SS10-01-06.
“TAKE HOLD OF TRUTH.” 1 TIMOTHY 1: 3-7, 12-20.
1 TIMOTHY 1: 3-4, 5-7, 12-17, 18-20.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO 1 TIMOTHY 1.
We begin this five lesson series by asking, “What is “real living?” Many would answer based on prosperity, pleasure or popularity as their goal in living. Others would speak of moral or spiritual goals.
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This study theme focuses on five goals for Christians who wish to be equipped for real life: These are, “Take hold of truth,” “godliness,” “contentment,” “usefulness,” and “endurance.”
As we learn to apply these five principles, we will truly take hold of what matters.
Today’s lesson, “Take Hold Of Truth,” based on verses from 1Timothy 1: 1, calls for being true in the face of false teachings. This is designed to help us be equipped for real life by recognizing false ideas that weaken our faith and then identifying steps we may take to strengthen and stay strong in our faith.
Dr. D.L. Lowrie who wrote the Bible commentary for the lessons in October said that a false teacher who hurts others often comes from within the church. He or she is a deceiver. He said that such a person became pastor of a church in Texas.
In the first months of his pastorate the church experienced phenomenal growth. He impressed the church ‘s young adults with his claims of spirituality and what they believed was his right understanding of the Scriptures. By the time other members of the congregation began to suspect the pastor was not teaching truth, it was too late for many.
The cost to the church was great. A splinter group of young adults followed the pastor out of the church to start another congregation, leaving the church hurt and crippled. Later the young adults who followed this pastor became aware of serious flaws in his character. Some of them are still trying to recover from their devastating experience with deception. The false teacher stressed our work for God more than God’s grace for us.
Believers face the real issue of false teachings, but they can avoid a shipwrecked faith. How? Paul’s First Letter to Timothy challenges us to identify false teachers, stand on the gospel of grace, and contend for the truth.
Some time after the Jerusalem conference in AD 49 Paul and Silas left Antioch in Syria to make Paul’s second missionary journey. They reached Lystra and invited young Timothy to accompany them on their journey. Lystra was a Roman colony in the province of Galatia.
Two specific actions seem to have taken place at this time.
First, since Paul would be evangelizing Jews, he circumcised Timothy, according to Jewish customs. Second, Paul and he elders of the church laid their hands upon Timothy to set him apart and equip him for ministry.
As Paul’s coworker, Timothy served as Paul’s representative in the churches of Thessalonica, Corinth, Philippi, and Ephesus..
For some 17 years Timothy appears to have been entirely at Paul’s disposal from Paul’s 2nd missionary journey to Lystra until Paul’s death in Rome. Orders of the old general of Gentile missions to his Aide-de-Camp are written in two of Paul’s pastoral Epistles, which were 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus.
The key verse of the first Epistle is 1 Timothy 3: 1 5, “that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to conduct thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
1st and 2nd Timothy deal with church organization and discipline rather than doctrine as the first century churches increased in number, questions of church order, soundness in the faith, and discipline arose.
The apostles themselves dealt with these questions, but the approaching end of the apostolic period made necessary authoratative teaching about faith and order for the future guidance of the churches. This teaching is revealed in the pastoral Epistles.
Timothy, to whom this Epistle and its companion letter are addressed, was intimately associated with Paul. Considerably younger than the apostle, he was the son of a Greek Gentile father and a devout Jewish mother, Eunice by name.
His mother and grandmother must have been converted as a result of Paul’s first visit to Lystra on his first missionary journey. Timothy joined Paul on the second journey and was with him in Corinth, Macedonia, Ephesus and Jerusalem.
Paul himself seems to characterize Timothy in 2 Tim. 1: 7 as having a spirit of fear. Paul felt it necessary to ask the church at Corinth to receive Timothy in a manner which would set him at ease.
In the Pastorals Paul had to exhort Timothy not to let anyone despise him on account of his youth, not to neglect the spiritual gift, which he had received, and not to be ashamed to speak out boldly for the Gospel.
PLEASE READ TIMOTHY 1: 3-4.
Paul’s greeting in vs. 1-2 sets the stage for what he wrote. Thirteen letters in the N.T. begin with the word “Paul.” Although he was not one of the Twelve, Paul insisted that the risen Lord had commissioned him as an apostle. He was “an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.”
Paul wrote to Timothy, whom he called “my rue child in he faith.” Timothy was younger than Paul and had been a loyal helper in the work of the Lord. We don’t know whether Paul won Timothy to faith in Christ, but Paul’s missionary work brought the gospel to where Timothy lived. And Paul had become Timothy’s mentor in the faith.
If Paul’s life ended as he is described in the final verses of Acts, we would be hard pressed to find a place in the Book of Acts for 1 Timothy. There is no place in Acts where Timothy was in Ephesus and Paul was on his way to Macedonia.
