The Charge to Confront False Teachers

Transcript

GR 1752
01/26/2014
The Charge to Confront False Teachers
I Timothy 1:3-4
Gil Rugh

We’ve started a study of Paul’s letter to Timothy so if you would turn there in your Bibles, I Timothy and as we began our study we noted a key emphasis in the book is what Paul records in I Timothy chapter 3, verse 15. In verse 14 he said: “I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”

We are looking into I Timothy because it is a book, a letter that focuses on how we are to conduct ourselves as the church of Jesus Christ. There are so many ideas, so many things taught and written that give instructions on what the church ought to be and the danger is the church gets lost in a fog of what are we to be?

One writer who pastors one of the larger churches in the country has addressed the situation as he sees it in the American churches. He said, “In the past, most Americans chose a church on the basis of three criteria: denominational affiliation, church doctrine and location. That is no longer so. People now choose churches in much the same way they make all other choices as consumers, not necessarily as believers. They go where the action is, where they think their needs will be met regardless of denomination, apparent doctrine or location. For consumers the worship service is one of the major reasons for choosing a church.” And that gets into the style of music when they talk about the worship service, the style.

We are blessed at Indian Hills to have a great music ministry that coordinates with the teaching of the Word. I trust you pray for our musicians and appreciate the time and attention that goes in as they select the music and plan the services that the truth of the Word of God be proclaimed in what is being sung. This is not a time of entertainment and just enjoyment. It is a time of ministry, the truth of God is being proclaimed. I was thinking of that as the songs we sang this evening emphasized but what concerns me most is they go where the action is. It doesn’t matter what the doctrine is.

A few weeks ago it was brought to my attention of a church, not in this city, not in the state, an evangelical church. I wanted to find out more about it. I got on their web site and it was a well-done web site with catchy pictures and all kinds of ministries. One thing that was lacking was a doctrinal statement. It was nowhere to be found. I could not find out what this church believed. What was their doctrine? It’s like, well, that’s not an issue when you select us as a church. Look at all the great things we have going on yet they claim that they would be an evangelical Bible believing church and I fear for the church that we lose the focus. The church is the household of God. It’s to be the pillar and support of the truth.

The church began on the Day of Pentecost. It seems we’ve been emphasizing that in our studies repeatedly in recent weeks. Come back to Acts chapter 2. Leave the marker in Timothy. You see how the church began and the pattern continues. In Acts chapter 2 Peter preaches a sermon on the Day of Pentecost and he draws from the Old Testament. He shares with them from the work and ministry of Christ and he pulls it all together and then in verse 22 he says: “Men of Israel (because he is addressing Jews on a Jewish holiday in Jerusalem) listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know - this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” And He’s ascended to the right hand of the Father.

Verse 29: “Brethren I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb in with us.” In contrast, verse 32: “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.” And He is the one who has sent the Holy Spirit.

Verse 36: “Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.” You see the emphasis on the finished work of Christ and the greatness of the sin of His listeners. It’s not addressed to what we would call their felt needs. How are you feeling today as you’ve gathered here? What are the discouragements you face? Let me tell you about the Savior. Let me tell you about how serious your sinful condition is and the Spirit of God took the truth of God and pierced it to the heart of the listeners and 3000 people were saved. That’s the beginning of the church. This message is addressed to the Jews.

When you come over to Acts chapter 8, remember in Acts chapter 1 Jesus said, “After I send the Spirit to you, you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea (which is the region surrounding Jerusalem) then into Samaria (the mixed blood, Jews had intermarried and had developed their own religious system) and then to the uttermost parts of the world.” So in chapter 8 we have the ministry in Samaria and Philip is sent to Samaria as a result of persecution under Saul before his conversion in Jerusalem. And verse 12: “When they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.” To proclaim to them the Messiah of Israel and the kingdom that he would establish on this earth and who He is, the name of Jesus, all that He is, One who had come and suffered and died.

