NEW COVENANT WORSHIP The Ordinary Made Sacred

1 Timothy 4:1–5 rings like a bell through the centuries — steady, clear, and uncompromising. Paul warns Timothy that “in latter times some will depart from the faith” (v. 1), not because they have found a better gospel, but because they have abandoned the only One who can make life holy. They will cling to “doctrines of demons,” not always in the form of wild superstition, but often in the guise of sophisticated religion. They will forbid what God has blessed, restrict what God has opened, and insist upon shadows long after the Light has risen.

And that is why these verses could never be true if the old covenant were still in effect in any form. Under the Mosaic law, certain foods were unclean, certain days untouchable, and certain practices remained fenced off by divine command. But Paul says plainly — almost shockingly — that in Christ “every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving” (v. 4).

That is a declaration no faithful Jew could have uttered under the old system. It is a banner stretched across the whole New Testament: everything has changed in Christ. The shadows have fled. The ceremonies have bowed. The barriers have crumbled. The Law that once divided clean from unclean has found its fulfillment in the One who makes all things new.

And here is the gospel beauty: the ordinary becomes sacred. Not because the thing itself changes, but because Christ has changed us. “It is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (v. 5). That means Scripture affirms its goodness, and prayer lifts it into the presence of God. Breakfast at the table, water drawn from a faucet, bread in the hands of a weary saint — all of it becomes holy ground. The old covenant marked out holiness by separation; the new covenant marks out holiness by transformation. God no longer calls us to a life of ritual distance, but to a life of redemptive participation.

This is why false teachers in Paul’s day — and in ours — always drift back toward rules, restrictions, and religious posturing. A heart untouched by grace seeks holiness by subtraction: don’t taste, don’t touch, don’t enjoy. But a heart made alive in Christ finds holiness by consecration: receive, give thanks, and live unto God. The new covenant does not shrink the world — it sanctifies it. And the Christian who walks in that freedom becomes a living testimony to the triumph of Christ over every fading shadow of the Law.

So take heart, believer. Nothing in your life is too common to be touched by glory. The meal on your plate, the work of your hands, the breath in your lungs — offered in gratitude, shaped by Scripture, lifted in prayer — becomes worship. For in Christ, the ordinary is no longer ordinary. It is holy, because He is here.

BDD