This means that Paul was released form his first Roman imprisonment and that during those years he wrote the two letters to Timothy and the letter to Titus. In 2 Timothy, Paul was writing from prison and expecting to be executed soon. Thus 1st Timothy was written after Paul’s first Roman imprisonment but before his second Roman imprisonment.
Since the Book of Acts does not tell what Paul did after his release from prison, we are dependent on the Pastoral letters to fill in the rest of his life and ministry. Paul had assigned Timothy to Ephesus. Paul himself was on his way to Macedonia.
There are several points in the two letters to Timothy that sound as if Timothy was timid about staying in Ephesus and Paul had to urge him to do so. This suggests Timothy had a timid nature that Paul had to keep challenging with calls to courage.
Before we judge Timothy too harshly, let us keep certain offsetting factors in mind. (1) The first century was a hard time for Christians in the pagan Greco-Roman world. And Ephesus was not the easiest place in which to serve. Paul himself had to leave the city when the gospel began to impact the financial interests of certain people in Acts 18: 24-19:41. Paul also predicted to the Ephesian elders that false teachers would ravage the flock like a pact of wolves. So Timothy had a tough assignment.
(2) Although we think of Paul as fearless, he himself was constantly asking for prayers that God would give him courage to fulfill his calling, most notably when he wrote to the Ephesians.
(3) Paul looked on Timothy as a son. He felt the kinds of concerns about this younger friend that a father feels for his son in a dangerous situation.
(4) Timothy had received Paul’s praise for his self-sacrificial Spirit in Philippians 2: 19-23.
What was Timothy’s assignment in Ephesus? He last part of Vs. 3 spells it out. He was to charge or command certain people that they teach no other doctrine. Paul used a strong word because of the serious threat of some teaching any other doctrine.
In Gal. 1: 6-7 Paul used two Greek words to describe the gospel. One word means “another of the same kind.” The second word means “another of a different kind.” There Paul was condemning the Judaizers, who claimed that their message was the true gospel.
Paul wrote that their teaching was not just another way of stating the gospel of grace but a totally different message, not the gospel at all. In other words, Paul warned against allowing anyone to present false teachings that are different from the true gospel. Whether they were inside the church or outside, people should teach no other doctrine.
Paul wrote to Timothy because he had heard of false teachers in the church at Ephesus. Who were they? What were they teaching? Verse 4 is the first clue toward answering these questions. The false teachers were paying attention to fables or myths, and endless genealogies.
The warnings against these false teachers were necessary for two reasons. First, the warnings were necessary because of what the false teaching produced: Arguments and divisions. The false teachers’ obsession with fruitless topics that led to controversy tended to undermine unity in the church. Further, a quarrelsome attitude was contrary to the unity Paul wanted to preserve.
Second, the warnings were necessary because of what the false teachings caused people to ignore. The endless arguments and controversies kept the believers form God’s work, which is done by faith.
The arguments distracted the believers from focusing on the truths of the faith and the discipline that leads to godliness.
When people spend all their time debating and obsessing over irrelevant matters, they have not time for what truly matters, sound doctrine that leads to a healthy faith. The enemy has always worked t destroy the witness of the church. In the earliest church, one of his tools came wrapped as genealogies, myths and old wives’ tales.
A healthy faith is still based on the “teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and …the teaching that promotes godliness. This is crucial to personal change and a healthy faith. Unlike the fables, old wives’ tales, and myths that are temporal and meaningless, these teachings are eternal and provide hope, life, guidance, instruction, and comfort for those who follow our Lord.
Some Bible students identify this heresy as an early form of Gnosticism, which came into its own in the second century. Gnosticism had it roots in Greek thought. But the false teachers in Ephesus were more likely to have come from a Jewish background and presented a distorted Judaism, not the true Judaism that had laid the foundation for Christian faith. Later references to the false teaching seem to support his conclusion. Vs. 7 says that they aspired to be teachers of the law, which was a Jewish concern.
The false teachers probably were fascinated by the many writings that the Jews never accepted as Holy Scripture. Some of these books are in the Apocrypha of the O.T. Some of these books have value for historical purposes and for understanding Jewish thought between the Old and New Testament, but some of them contain material that is questionable at best. The false teachers were also fascinated with speculative issues, what we sometimes call “chasing rabbits.” They found meanings in the Scriptures that were not true to the text but were the result of their own ideas. This is sometimes called the allegorical approach to interpretation of the Scriptures. This approach ignores the meaning of the Scriptures and looks for some hidden messages that only they can discover. The many genealogies in the Old Testament were a fertile field for their speculations.