Down in verse 25 further apostles come to supplement His ministry and they “solemnly testified and spoke the Word of the Lord.” This is the focus, the Word of the Lord, the Word of the Lord. This is what they are bringing to these people. It is not people centered in that sense, it’s Word centered. I come to tell you a message from the living God.

Then you come over to Acts chapter 10. Peter is privileged to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles as Gentiles for the first time and he tells them about Jesus of Nazareth, His life and ministry. In verse 39, the end of the verse: “They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day, and were witnesses having seen Him after His resurrection.” Verse 42: “He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that 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 that through His name everyone who believes in Him has received forgiveness of sins.” And while Peter is preaching those very words, the Spirit of God convicts their hearts, comes into their lives’ the beauty and simplicity of what goes on. We just go to the Jews, we go to the Samaritans and we go to the Gentiles. No adjusting or altering the message, being culturally sensitive that you know, these Gentiles will have a different background than those Jews had. It doesn’t matter. They have to hear the same message about the same Savior. Then the apostle Paul who was saved in Acts chapter 9 is the one appointed by God to carry on the ministry to the Gentile world which will begin in chapter 13 as Paul begins what we know as his missionary journeys and the rest of the book of Acts is focused on Paul carrying the same message that Peter preached in Acts chapter 2, that Philip preached in Acts chapter 8, that Peter preached to the Gentiles in Acts chapter 10. Paul continues the same message.

When you come to the book of Romans, turn over to Romans, chapter 15, just after the book of Acts. Paul is writing about his ministry to the Gentiles. This is background for what he is going to say to the church at Ephesus because the church at Ephesus, as you are aware, is a Gentile church, the city of Ephesus. In Romans chapter 15, verse 15: “I have written very boldly to you on some points, so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given to me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the Gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” You see what his ministry was, the Gospel that God had given, the truth concerning His Son. He is the Savior. He is the Judge. There is no salvation apart from Him. And I only want to tell you about the ministry I have had. Verse 18: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.” You know Paul doesn’t take personal credit. It’s not what he has figured out and to develop an effective ministry. This is by God’s grace what God chose to do through me with the Gospel, resulting in the obedience of Gentiles by word and deed. They have responded in faith. They have obeyed the message and now are living in obedience to the God who has saved them and He has what? In the power of signs, wonders, the power of the Spirit from Jerusalem round about as far away as Illyricum. Illyricum is up the coast from Greece. He has carried the Gospel reaching out to the Gentile parts of the world. And what does he do? I fully preached the Gospel of Christ. You note no matter where I went I had one message and we have seen this. But somehow we forget that the truth of God has been entrusted to the church. The church is to be the pillar and support of the truth. It’s not a matter of what do you like about this church. What do you like about that church, what do you…? Is our church about the truth?

Verse 20: “I aspired to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was already named,” but in new places. That was the ministry that God had given him. Take the Gospel to people who hadn’t heard. They had heard in Jerusalem and Paul preached it in Jerusalem when he was in Jerusalem but his primary focus was to go to people in places that had never heard. Well how is he going to figure out what he is going to say to them in those foreign areas? I am going to preach the same thing. It’s the same message. We’ve got a whole new emphasis today, incarnational ministry, missional ministry that somehow your presence in the ministry and as you are carrying on a ministry, but the ministry is not what we think of as telling them the truth of the Gospel, by your presence and that’s where you get into doing good things for them. You lose the focus, it’s about the Gospel. The church is the pillar and support of the truth. The church at Ephesus needs to be reminded of that. The Spirit of God has given them this letter to be written by the apostle Paul and preserved it for us so that we might know what God intends.

