Will spread like gangrene

@KellyJay

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

It is good to look at this from the positive point of view too.

Paul wanted Timothy to be a "good minister of Christ Jesus" ( 1 Tim. 4:6)

This means more than just being a minister belonging to Christ Jesus but one who imparts Christ Jesus. He ministers a living Person in the Spirit - Christ Jesus.

The failure of succeeding workers to be ministers ministering Christ to people was the source of the decline of the church.

The Christians were undernourished. It is not that they were short of knowledge but were deprived of spiritual nourishment.

"If you lay these things before the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, being nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching which you have closely followed." ( 1 Tim. 4:6)

1.) What Timothy learned from Paul he should live and lay them before the other brothers.

2.) Laying these healthy teachings before the brothers he himself would be a "good minister of Christ Jesus" ministering Christ to others.

3.) It was not just knowledge he was had but was "nourished up" with the words of the faith. That means he was fed with healthy food for his spiritual nutrition. Christ and the words of the faith had to be Timothy's own nourishment.

4.) The nourishing teaching he received from Paul was of "the words of the faith". They were faith imparting, faith inspiring, and faith building words. Remember, in chapter one Paul had said that God's administration was in faith.

" ... which produce questionings rather than God's economy [or administration] which is in faith." (1:4)

The nourishment , the feeding was all in the realm of feeding faith, not just passing on knowledge. Or, in the conveying of knowledge adequate attention had to be given to also nourishing faith.

5.) This was the way and the teaching which Timothy had "closely followed" . He followed Paul's life and example and teaching with deliberateness not casually. He was dedicated to closely follow Paul's healthy teaching.

This is something of the positive angle of the exhortations.

@moonbus said
If Galileo had not dared to "upset the faith of some", we would still believe the Earth to be an immovable pancake at the center of the universe.

This is one of the greatest myths in history, they say.

Apparently, Catholic monks were already in the process of proving the heliocentric universe and the idea was basically noncontroversial in the Catholic world.

Galileo was vehemently anti-religious and they basically were getting him for that and one of the pretenses was him claiming it to be scientific truth without the definitive proof and also something about even trying to make this claim while it was known that somoene else would be finalizing it soon thereafter...

It's been years but I had the whole story actually explained ot me by my atheist friend (!!!).

He's the weakest of the atheist martyrs.

@Philokalia

I think that moonbase assumed that "the faith" I spoke of was something peripheral about where the earth physically sits in the solar system.

So he champions science which "upset the faith" of some by showing how the solar system really works.

Well, Jesus spoke nothing about the location of the earth.
He spoke of being free from sin by knowing the truth. Which truth eventually was Jesus Himself coming into us in His form as the Holy Spirit to set us from from the inside out.

Modern man is very focused on physical sciences and the way the mechanics of the universe work. I have asked myself WHY Jesus did spend all His time teaching the twelve disciples about the nature of gravity, black holes, microwaves, quantum entanglement, relativity, etc, etc,

His priorities were things more ageless and appropriate over all ages of man's increase and fluctuations of knowledge about these things.

The science of today, should another thousand years pass, will appear naive to some future minds. "How could they have been so naive not to understand ________?"

But the adulterer is still enslaved to his coveting his neighbor's wife.
The murderer is still carried away by his ferocious temper.
The thief still steals.
The liar still lies.
The fornicator is still using his or her accomplice in an exploiting and non-committal way.
The gossips are still sick with spreading their half truths and slanders.

These moral sicknesses continue to plague man to misery and injustice regardless of his understanding of the mechanics of the cosmos.

While it is good that man's knowledge increases. And I would say we don't give God enough thanksgiving for this as God plays a part. The Lord keeps watch over all knowledge. (Proverbs 22:12)

The Great Physician came to heal us of the moral and spiritual sickness of the fallen sinning nature. That He is able to is really "the faith" the New Testament speaks to.

"The faith" in the Bible is not that the earth is a pancake revolved around by other cosmic bodies.