The result of the false teachings was questions of empty speculations or “controversies.” The result of Christian teaching was godly edifying, building up the faith of individuals and of the church. False teachings undermine the faith of all concerned. The word faith has two meanings in the New Testament. One refers to the body of beliefs that we hold. The other has to do with our personal relation of God. False teachings undermine both kinds of faith.
Timothy received his name from his mother (Eunice) and grandmother (Lois), devoted to Jesus who became believers in Jesus Christ and taught Timothy the Old Testament Scriptures from his childhood.
PLEASE READ 1 TIMOTHY 1: 5-7.
The ultimate purpose of believing and living the truth is charity or “love”. Paul’s prayer for every church was that they love God and one another. Dealing with people suspected of departing from the truth must be done in love. False teachings were creating confusion and diversion from the things that build love. Paul spelled out three marks of agape love. For one thing, it must come out of a pure heart. Jesus spoke of the blessedness of having such a heart (Matt. 5:8). The heart is the center for emotions, thoughts and acts of will. A pure heart is one totally in tune with God. Love is also closely related to a good conscience. Paul used the word conscience to refer to a person’s sense of right and wrong. Going against conscience is dangerous. Humans are born with a sense of good and bad, but the conscience can be distorted by sin. Paul wrote of peop0le who have a “seared” conscience. (1 Tim. 4:2). The third mark of love is faith unfeigned or a “sincere faith”. This is faith totally without hypocrisy, completely transparent.
The false teachers had swerved and “turned aside to fruitless discussion,” “wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk.” That is, they were not helping create a fellowship of faith and love but were undermining it. The Jewish nature of their teachings is seen in the words desiring to be teachers of the law. Paul attacked these would-be teachers for what seem mostly an annoyance to the church, but later he spoke of more serious sins.
Truth and love are inseparable. In 1 Timothy Paul was primarily concerned with truth, but his words about love shows that dealing with people should be done in love. Actually, our goal should be to speak the truth in love. A lot of our response depends on the seriousness of the false teachings. Serious denials of the faith must be dealt with firmly, but some people simply have not been taught the full truth and only need simple correction and instruction.
Paul later painted a darker picture of these false teachers, indication that they were leading people into serious doctrinal error and even into lives of sin. In verse 18-20 Paul warned about allowing such people to remain unchallenged.
3.PLEASE READ 1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17.
In verses 8-11 Paul mentioned the value of the law and concluded that “sound teaching” is “based on the glorious gospel of the blessed God that was entrusted to me”. The thought of this led Paul into a parenthetical aside, and expression of thanksgiving because God had entrusted him with the gospel. Paul’s wording I give thanks expresses an attitude of constant and continual thanks. As we shall see, Paul never forgot who he once was and how far God had brought him.
The Book of Acts contains three accounts of Paul’s conversion. And Paul made references to his conversion in many of his letters. One notable example is in these verses. We are not told why the Spirit led Paul to write this to Timothy, who was familiar with how God turned a persecutor into a missionary. Perhaps it was prompted by the dark descriptions of the sins in verses 8-11. These verses in turn probably were prompted by the reference to teachers of the law. Paul’s point in verses 8-11 was that the law is for evildoers of all kinds, and Paul named some of these. Thinking of his own sins when he lived under the law led him to make the famous statement; Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief, or the worst of them.
What were Paul’s sins? He wrote that he was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious or a violent man. It is not enough to blaspheme; Paul became a persecutor, seeking to harm and inflict pain on those who followed Christ. Paul pushed the limits of his work of persecution by also becoming an arrogant man. The arrogant nature of Paul’s former life is much stronger than the idea of pride we attach to the term. It carries the idea of sadism, a desire not simply just to persecute but to inflict pain in such a way that a person is hurt, grieved, and put to shame. Paul reached a point where he was a bully, desirous to inflict pain simply to be inflicting pain.
Other passages bear this out. Saul of Tarsus was a dogmatic Pharisee. He approved the killing of Stephen; then he launched a fierce persecution of believers. He blasphemed by denying that Jesus is the Son of God, and he tried to get believers to deny Christ. He put men and women in prison, and he voted for several executions. And at the time he was proud of these activities. Now he realized how sinful he had been.
Verse 15 tells the whole gospel story. God sent Christ Jesus…into the world to save sinners, even such terrible sinners as Saul of Tarsus. This in indeed a faithful saying or trustworthy statement. By saving the chief of sinners, God showed others that He can save even the worst of sinners.
In spite of Paul’s sin, he was the recipient of God’s mercy. None of us deserve God’s grace, yet it is God’s grace that leads to His mercy. God’s grace---the grace of our Lord overflowed. It’s more than an abundance of grace; it is a super abundance! This overflowing experience of God’s grace resulted in an experience of faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul’s faith came as a response to God’s grace, and he thus experienced the loving forgiveness and compassion of Christ. Such faith and love can only be found in Christ Jesus.
