NOTES for Ti1 4:1-10
It is difficult to determine how the same words of Holy Scripture sound in different centuries. Perhaps today's reading has often been relevant during the two thousand years of Christian history, but for us it can become a daily reading. Eat this, do not eat that. What was regarded as natural throughout human history is now considered harmful, and vice versa. Marriage and family are evil, and life is valued at nothing. What matters most is not godliness, but exercise, diet, and a gleaming white smile. Yet to all who reproach the Church and Christians for worshiping ritual and ceremonial, and therefore external, things, one can offer only the apostle's words, which remain to this day the rule of life for those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus: “...bodily exercise is of little benefit, but godliness is beneficial for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”