Apostolic Authority & Ministry

Transcript

GR1751
01/19/2014
Apostolic Authority & Ministry
I Timothy 1:1-2
Gil Rugh

We are beginning a study of Paul’s first letter to Timothy and we are doing this because we want to again remind ourselves of the truths that God has given us regarding the church. We looked in our first study last week on 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul’s writing hoping to come to Timothy but if he is delayed he wants Timothy to know and the church at Ephesus to know how they are to conduct themselves.

As you look at chapter 3, verse 15, that is how they are to conduct themselves in God’s family, God’s household, the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. And as we will see very quickly, as we move into this first chapter of the letter things are not all well in the church at Ephesus and false teachers have arisen within the church there and part of Timothy’s difficult responsibility will be to bring things into line with God’s plan for the church.

These days don’t change. The attack on the church from without and within continues to our day. I just want to share with you a couple of items from two books that were written in the late 1990’s, I believe 1998 and 1999 that will touch on some things we are going to be addressing in the first couple of verses, particularly as relates to apostolic ministry.

The first book is entitled The New Apostolic Church and it’s basically each chapter is written by a pastor or leader in one of the churches they are identified as one of the new apostolic churches. What the new apostolic churches are, Peter Wagner is a key leader in this movement are churches that have adopted certain principles for church growth and the leaders are viewed as present day apostles.

Let me read you just a few statements. These are not continuous. I’ve just picked out some statements to give you a flavor. “Recognizing the New Testament office of apostle as alive and well in churches today is the biggest leap with which many readers of this book will be confronted. Of all the differences between new apostolic churches and traditional protestant churches this, I believe, is the most radical.” I don’t know if it’s the most radical but it is a significant step to say that the gift of apostle is present and the leaders of these churches are modern day apostles. It is a change from the historic view of the church. Part of what is deceptive is when you have churches that claim to be solid doctrinally, solid on their Biblical stand. This is true if you read different writers than this book and yet when you have some of the characteristics, one of the characteristics of new apostolic churches is their eschatology is optimistic. Since we’ve been talking about this on Sunday mornings in connection of the coming of Christ for the church I thought you might enjoy this.

The third new apostolic compass point value is that Satan is being defeated, that things are going well for the kingdom of God.” You note their view is that we are in the kingdom. We are bringing the kingdom into existence, really becoming post-millennial in the ideology being presented. “Spiritual victories will continue to exceed spiritual defeats. New apostolic leaders recognize that society is crumbling, that demons infest our environment and that people are hurting more and more. However, they hold a visionary eschatology. In other words they both strongly believe that more souls than ever are being saved, that churches will continue to multiply, that demonic strongholds will be torn down, that the powers of darkness will crack open and that the advance of God’s kingdom is inexorable.” I don’t find that to be a scriptural teaching. “As I move among new apostolic leaders,” this is Peter Wagner writing, “I hear surprising little conversation relating to pre-millennialism or post-millennialism or a-millennialism and even less about pre-tribulation or mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture. These eschatalogical issues once high on the agendas of many conservative church leaders do not seem to be that important today. Robert Schuler’s advice to young church leaders seems to apply to new apostolic Christians. Don’t let eschatology stifle your long-term thinking.”
Now I don’t find that to be consistent with Biblical truth but if you read some of these writers who are pastors and leaders of apostolic churches they want to claim we are not sacrificing any doctrine. We are being up front about the doctrine but one of the characteristics is they are not interested in eschatology and they don’t want Biblical doctrine about future things to stifle their planning.

“Although their number has been diminishing significantly over the last couple of decades some Christian leaders still consider themselves cessationist.” Cessationists are us. We believe certain gifts like the gift of apostle have ceased. Wagner’s observation is “although their number has been diminishing significantly over the last couple of decades,” and that’s probably true, “some Christian leaders still consider themselves cessationists. We will be talking about that as we open our study of Timothy. “They hold the position that many of the spiritual gifts that were in operation in the first century church were designed by God so that their use would cease with the close of the apostolic age and with the completion of the New Testament cannon of Scripture.” And that exactly what we believe but that’s not what new apostolic leaders believe. That stifles what you are going to accomplish with your church. So now we are not only going to go to the Scripture on the doctrine for spiritual gifts and we are not going there for our doctrine of eschatology but these churches are being very Biblical.