You’re in Romans, keep going back to Corinthians, we are so close. I Corinthians, just after Romans there, chapter 4, verse 1: “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” We’ve been entrusted with the revelation of God. That was truth given to Paul and it’s required of stewards that one be found trustworthy and Paul tells the Corinthians quite bluntly, “it doesn’t matter to me what you think of me. It doesn’t matter to me how you evaluate my ministry. I’m not your slave. I am a slave of Christ. I’ve not been entrusted by you with the ministry. I’ve been entrusted by the living God with the ministry. So it’s a small thing that I be evaluated by you. He’s not saying that to be unkind or thoughtless. The church at Corinth needs to understand where the focus has to be, it’s on the truth of God. He says, “I’ll be satisfied to wait and have God evaluate my ministry.” Steward of God’s truth.

We are not receiving direct revelation from God as Paul did. He received new revelation from God but the revelation that was given by God to Paul has been recorded for us and is part of our Scripture and so in that sense we are stewards of God’s truth. The church is the pillar and support of the truth. God’s truth has been entrusted to us not by direct revelation but by passing on to us the revelation that has been given. One more passage and then we will go to Timothy, Ephesians. Keep going back, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. This is a letter written several years earlier than the letter we have written to Timothy in I Timothy and it’s written to Timothy who is back in Ephesus where Paul had been and then wrote the letter to the Ephesians. Now Timothy is in Ephesus and we get to our letter in Timothy. Look at Ephesians chapter 2, verse 19. Talking to the Gentiles here, the context. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.” This is what we are talking about, God’s household, the church of the living God. That’s God’s household, you are of God’s household. Note this: “Having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” So the truth given by the apostles and prophets is what we are building our church on. That is why we come and study. We don’t have to run to endless books, not that we can’t learn from other people but we are building on the truth of the apostles and prophets, this is key. The authority does not lie in the men today. It did in Paul as an apostle because he had the revelation that had to be passed on but the authority now is not in men or in the church, it is in the Word of God and the church has to be subject to the Word of God. The authority is not in me. The authority is in the Word that I preach. And if I had not been faithful to the Word then I fall in the line of those who are about to be rebuked.

Come to I Timothy chapter 1. Paul had told the Corinthians in his second letter: “We do not lose heart but we renounce the things hidden because of shame. Not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God but by the manifestation of truth we commend ourselves in the sight of God.” Not adulterating the Word of God. When Paul first went into a new area there was often intense opposition to the preaching of the truth. That was true at Ephesus when he carried the Gospel into the city of Ephesus in Acts chapter 19. Remember the silversmiths turned the city into an uproar against Paul and those associated with him and Paul had to move on but when people were saved and a church is established the devil didn’t quit and say, “Well, we lost that battle.” He changes his tactics and the main attack starts to come from within the church. That’s the main danger. That’s what Paul has to address to Timothy concerning the situation at the church of Ephesus. What Paul had to deal with at the churches he started in Galatia. Look at verse 3 after the introductory comments. Paul says, “As I urged you upon my departure to Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, in order that you may instruct (or command) certain men not to tech strange doctrines.” Sort of an abrupt way begin a letter to one who was one of your dearest and closest companions in the ministry, Timothy. Paul would say there is no one I can trust more than Timothy and we looked at a little bit at the kind of responsibilities Paul had given to Timothy in ministry. Like at Ephesus, Paul had to go on to Macedonia so he left Timothy at Ephesus to command certain men to stop teaching the error. You see within the church men had worked their way in that were teaching contrary to the truth that God had revealed through the apostles. I urge you upon my departure for Macedonia. Fitting this in, you can’t fit it into the book of Acts. Paul ministered in Ephesus in Acts chapter 19. He’ll have a visit with the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 but as Paul gets imprisoned and carried to Rome and when the book of Acts ends Paul is left with an imprisonment that has gone on from the time of his arrest to the time the book of Acts closes for about five years and it seems that the indication is Paul was released from that imprisonment and had had opportunity to travel and carry out other ministries and then was later rearrested and we find that in his second letter to Timothy where he is writing from an imprisonment from which he is sure he will not be released.

