1 Timothy 4:16: How to Bring People to Salvation

1 Timothy 4:16.. "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers."

How do we bring people to salvation? So often, we desire to bring people to Christ without the slightest idea of how to do this effectively. The verse above provides us with a two-part formula in order that we might save our hearers, that is, bring them unto salvation and deliver them from sin. This formula is one-part watching ourselves and one-part wathing our teaching.

Firstly, in order to bring people to salvation, we must watch ourselves. What does this mean? Let me put it to you plainly: your personal holiness affects those who you are trying to save. That is, you must fight your own sin if you seek to deliver others from theirs. If we are not pure, how will we ever bring others to purity? If we do not fight sin, how will we encourage others to? Either we will fail at it, or we will be hypocrites. Therefore, we must watch ourselves, that is, our own personal holiness.

Secondly, we must watch our teaching in order to bring people to salvation. This refers to a lot of things, but most noteably that we must guard ourselves from error as well as teach in a way that is effective. We must teach what is accurate, but we also must teach it in a way that enables our hearers to understand it and apply it to their lives. Accuracy without effectiveness is useless. Therefore, we must keep a good watch on our teaching in order that it might be both accurate and effective, that we might bring our hearers to salvation.

So, do you desire that unbelievers come to Christ (I sure hope so!)? If you do, try first purifying yourself by the power of God. Call out the sin in yourself. Have a brother hold you accountable. Store up scripture that you might not sin against God (Psalm 119:11). After you have done that, analyze the way that you teach (or disciple) others. Are you accurate? If you don't know, then read your Bible more to find out they way of God's truth. If so, then work each and every day on making that accurate teaching something that is more and more effective, in order that you might "save your hearers."