“We are witnessing a fairly rapid change in the attitude of church leaders toward accepting the contemporary office of apostle. Some theologians are still arguing against it. The trend is clear thought and my guess is that in a few years the controversy will begin to die down.” And what happens is churches are less and less interested in doctrine. Well, their church is growing, they say they love the Lord, let’s not make an issue of it. Sort of like Pope Francis, who am I to judge? Not that I count him as one of my resources.

“The church is much more prepared to advance the Kingdom.” The key to all of this is we are in the kingdom. And we are advancing the kingdom and it will more and more take over. Let me move on, one more and this is after he critiques a little bit of some current people who don’t agree with some of these approaches, John MacArthur being one that you would recognize. “Bill Hybels, new apostolic pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, Barrington, IL, a longtime friend of Robert Schuler, agrees that pastors have the responsibility of determining the purpose of each corporate meeting.” I mention Bill Hybels because we sometimes think, well these are not issues. He’s got some statistics that have been done and this is 15 years, these books. Men have done research around the world estimated what he believes is low somewhere around 100 million people around the world involved in the new apostolic movement. Now they may be high numbers but the man doing the research thought that they may be low. Interesting that Bill Hybels is included there. In fact, among the churches, the new apostolic churches, the different pastors who write on this, Bill Hybels is one of them. Now Bill Hybels is Illinois and my purpose is not to evaluate his ministry. We have talked about that before but one of the things Bill Hybels notes in the chapter he wrote they have started the Willow Creek Association to spread their teaching for church growth to other churches across the country and around the world and we ought to realize that it is on our door step because as I mentioned if you go on to see because they published the member churches so that when you go to an area you can go to a church that is part of the Willow Creek Association and believes these kinds of teachings and several of our leading “evangelical” churches in the city if you get on the web site and look what churches you could find in Lincoln are members of the Willow Creek Association.

I am not saying that there are not believers that are there or that they are not believers but when you begin to adopt this kind of thinking about doctrine and Biblical truth and this is the way to grow a church as many of you know and I’ve shared with you many years ago I was doing some study in southern California and I got to know Peter Wagner who is the author of these books and had the opportunity to spend time with him. I visited a number of churches in southern California with Peter Wagner and John Wimber who started the Vineyard movement and we would talk about those churches and so on. We are down at Robert Schuler’s and having something to drink, not alcoholic. We were looking across and over at Schuler’s work we had gone through and Peter said to me, “Gil, look what he has done.” And I said Peter, “What about the theology?” And I never forgot, I tell you periodically and he said to me, “Gil, these principles will work whatever your theology.” And that is true but you don’t make alliance with the devil.

Christ will build His church but we are impatient with what Christ does. We forget this is God’s family. We don’t go outside to try to find things that will speed things along and the way the church growth movement is they don’t go to the Word to find what the Scripture says about the church, it is pure pragmatism. That’s why I was visiting churches with Peter Wagner in southern California. You go and examine churches that are really growing and then you try to establish the principles and implement them in your church and then your church will grow.

On one occasion I was asked since our church was growing, considered a large church in those days, the late 70’s if I would lecture and speak to 700 pastors from a specific denomination on how our church grew and I said “You know, our doctrine is different, our doctrine of salvation is different. If I speak to them, I have to speak to them about the doctrine of Biblical salvation and what must be taught, the Word of God;” until they change their doctrine and become faithful in that any growth is not growth caused by God. You know, that didn’t deter them. They still had the leaders of that denomination come and sit in a morning service and meet with me in my office afterwards and say couldn’t you consider just talking about church growth without getting into these doctrinal matters? I mean that’s everything, isn’t it? Is the most important thing whether our church grows or whether our church is faithful to the Word. Sometimes God in His grace causes the church to grow but church growth in and of itself does not determine faithfulness.