You want to back up to Philippians? Philippians is just after Ephesians, as many of you know and this is one of the prison epistles. You know, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Paul wrote when he was in that Roman imprisonment at the end of the book of Acts and at this imprisonment, at the end of the book of Acts, Paul has a confidence that he’s going to be released. He can’t say with finality but he believed that was going to happen and then in chapter 2, verse 19 he said: “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly.” Philippi is in Macedonia. We’ll look at a map in just a moment and verse 23: “I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me; and I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall be coming shortly.” So Paul is anticipating the favor that comes out several times in this letter that he is going to be released. It looks like things are going well. When you read II Timothy Paul has no anticipation of release. If fact he says the process that will culminate in my death is underway so he realized this is the final imprisonment. So at some time Paul was released and traveled back to Ephesus or even possibly just on his way to Macedonia dropped Timothy off.

Why don’t you put the map up just to refresh where we are. Here’s Ephesus. This is Macedonia up here, you see it? Here’s Philippi. Ephesus is here in Asia Minor. Paul is going over to Macedonia. Not the details of why he had to go there and couldn’t stay at Ephesus and help deal with the problems but he has confidence in Timothy to leave him so he’s going on over here but I left you in Ephesus on my way to Macedonia verse 3 tells us. My departure from Macedonia you had to remain on at Ephesus. Perhaps they had been there together, whatever reason we are not told. Paul had to go on to Macedonia but there is serious trouble in the church at Ephesus. You can’t escape. You know “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places”, Paul wrote to the Ephesians in chapter 6. The devil doesn’t quit as I have shared with you a number of times I think one of his greatest strategies is that he is relentless. He is just one of those who will wear you down. You know he just doesn’t quit. He would attack Paul from the outside so to speak as he would come into an area to share the Gospel. He stirred up the unbelievers when the Spirit of God was pleased to use the message of the Gospel to have a church planted then he worked to infiltrate it and corrupt it with false doctrine and so here you have the church at Ephesus.

We have to come back to the book of Acts. Are we ever going to get to Timothy? We will, Acts chapter 20. In Acts chapter 19 he had established the church at Ephesus. In Acts chapter 20 on his way back to Jerusalem he comes back from Greece and stops at Troas. He doesn’t go into the city of Ephesus but he stops at a seaport there and calls for the elders of the church, Miletus here and he sent to Ephesus, verse 17 of Acts 20: “Called to him the elders of the church.” It was Paul’s practice to appoint elders in the churches that he had established. We saw that on his first missionary journey in the book of Acts. And he talks to them about the ministry he had with them. How he was ministering to them. The concern he had for them. Verse 20: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable teaching you publicly and from house to house; solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul stayed on track in his ministry. I am going to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me there but I have been told that bonds and it’s going to happen. Paul is going to get arrested, the beginning of a five year imprisonment that carries to the end of the book of Acts. Paul doesn’t care. He says in verse 24: “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to solemnly testify of the Gospel of the grace of God.” That’s my ministry. God didn’t call me to Lincoln to build a big church. He sent me to Lincoln to proclaim the truth concerning Christ. Now by His grace he’s chosen to build that group of believers that was here into a larger group but Paul says my years in Ephesus were devoted to preaching the truth concerning Christ. “I know I may not see you again,” he says. He says in verse 26: “I’m innocent of the blood of all men.” Why is he innocent? “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose, the whole counsel of God.” So I’m not going to be blamed, held accountable for your failures because I taught you the Word of God. And then he told these elders, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

Remember I Timothy 3:15 what the church is? It is the household of God, it belongs to Him. We are gathered together as the church because God provided His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for sin so that by faith in Him we could experience His salvation and that ministry of the Spirit. “By one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body,” the body of Christ, the church. He has shepherded it, it is His. It is the church of God. He purchased it with His own blood. Verse 29: “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” Now note this: “And from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. Now I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

Sadly what Paul says has come true in the church at Ephesus. After his departure savage wolves had made their way in among the flock. “From among your own selves men will arise.” Some understand this in light of the letter to Timothy that even some elders have turned away from the truth that Paul gave and that’s why there is such extensive information on elders and what is required of them in I Timothy chapter 3 as we will see. But at any rate, from within the flock; from among those who were teachers of the flock error has infiltrated.