It was perfectly fitting for Paul, when he thought of all that God had done for him and all believers, to burst into praise. The one who gives us eternal life is the King eternal. God is the King from the beginning of creation and He is, literally, the King of all the ages.
Paul identified three other characteristics of the eternal King who gives us eternal life. First, He is immortal. Literally, God is “incorruptible.” He is unchanging and never divinishes in His character of excellence. Second, God is invisible. God is Spirit and transcends our physical world, yet we can see His glory through Jesus Christ (John 1:14; 2 Cor. 4:6). Third, Paul noted the uniqueness of God, calling Him the only God. There is no one like Him. He is incomparable. Because of His uniqueness and eternal glory, it is certainly true that all honor and glory are His forever and ever. Amen adds an emphatic touch to Paul’s doxology, affirming that what Paul wrote is absolutely true.
What is the purpose of studying these verses in this lesson about taking hold on truth and resisting false teachers? Verses 12-17 give us tests for discerning Christian truth. These are the lasting truths of these verses.
PLEASE READ 1 TIMOTHY 1: 18-20.
After sharing his own experience of God’s saving gospel of grace, and taking a brief detour of thanksgiving and praise, Paul returned to his challenge to Timothy. The word charge ties verses 18-20 to verses 1-7. This lesson seeks to answer three questions: (1) What are false teachings? (2) How do you recognize them? (3) How do you deal with them? Verses 3-7 help with the first of these questions. Verses 12-17 help answer the second question. Verses 18-20 focus on the third question.
Paul continued his charge to Timothy by making several points. Paul reminded Timothy that Paul considered him his son. This was why he asked Timothy to do some tough things. He reminded Timothy of prophesies of his bright future as a Christian servant. In 2 Tim. 1:6, from the beginning Timothy had enlisted in the army of the Lord. Paul called him to war a good warfare “fight the good fight.” As Timothy gained more experience in dealing with difficult situations and difficult people, he surely realized that he was on the front lines of this spiritual warfare.
Paul admonished Timothy to look first to his own spiritual relationship with the Lord. He should hold on to his own faith, and by living a godly life he would continue to have a good conscience. These two areas represent both aspects of faith. Timothy would maintain and grow in his personal relationship with the Lord. And he would live a consistent life. These were also the two areas attacked by false teachers. They ignored, questioned, or distorted biblical truth. And they lived in ways inconsistent with how Christians should live.
Paul sadly acknowledged to Timothy that “some have rejected these and have suffered the shipwreck of their faith.” Paul had some personal experiences with being in a shipwreck. On his way to Rome the ship was caught in a storm and driven onto an island in Acts 27. What does it mean to have made shipwreck of their faith? Does this mean they were lost permanently from God’s saving grace or does it mean they were seriously backslidden?
Before trying to answer these questions, let’s look at verse 20. Paul gave the names of two men with shipwrecked faith. They apparently were guilty of the sins of verses 3-7, being diverted from the gospel of grace by attention to myths and endless speculations. If this is the same Hymenaeus mentioned in 2 Timothy 2:17, he was teaching false ideas about the resurrection, a serious false teaching. If Alexander is the one by that name in 2 Timothy 4:14, he did great harm to Paul. Paul wrote that he had them delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Blaspheming the name of the Lord is a serious sin. This was one of Paul’s sins before he met Jesus Christ.
Had these two men been Christians and lost their salvation or were they seriously backslidden believers? Many Bible students see them as hopelessly lost persons. But shipwrecked faith was still some form of what may have been real faith, a faith that had been compromised. Shipwrecked people are sometimes rescued. This had been Paul’s experience in his shipwrecks. By their foolish and false believes and practices, these men had run their faith up on the rock.
This does not mean that all false teachers are backslidden believers. Some are; others are not. We cannot know for sure which is which, but we can seek to show both strength and love in dealing with them. On the one hand, we must, as Jude 3 says, “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”, and as Paul wrote in Eph. 4:15, keep “speaking the truth in love.”
This may be the intent of Paul’s words in the last part of verse 20, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Thomas Lea noted: “The purpose of handing them over to Satan was not merely punitive but chiefly corrective or formative in purpose. By excluding them from the fellowship of God’s people. Paul hoped that Satan’s affliction of the troublemakers would teach them not to insult the Lord by their words and deeds.:
The closest parallel to this concept is in 1 Corinthians 5:5, where Paul dealt with a case of incest in the Corinthian church. He told the church to “turn that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.” The context shows that Paul wanted the church to withdraw fellowship from the guilty man in the hope that, if he were a true believer, the discipline would draw him back to Christ.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM 1 TIMOTHY 4: 6-16 WE CAN BE A STRONGER CHRISTIAN BY “TAKING HOLD OF GODLINESS.” AV DAUGHERTY <altav@swbell.net>