So we are going to begin I Timothy chapter 1. Let me read the first two verses. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope; to Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” That will be the introduction and you know the next verse which we won’t be getting to in this study tells Timothy his purpose in being at Ephesus is at the end of verse 3: so “that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines,” because the church is the pillar and support of the truth. When it is no longer being faithful to the truth and with the truth it is no longer being faithful to the Lord, so, serious matters.

Paul is writing to Timothy and it’s the church at Ephesus. We’ve talked about the church being established in Acts 2 in our studies in some of the matters relating to future things.

Put up the map. This is Paul’s second missionary journey and I didn’t pick it up particularly because we are going to talk about the second and third journey but Paul will meet Timothy at Lystra. I don’t know if you can see Lystra there. We start over in Antioch and then he went around and comes over to Derbe. That’s a little larger and then the next city is Lystra. He is writing to Timothy and that is where Timothy is from, Lystra and Paul evidently had contact with him on his first missionary journey but we are not told about that but the indications seem to be that Timothy was saved on that journey.

We know on Paul’s second missionary journey which is reflected here he visited again and that’s where he will pick up Timothy and Timothy becomes a travelling companion of the Apostle Paul. When he is writing this letter to Timothy some 15 years have gone by since that time so Timothy may have been, an estimate by the commentators, is in his early 20’s when Paul picked him up as a travelling companion. Now Timothy would be in his mid-30’s. We are going to have a reference to Timothy’s age later when he’s told to not let anyone despise his age and the word used there would indicate a person under 40 years of age. That helps us to get some timeline. We know we are about 15 years along and Timothy is still under 40 so a man in his mid-30’s here.

Why don’t you come back to Acts 18 since Timothy is key here. You can come to Acts 16 and that will just be what I will share with you. Paul is on his second missionary journey when you come to the opening of chapter 16. So he had been through that region where Lystra is and preached the Gospel on his first missionary journey and that seems to be where Timothy became a believer. We will see some indication of that in a few minutes.

Chapter 16 opens up: “Paul came to Derbe and to Lystra and a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.” Paul wanted this man to go with him and it was customary for Paul to have travelling companions. Barnabas travelled with him on the first missionary journey. John Mark was a young man who travelled with him but he bailed out remember on the second missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas split – that is at the end of chapter 15 as they prepare for the second journey because Barnabas wanted to take John Mark along. Paul says, “I am not taking someone who bailed the last time.” So Paul is traveling with Silas but now he picks up Timothy who in effect is a replacement for John Mark as a young man. He was well spoken of and so Timothy becomes Paul’s traveling companion.

Ephesus and you come over to chapter 18. On Paul’s second missionary journey he made a brief stop at Ephesus towards the end of that trip. Verse 18 of chapter 18 as he’s traveling, you come down to verse 19: “They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. (His traveling companions, Priscilla and Aquila.) He entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer, he did not consent.” Verse 21: “He set sail from Ephesus.” So just a brief stop there but he leaves Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos is going to come on the scene.

The third missionary journey begins in verse 23 and then you are told about Apollos. You get a little window there of what is happening at Ephesus and the contact there with Aquila and Priscilla and so on. Then the third missionary journey, chapter 19 Paul comes to Ephesus and he has an extensive ministry at Ephesus, that’s in chapter 19 but over in chapter 20 Paul has a brief meeting with the elders from the church at Ephesus who come and meet him and verse 31he says, “Be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish you.” So he spent three years. It’s encompassed in Acts chapter 19 at Ephesus. Paul has an extensive ministry there. There are elders established and warning given to the elders and we will have more to say about that.

Ephesus was a great city. You know, we sometimes think of Paul traveling and sometimes think these little towns but Ephesus was the largest city in Asia Minor. If you put that map up again, Asia Minor being over there where you see Ephesus and that whole region encompass a lot of what we have as Turkey today and Ephesus is the largest city and the capital city of the province of Asia. We are talking about Asia Minor of course and not Asia like we think of Japan and China and so on but where the seven churches of Asia were. So it is the largest city, the capital city.

One person has written about its significance. It was a major commercial seaport and also three major trade routes came through the city so it was a prosperous city because of the commercial activity. It was of great political importance. It was known as a “free” city. By that we mean the Romans had given it the right of self-government. It’s under Roman authority but they had the right of self-government.

Roman soldiers weren’t stationed at Ephesus. I mean that was an honor given to this city. The Romans were saying that you govern yourself well enough and you are trustworthy enough we won’t station soldiers here.

The Roman governor would come here regularly because it was the center, the capital and of course that gave it governmental significance and importance and there is always great pageantry associated when the Roman governor would be coming. It was center of the Panamanian Games which were on the level of the Olympics in those days so we know something of the impact of sports and this brought just you know, much attention to the city, many people to the city. They were held in the month of May and hoards of people would descend on Ephesus to attend the games.

It was a great city of religious significance. The temple of Artemaeus better known by the Latin name, Diana was here and this temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It had 127 columns 60 feet high. Each of those had been paid for by a king. Their recognition and denote that they are honoring the goddess Diana so huge temple, huge center of worship. You are familiar if you look in an encyclopedia, on the web or in your bible encyclopedia they will have that grotesque female image, fertility image of Artemus or Diana, all kinds of immoral godless conduct associated with this. Hundreds, some think even maybe thousands of priestesses associated with the worship. This temple had the right of asylum so for 200 yards out around the temple if you were accused of a crime or had committed a crime and you made it there you had asylum. You could not be arrested or prosecuted. So it just drew all of the worst of the worst to Ephesus and you have the superstition that went with the worship and you remember what Paul’s experience was there, the riots were called because the silversmiths accused Paul of bringing into disrepute their activity, money making schemes so he is undermining the worship of Diana and they fill the stadium. For two hours nobody can get a word in because all they want to do is cry out, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians,” so quite a city.

Here’s the summary of one man who had done the study of these areas: “So into Ephesus there poured a stream of criminals of every kind, fugitives from law, escapers and avoiders of justice. Into Ephesus there flowed a torrent of credulous, superstitious people. For in a superstitious world Ephesus was well-nigh the most superstitious city in the world. The character of the people of Ephesus was notoriously bad. The people had the reputation all over Asia of being fickle, superstitious and immoral.” Just note that because sometimes we think oh we are giving out the Word in such difficult days. I mean this must be much worse than Paul had to deal with. Here you have this unimpressive Jew coming into this center of godless worship, a mixture of immorality and affluence and here he comes and just starts preaching Christ. It didn’t make him popular. It ended up putting the whole city in an uproar. There is a church established and people are saved and the church at Ephesus will receive the letter to the Ephesians from Paul. It will be addressed as the first of the churches in Asia when Christ some 30 years after Paul’s letter to the Ephesians addresses them with the letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2. It is a prominent church but it is a church established in a difficult place. The goal wasn’t to make Christianity compatible with the world as it was in Ephesus. not to make the godless Ephesians more comfortable in the church that was established at Ephesus but this is the city that Timothy now has been sent to by Paul and Paul is writing to him.

Come back to Timothy and we will look a little bit but I want you to have a least a little bit of the situation that Timothy finds himself ministering in. He’s not the pastor of the church here. He’s Paul representative to deal with problems in the church and he comes with Paul’s authority.

So the letter comes and you have the normal letter of the time with its kind of greeting they put it at the beginning. You are aware the different New Testament letters begin. You identify who wrote it, who he is, who you are writing too and you give a greeting. Again, that’s the pattern that Paul follows.

Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus is how he begins and identifies himself. Now of course Timothy knows who he is and his apostolic authority is not an issue for Timothy. This is a letter not only to Timothy but to the church and it gives Paul’s authority to act to Timothy. Timothy in what he is to say here, he’s acting as Paul’s representative and Paul is God’s representative so it’s important that Paul’s position as an apostle be established here. So it’s “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of our God and Savior and of Christ Jesus who is our hope.”

And we are reminded here – we are going to look a little bit at the qualification of an apostle because Timothy is not an apostle. If he was an apostle he wouldn’t need Paul’s authority as an apostle. He would have his own apostolic authority but he is a representative of the apostle.

The apostles are a unique, special group and in spite of what I read you from these books, the gift of apostle ceased with the completion of God’s revelation which we have as our New Testament.
There were three basic requirements to be an apostle that we will just note. They had to have seen Jesus Christ after His resurrection so that they could be eye-witnesses in their testimony where they could say we saw Him after his resurrection. So, there is no doubt He was raised from the dead. We are eye-witnesses.

Come back to Acts 1. We are going to look at some Scripture so that we are clear on this. Acts chapter 1, verse 22. As they are looking for a replacement for Judas who betrayed Christ and has gone out and hung himself, verse 21- they are looking from among the men that were part of their group “beginning with the baptism of John, until the day that Christ was ascended. One of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” Now Paul as an apostle he didn’t travel with that original group but he is an eye witness. He is an exceptional case as he’ll note but he does fit the qualification of being an eye witness. He did see Christ after His resurrection.

You come to chapter 10 of Acts and Peter is explaining to the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius something of his position and the other apostles and in verse 40 he shared with them about the life of Christ and His crucifixion on the cross. Verse 40 of Acts 10: “God raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, (note this) not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, those who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people. This is the One who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness.” So Peter is sitting telling Cornelius and those assembled at his house, “I am one of the eye witnesses.” There are not a lot of them in that sense. There were certain ones specifically chosen by God beforehand that they would have this responsibility.

Come over to I Corinthians 9. You know the Corinthians, a church established by Paul’s ministry, through Paul’s ministry but his apostleship comes under attack and the drift that he challenges them in verse 1 of chapter 9: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle: Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” That was a requirement. Paul said, “I saw Christ after His resurrection.” That would be on the Demascus Road in Acts chapter 9. Christ appeared to him.

Come over to I Corinthians 15. As Paul presents the Gospel that he had preached to the Corinthians he says in verse 3: “I delivered to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day,” and then the appearances. “He appeared to Cephas, (that’s Peter, another name for Peter, remember), then to the twelve brethren at one time.” “After that He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” Now note this, “Last of all, as it were to one untimely born,” one born out of time. He’s a unique case. He wasn’t one of that original group that knew Christ during His earthly ministry and served with Him. But God’s selected him out last of all. I take it that there is significance in that. This is one born out of time, a unique birth and a unique appearance. “Last of all, as it were to one untimely born for I am the least of the apostles.” And then he goes on. So first requirement is to have seen Christ after His resurrection and the last such appearance according to Paul was Paul. I don’t know when we are talking about present day apostles we are talking about now Christ is appearing? We have some of those kinds of claims that generally we just disregard. What the Scripture says is a requirement for an apostle. A second requirement is they’re entrusted with the truth to proclaim it to others and that truth will be foundational. They are going to share their testimony of having seen the resurrected Christ. They are going to be given more revelation, additional revelation and responsible to pass it on. We have that with our New Testament record so they are entrusted with the truth of Christ and to tell it to others. The third requirement is their ministry is validated by the miraculous.

The book of Acts, chapter 5, you have to come there. We are taking time but you have to have these things clear. Acts 5:12 you will note: “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people.” Try to give you the idea we want to have an Acts kind of church and we want the same thing going on that was going on in the book of Acts. Well who said that God’s intention is to continue what He did in the early days and years of the church and besides, every believer wasn’t running around doing miracles? “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place.” So that was validating their ministry as apostles and the revelation they had concerning Christ. I mean, how do we know that what you are telling us about this resurrected Christ is true? Well we saw Him. He has revealed this truth to us and the demonstration is these miracles gifts.

Come over to Romans chapter 15. The apostle Paul talks about his ministry. Verse 18: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, (now note) in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit.” So his ministry was validated and this was a new and unique thing, remember, it was a ministry to the Gentiles. Here comes this little Jewish guy, unimpressive and not the greatest speaker we’ve ever heard and says he’s got a message from God. Why would we believe him? Their ministry and the message are validated by the miracles.

Come over to 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” Paul says you should have no question about my apostleship. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you and these signs, wonders and miracles, these super-natural gifts. Now we say well the Corinthians spoke in tongues and they weren’t apostles but they were the result of an apostolic ministry, ongoing evidence of Paul’s apostleship. If everybody could do these signs, wonders and miracles separated from the apostle how would it be the sign of an apostle? So you know, it seems like you have to work through details and if you don’t you do it just like these and Peter Wagner has been appointed as the apostle of apostles and so I was reading an article where he had a meeting and he was bestowing apostolic authority on a group of men. You can’t do that.


Come back to Timothy. So if we are not careful with the Word we become open to well you know, is there any problem with calling them apostles? They are great problems because they mean that they have apostolic authority and they make the decisions for what the church will do. Paul in I Timothy chapter 1 is “An apostle of Christ Jesus.” He’s sent in behalf. An apostle was one sent on behalf of another. He comes representing Christ Jesus and he’s “an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, our hope.” It’s God’s authority that appointed Paul as an apostle, who determined that he would be added. He would see the resurrected Christ. He would be given this ability to perform miracles. “God, our Savior.” Interestingly in the books we call the Pastoral Epistles, I and II Timothy and Titus, the term “Savior” is used ten times. Six times in connection with the Father and four times in connection with the Son and they are both called our Savior. We ought to think of it the work of salvation planned by the Father, carried out through the Son but you see the authority of both. “Paul, an apostle according to the commandment of God our Savior, and Christ Jesus, our hope.” And He himself is our hope. We have been talking about the blessed hope, the coming in glory for the church of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ as Titus 2 talks about. God our Savior, Christ Jesus our hope. That is where the authority for Paul’s apostleship comes from. It doesn’t come from another man. And Paul makes clear that he didn’t get his revelation from other apostles. He didn’t get his authority from other apostles. It came directly from God.

This God, our Savior is a strong emphasis in the Old Testament. Let me just read you from one passage in Isaiah chapter 45, the last part of verse 21 and verse 22: “And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” This salvation and the hope that comes with it is going to be a strong emphasis as we move through Timothy. God’s plan of redemption accomplished in the One who is the only mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus we will get into when we move into chapter 2, “Christ Jesus, our hope,” the One in whom all the promises of God center. The person of Christ, He Himself is our hope. Our hope is not something separate from Him. It is Him. We look forward to seeing Him at His coming for us and so on.

To Timothy – so Paul establishes his authority in verse 1 which is crucial for the rest of the letter because there is going to be some controversial things said here. There are going to be some false teachers in the church at Ephesus who have to be shut down, going to be other things to be dealt with. So Paul’s authority in writing this letter is crucial. He’s writing to Timothy and Timothy now is associated with Paul and we notice something about Timothy when we looked at Acts and Paul calls him, “my true child in the faith.” And this and some other expression seem to indicate that Timothy was a convert of Paul, saved under Paul’s ministry. Even though he had been taught the Scriptures from childhood they didn’t become clear to him like some of you have had the experience. You’ve had a godly parent or godly parents who have shared the truth with you, prayed for you but you didn’t trust Christ. But coming to adulthood somewhere, perhaps we’ve heard testimonies at camp or somebody you met at college or something like that shared the Gospel and all of a sudden everything you heard becomes clear. You say, “well why didn’t it become clear when I told them?” Well, you know Paul will write positively about Timothy’s mother and grandmother and their teaching him the Scripture. It’s an encouragement to be faithful. Some sow the seed, some water the seed and some harvest the result of the seed. Timothy is an example of that, I take it because “I am writing to Timothy, my true, my genuine child in the faith” and that tells the church at Ephesus something about Paul’s valuing Timothy. “He is my child in the faith and we share that common faith.” So he can act as Paul’s representative.