So you come back to I Timothy chapter 1, verse 3: “I urge you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, in order that you may instruct…” That word instruct is a strong word. It’s a word that means to command. It’s a command given from a superior to one under his authority and that’s what Timothy’s position would be and Timothy is to exercise that authority in the church. You are to command. That word is translated that way down in verse 18, “This command I entrust to you,” same word. We will see it in verse 5 as well. The goal of our instruction, that word command. You are to command certain…it’s a strong word. You tell them that they are not to teach strange doctrines, other doctrines of a different kind is the emphasis here. This is a strong charge. That word, certain men – he doesn’t identify them by name and it seems here they are dealing with certain men who have turned and have moved into error but perhaps they have not gone as far as some others because by the time we get to the end of chapter 1 Paul will name, by name, a couple of men that he excommunicated from the church, put under church discipline because their error was so severe. Here these men are not turned over to Satan as those men will be but there is no allowance for this error to continue. “So that you may command certain men not to teach strange doctrines.” That “teaching strange doctrines” is a compound word. It is the word to teach and doctrine is basically teaching. And the word other on the front, heteros. There are two basic Greek words that sometimes carry a different meaning, not always, but in certain contexts like this one they do, heteros and allos. Heteros is another of a different kind, allos is another of the same kind. The doctrines here are of another kind. They are not a variation of Paul’s teaching. They are other kinds of doctrine.

Back up to Galatians, Galatians chapter 1 and this will lead into because this is a similar kind of thing Paul is dealing with in Galatians. The churches at Galatia had been infiltrated by false teachers, often those coming out of a Jewish background who want to bring their faulty understanding of the Mosaic Law and wed it to the teaching that has come now through the apostles in the New Testament and you have a corrupted kind of Christianity. So in Galatians chapter 1, verse 6: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different Gospel.” That word “different” is that word heteros. “For a different Gospel,” one of another kind which is not really another” and he uses the word allos there. It’s not another of the same kind. You are going to a different Gospel altogether, another Gospel. The word “different” in verse 6 is the same word we have on the front of the word “teaching” or “doctrine” in our word in I Timothy. Stop teaching other kinds of teaching, different from the truth you’ve been taught. Don’t be deluded into thinking that’s just like Paul taught with some added insights. No, it’s not anything like mine.

While you are in Galatians 1 Paul is strong on this. It wouldn’t matter if an angel from heaven came and taught a different Gospel that he taught. Keep in mind the devil is a great counterfeiter. We read these passages and we think, oh yes, they should have recognized that. You understand that when the devil is going to infiltrate, you make a counterfeit as much like the real thing as possible, right? I mean monopoly money doesn’t fool anybody but those who do serious counterfeiting can fool someone. We change our paper money from time to time and they do things in it to make it harder to counterfeit. The devil is a masterful counterfeiter and so what he’s doing in the church at Galatia, these teachers are not coming in and saying, “You know, the death and resurrection of Christ are a lie.” They are saying “that’s what we believe.” You have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, that He died on the cross and He rose from the dead. That’s absolutely essential but you have to understand that’s not all there is. That’s not enough. Why do you think God gave the law to Moses? He hasn’t discarded that. His intention is this new truth concerning Christ is to be wed to that prior revelation. Paul said, “Even if an angel from heaven comes and tells that he is cursed to hell.” You can’t change the Gospel.

