The Way We Live

The Greek word Paul used, which is translated as “reverent,” comes from hieros, meaning holy. In fact, this is the term Paul used to describe the Word of God when he wrote his final letter to Timothy. He reminded his “son in the faith” (1 Tim. 1:2) that he had become a Christian because his mother Eunice had laid the groundwork by teaching him “the holy [hieros] Scriptures” from the time he was a young child (2 Tim. 3:15).

You Are a Letter from Christ

Someone once said that our lives may be the only Bible some people will ever read. Paul underscored the importance of this idea when he wrote to the Corinthians:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Cor. 3:2-3).

This is a very important truth. We cannot expect others to hear what we say unless they first see it demonstrated in our own lives. As a young man himself, Titus could not expect other younger men to respond to his teaching unless they saw it exemplified in his own life. That is why Paul wrote, “In everything set them an example by doing what is good” (Titus 2:7). In the same way, older women could not expect younger women to hear what they taught verbally unless they themselves were consistently reverent in the way they lived. In essence, they were to reflect the life of Jesus Christ.

Two-Dimensional Communication

Modeling is a foundational concept in New Testament communication. In actuality, Paul exemplified a twofold teaching approach in his own life-on-life ministry — modeling Christlikeness while verbally instructing believers. When he wrote to the Thessalonians, he reminded them of the way he, Silas and Timothy had utilized these two dimensions in their communication.

Their model: “You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed” (1 Thess. 2:10).

Their teaching ministry: “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:11-12).

When Paul encouraged Timothy to communicate the Word of God faithfully to the Ephesians, he emphasized the same twofold approach: