive. If he were not so, he would not agree with a speaking that is different from God’s economy. If he agrees with a different teaching, he is not experienced and is still young. Therefore, we must learn to not let anyone despise our youth. Instead, we should be a pattern to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity (v. 12).
We should not let anyone despise our youth because of our words. We can discern whether or not a person is still a child by listening to how he speaks. Hence, in our serving the Lord we need to exercise to speak with weight and not frivolously. If our words are without weight, we are still young. This does not mean that we should speak with the sound and tone of an older man. Sounding like an older man is different from speaking with weight. We should not confuse these two things.
If we speak carelessly, we are not weighty and cannot be a pattern. In 1947 I was taking the lead in the church in Shanghai. One day while I was speaking with a few co-workers, a sister who loved the Lord ran into the room and exclaimed that there was a big hole in the ceiling upstairs. We were shocked and asked her how big the hole was. However, the more we inquired, the smaller the circle became. This shows that she was childish and young.