Back to Acts chapter 15. You notice the difficulty in dealing with false teaching within the church because we are always a little caught off balance. As I’ve been reading background material for our study of the church I just wonder what they are going through. We believe in the inspiration in inerrancy of Scripture. We believe in faith in Christ. We believe that you can be lost and go to hell. You think, boy they believe all that but then they go on and really, the other things that they are teaching are denying that and you get confused. How can they have the Gospel seemingly so clear and yet so unclear? This is why the counsel in Acts 15 was called. Acts 15: “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, (note who they are teaching here, the brethren, believers) unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And there is such a great dissention that it was determined we are going to have to go and meet with the apostles because remember, they didn’t have a completed New Testament at this point. They couldn’t say, “Let’s turn and see what God said in this part of our New Testament.” So let’s go to those God has appointed and is revealing His mind on these things so they come down and come before the leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

Verse 5: “Some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, stood up and said, ‘it is necessary to circumcise them, and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.’” You know, they are not denying anything. They are not denying that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. They are not denying that He died on a cross. They are not denying that He was raised from the dead. If they were that would make their error more obvious but they are saying it is also necessary to circumcise them and have them observe the law of Moses. We need to be careful because many of those who were undermining the truth of God declare a great doctrinal statement and they say, “we are where you are.” That’s the point the Judaizers are making. We are not denying any of the truths that you hold. We are just saying there is more to this. The Jerusalem counsels, the apostles there, verse 11: “We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.” In other words, Jew and Gentiles there is only one way of salvation. It is by grace through faith. And the letter to the Galatians, he is still battling that.

Come back to Timothy. “I want you to command them not to teach strange doctrines,” other kinds of teachings and what do they involve? “Paying attention to myths,” verse 4, “endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God by faith.” And we won’t get there in our study but in our next study when we get down in verse 8 he will have to tell them, “The Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” You see this idea and you know it becomes confusing to people and remember the church at Ephesus didn’t have the fullness of revelation we have and these people come and say what God has given, all this material is an example of what they might say and how to approach it if you didn’t want us to live by it? We didn’t want us to live under the authority of it. So we are not saying that the truth concerning Christ is not true but you have to wed that to the truths that He had revealed in a prior way and so He still intends you to keep the Law so this infiltrates among the Gentiles. The problem is you Gentiles don’t really understand the Old Testament. You’ve come out of a pagan background. We’re here and can help you understand the prior revelation of God and its purpose and how you wed it with the new revelation of God and now you have things complete. And somehow this teaching is being tolerated and being accepted in the church at Ephesus where Paul spent three years teaching about the grace of God and he said after my departure, and it always happens, the devil will send in his teachers and they will have to be dealt with. “That you may command certain men not to teach strange doctrines.”

You know tolerance in a right sense is a good thing. But basically the church has to be intolerant when it comes to error. We get confused and we have been through it and the churches all go through it. Well, I know they are believers, I know they are good people and I know they are sincere and earnest. That is not the issue. If they are teaching error it must be stopped. If they won’t stop then we will see the example at the end of the chapter they have to be excluded from the fellowship of believers. So they give an opportunity, command them.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians dealing with the same issue he said, “If one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or you receive a different spirit you’ve not received or a different Gospel you’ve not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” Something’s wrong. They were attacking Paul but they were so understanding and tolerant and ready to bear with those who came and taught things contrary. We think, well we want to be gracious. We want to be understanding. We don’t want to divide. We have this going on all the time in what we call the evangelical world. We have those who deny the substitutionary atonement of Christ. But that’s not a serious enough difference that we ought to be excluded from fellowship among believers or our teachers teaching ought to be attacked. I’ve had people writing and saying they are evangelicals, they are believers and they just have a different take on the death of Christ and don’t see it as substitutionary. I mean that’s a denial of the Gospel, is it not? But somehow believers can’t bring themselves to deal with it because we think well we ought to be open.

Come back here to 1Timothy. What kinds of things are being taught here, what’s he commanding these men not to teach? “They are not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies.” You know these things that they go and they find things in the Old Testament and they can create great you know, we call allegorizing and spiritualizing. They see these genealogies are there. You don’t think God made these genealogies just for a list of names. There’s truths conveyed there. Sometimes it seems like well these people are finding things I never saw there. It’s not that they are opening up so we have clarity in the Scripture. They are twisting the Scripture. They are myths. These are things that they are devising out of Old Testament accounts. They will get into the law more specifically. These are Judaizing teachers. “Don’t give attention to myths, endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God by faith.” It goes nowhere. All of a sudden you are involved in endless discussions. They are open ended. This is why so many who claim to be evangelical and are accepted within the evangelical church are so upset with literal interpretation of Scripture. It doesn’t leave anywhere for alternative opinions. We have to be open. No we don’t. We have to be as open as God is and as closed as God is. You know we say, well these men may have something to offer. They claim to believe. They seem to be good people. It just gives rise to mere speculation. We are not here just to share ideas. We are here just to talk about what does this passage mean to you? Well what does this passage mean to you? Oh here’s what it means to me. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what does this passage mean as God gave it? What it means to you is irrelevant. What it means to me is irrelevant. What it means as God said it is relevant to us both. The idea that well Scripture, you know, everybody can have their own opinion but they can’t express it here. That is what Paul is saying. You command them to stop teaching that. Well, you’re pretty narrow, very narrow. This stuff is endless. Don’t pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. There is no end to it. All it is speculation after speculation after speculation and it goes on. So people think what? Well the Bible, everybody has their own interpretation. But there is only one right interpretation. I am not saying we are the only ones right and everyone else is wrong. I am saying only those who interpret the Bible as God gave it are right and it’s not as complicated as people make it. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t take serious study. We’ll get to that with Timothy. You’ve got to be diligent in studying the Scripture but not so you can find things that nobody else finds and show how scholarly or how insightful you are. “This gives rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.” The contrast – it doesn’t accomplish what God wants to accomplish and that word, “administration,” it’s a compound word. The word oikos which means house or household and nomas which means law. How God is governing his household. Remember back over in chapter 3, verse 15: “I am writing so that you may know how one ought to conduct themselves in the household of God”. The oikos of God, God’s house, His household, His family. Now to that word oikos or house, household, you add the word law so it’s how something is governed, administered and this kind of fruitless speculation and finding hidden meanings in the law and misusing the Old Testament Scriptures does not further how God would administer and govern His family. It’s by faith and the law is by law. So this idea these things infiltrate and they corrupt the truth. This is God’s household. It’s the church of the living God. He purchased it with His own blood. It is not mine. This idea that everybody can have their own opinion and everybody has their own interpretation, I mean so God can’t administer His family. In our family the kids couldn’t say, oh you weren’t clear. I thought you meant when I told you you’ve got to be in by 10:00 I thought you meant, you know, 10:00 well that’s a multiple of five by two and two by five and so somewhere between 2:00 and 5:00 I thought you meant. Ah, nope. But we think we can do that with God’s Word. We don’t govern our families that way but people think that’s the way but people think that you know that’s the way God governs His household. No. No, this kind of fruitless study of the Scripture and worthless speculation does not further how God would have His household governed by faith, the truth that He has revealed.

The goal of our instruction, that’s the same word, our command, what I command you, why I’m commanding you. I wish they had translated this all command as they did in verse 18, this command I entrust you that you may command. This is a strong word, stronger than that word instruct. You might say, instruct with authority but it’s a command we would use of someone who has superior authority. You command certain men not to teach and the goal of our command. This command I am giving you not to allow false teaching. He’s not just talking about the general instruction he gave to churches, he’s talking about the specific command. “You may command certain men not to teach different doctrines.”

Verse 5: “The goal of our command not to allow different doctrine to be taught is love.” What they are doing produces mere worthless speculation. You put a stop to that error, false teaching, corrupted teaching so that the truth of God could accomplish the purposes of God for His family and truth taught faithfully produces love, love, the very character of God being produced in us. We separate love. Well, you know we want to balance. We want sound doctrine but we want love. They are inseparably joined together. The Scripture faithfully taught and faithfully submitted to produces the character of God in a life and love.

Come back to John, John chapter 13. Jesus last night with the disciples, verse 34: “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” And it is connected to the love that He has for us in giving Himself is to be produced in us. Down in chapter 14, verse 15: “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” It is not talking about the Mosaic commandments.” It’s talking about the love that Christ gives for His followers.

Come down to verse 21. “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.” So our love for Christ, our love for fellow believers, they get all mixed in here. Verse 23: “Jesus answered, if anyone loves Me he will keep My Word. He who does not love Me does not keep My Words.” That love involved in obedience, His Word, His truth and we don’t tolerate error because it just ends in worthless speculation but the truth of God taught in its unadulterated purity produces love’ its love to deal with error and not allow it to be taught. That’s the purpose of the command to Timothy to put a stop, not allow for error to be taught. The goal of this commandment is love.

Come over to I John in chapter 3, verse 10: “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God nor the one who does not love his brother for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.” Come down to verse 14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murder. You know no murdered has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this that He laid down His life for us. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” You see, Christ’s love for us, our love for the brethren, our obedience to the Word of Christ all are inseparably bound together and dealing with error isn’t an evidence we really don’t love other believers or we would be open to diversity of doctrine in our church. No, if you love me, Christ said, you will keep my commands. They are meant to be understood. It doesn’t say you keep my commands as each one of you understands them for himself. No, this is so we will have one understanding. It’s the part of our love for Him, His love for us was self-sacrificing love that enables us to love others.

Verse 18: “Let us love not with word or with tongue but in deed and in truth.” Verse 23: “This is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and love one another just as He commands us and the one who keeps His commandment abides in Him.” Abiding is a characteristic of every believer. There are not abiding and non-abiding Christians. Those who don’t abide don’t belong to Him and they don’t have His Spirit abiding in them. This idea that there are non-abiding Christians is not a Biblical teaching.

You come down into chapter 4 and you have the same emphasis. Verse 7: “Let us love one another. Love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the satisfaction) for our sins. Beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another.”

Verse 16: “By this we have come to know and we have believed the love which God has for us. God is love. The one who abides in love abides in God. God abides in Him.” Verse 19: “We love because He first loved us.”

Verse 21: “This command we have from Him that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” Not this idea of the world of love and of doing certain things. This is inseparably connected to the finished work of Christ. His sacrifice which is the great demonstration of love in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” as Romans 5 says and now we have experienced that love and we love the Savior who died for us and so we live our lives in submission and obedience to Him and we love other members of God’s family because He loves them and His love is produced in us. So we don’t tolerate error because error produces worthless speculations but when you have the truth taught in its purity it produces God’s fruit, love. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

So we move away from the Word of God. We begin to define love by being tolerant of error but that’s the opposite of love. Love is an obedience to the truth that God has given. It comes out of faith in that truth and the finished work of Christ. Why do we love one another? It is something supernatural. God has produced that bond in us, the bond deeper than our physical attachments in love. It binds us together in Christ. Error is a terrible thing in the church of God, the family of God. It’s contrary to God’s plan for us. Rather than developing love within the family it turns us down endless roads of speculation and confusion and conflict. So, it cannot be tolerated.

We will stop there and pick up next time. Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word. Lord how sad it is if the church drifts from the importance of the truth that You have given, the truth that focuses in Your Son who Himself is the way, the truth and the life. Thank You Lord for the greatness of Your love for us. Thank You for the power of the truth of the Gospel to bring salvation to sinful people like us. Thank You for the transformation of life that this truth brings about so that now we have the joy and privilege of loving you in response to your love for us and loving one another as we serve you together as your family in the days of the week before us. Amen.