As I mentioned, some 15 years have gone by as Paul writes to Timothy now from what we saw in Acts chapter 16 when Paul took Timothy as a traveling companion. One commentator estimated Timothy, in Acts 16 would have been 20 to 22 so here 15 years have gone by he would be somewhere around 35, 37. He is still under 40 because he is not to allow people to look down on his youth, a word that was used of then 40 years and younger so a relatively young man. Think of what he has been through starting to travel with the apostle Paul. We have a hard time having men grow up. They are 25 and 30 and they still want to pretend they are 13. Timothy’s on into the heat of the battle. I mean John Mark bailed out. I can’t keep this up. And here Timothy starts traveling with the apostle Paul. By the time he’s in the mid 30’s he has a maturity and a godly character that he is trusted by Paul to be sent into difficult situations as Paul’s representative. When Paul couldn’t personally be there he sent Timothy time and again. I mean it’s one thing to pastor a group of people or lead a group of people. It’s another thing to have to be the person that goes in when a church is in trouble and straighten it out. That doesn’t make you popular. That’s why Paul will have to encourage Timothy. Don’t be timid. Don’t let them look down on you. We sometimes over blow that Timothy was this reticent, reluctant, timid kind of person. I don’t think so. I mean even somebody with a strong back bone . You know, you are just going in face those who are going to battle against you so Paul’s going to send him here to Ephesus.

Some of the other places he sent him had been difficult. He sent him to Thessalonica in Acts 17 and then in I Thessalonians chapter 3, the opening verse he refers to that. Paul got driven out of Thessalonica. He had to get out of town and then he wanted to know how things were going for the believers he left behind so he sends Timothy back. Well Paul, you ought to get out of town for your life and now you want me to go back. That’s the kind of man that Timothy is and the trust Paul has in Timothy. Go back and find out how the believers are doing so he sent him to Thessalonica.

He sent him to the churches in Macedonia; that would be Northern Greece, Philippi, Thessalonica, that region. He sent him to Corinth and he had to tell the Corinthians. “Don’t try to intimidate Timothy. He is there on my behalf. Don’t make him afraid. It’s not because you know, Timothy didn’t have any backbone. If he didn’t have any backbone he would have taken a ship someplace else. I mean, you see the idea of the kind of man Timothy has matured into and how the trust that Paul has in him.

Come back to Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. This is one of the letters that Paul wrote while he was in his imprisonment at the end of the book of Acts and here’s what he tells the Philippians, verse 19 of chapter 2: “But I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you shortly so that I may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare for they all seek their own interest not those of Christ Jesus but you know of his proven worth that he served with me and the furtherance of the Gospel like a child serving his father. Therefore, I hope to send him immediately as soon as I see how things will go.” In other words the only thing holding me up; I want him to be able to bring a report to you about my condition. That’s strong. You know of his proven worth. When Timothy comes any church familiar with Paul’s ministry knows when Timothy comes he comes on behalf of Paul and representing Paul.

Come back to Timothy. He’s a man that evidently had some physical problems. You know, those greatly used of God. We sometimes think, “oh if I didn’t only have this problem or that problem,” Paul had his own afflictions. The messenger of Satan had buffeted him. Timothy evidently had some physical problems. When we get to chapter 5 Paul will tell Timothy, “take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent ailments.” I mean why wouldn’t God use Paul to heal Timothy? Just heal me, Paul. Well, you know, it’s not God’s plan. Paul could do some miraculous things but it wasn’t his plan for Timothy to be healed and what do you need? The last thing that you need is stomach trouble when you are going into difficult situations. But he had frequent ailments so he is a faithful man and Paul is going to encourage him to be bold and act on his behalf.

