Meaningless Talk...

"... so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm."
1 Timothy 1:3-7


I think that the idea of avoiding false doctrines and myths is something that we are all familiar with, but what strikes me about this passage is the idea of not devoting yourself to "endless genealogies" and staying away from "meaningless talk."
This means focusing less on trivial facts and putting our attention on love.

That's really hard.

I don't know about you, but for me, it's a lot easier to think about my faith, and talk about it at church than it is to actually put it into action through love.
This is a really important thing for me to remember though, because I really enjoy teaching and hope to do it for a living one day, so that last part is kind of a kick in the pants.

Now, of course, this isn't to say that we aren't supposed to look at the deep truths of the faith (Paul encourages this, later, in chapter 3,) but there's always a need for balance.

And the more time that I spend reading the bible, the more I find this coming up over and over again. There's always a need for balance, and rarely is it black and white.
One advantage of this though, is that it "forces us" into a strong relationship with God, so that in every situation we call on Him for guidance.