Now I want you to note something. The apostles had authority. This is where we cross the line with the books I referred to. I do not have apostolic authority. The authority for the church is not in a man. This is the diabolic nature of the Roman Catholic Church as I read their catechism. They have pulled all authority into the magisterium of the church. The authority is in the Word of God and Paul had authority because he had been placed as an apostle and one who would receive revelation from God. But now we have the revelation that has been passed. This is the authority and we all live under it. It’s not my church, it’s not your church, it’s the church of the living God and the authority that we have is the Word of God. Once you move away from that now you’ve got men who set up management committees and devise all these plans and one of the men who writes his account he tells the story of he determined this is what we’re going to do and someone questioned it and that’s not acceptable. We’re doing it not because this is what the Bible says we do. We do it because I am an apostle. I have apostolic authority.

Turn over to Ephesians chapter 2, the letter to the Ephesians, the same church that we are dealing with, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 19: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, (note this) having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” That’s the teaching that has been revealed through the New Testament apostles and prophets for the churches that we are built on. That’s why we gather together and what, study the Word of God, work through the details of what God has revealed. These are His instructions for us. If we don’t understand them we will drift.

False teaching had infiltrated the church at Ephesus. Some hold that it was even being held by some of the leaders, the influential teachers that are corrupting the church. Paul warned about that when he talked to the Ephesian elders, “from among your own selves, man will arise.”

That’s why we study the Word. We want to be careful and examine ourselves in the light of the Word. Are we being Biblical? When the church continues to proclaim itself to be Biblical but isn’t faithful in teaching the Word how will the people of God know and be discerning? Well, it doesn’t matter if we, why would we want to make an issue over whether the gifts have ceased or not? Why would we want to make an issue over what God is going to do in the future? In other words, we become God’s editor. God just said a lot of things but a lot of it is not important so we choose to ignore it. What you’ve said about eschatology and future things is not something we are going to bother ourselves with. And whether the gifts have ceased or not ceased is not something we are concerned about and on it goes. Now there is a group that claims to be evangelical, saying we are not going to make an issue over substitutionary atonement. I mean could they be considered evangelical? They say they are. We want to be careful.

So Paul starts out establishing his authority as an apostle and says what Timothy is going to receive in this letter is a message from God through Paul to the church at Ephesus. And here we come now as the church of God, the living God in Lincoln, NE and we want to find out what God says for the church and how we are to function, how we are to conduct ourselves, what we are to do and not do. That leaves certain things that won’t be said, won’t tell anything about what kind of meeting place you have to have or can’t find whether you can have air-conditioning or not, whether you can have electricity. I mean these things are non-issues. But the truth of the Word of God is not a non-issue and so we will work through it and see what God has for us.

We will pick up with verse 3, the body of the letter. He will tell us why and remind Timothy and in reminding Timothy he’s telling the church why Timothy is there, “So that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.” That has to stop and we will pick up there, let’s pray.

Thank you Lord for the riches of Your Word. Thank You for Paul and Your call upon him. He served not because it was his choice. It was Your choice. He was an apostle by Your commandment and the commandment of Your Son. He is writing to Timothy and Lord we appreciate Your grace as manifested in Timothy’s life. Lord, as a young man, only in his early 20’s he took up the responsibility of committing himself to faithful service in the ministry, developed and grew to be a man of proven worth and served You faithfully and we benefit from his service, his ministry even to today and Lord we would desire to be in that line of faithful people who are committed to be Your church as You would have it to be in this place. We pray our study of the Word will enrich our lives and Lord make us more aware of how we are to operate and conduct ourselves. Bless us in our ministry in the days of the week before us. Lord may we no forget we’ve been entrusted with the truth that we might share it with others. We pray in Christ’s name.
Amen