First Timothy lesson 2

All right, we are in 1st Timothy. We are in lesson two. And if you don't have it, we are going through lessons, or chapter one and verses three and four. I'd like to read a little bit more just to get context for the verses that we're studying. So I'm gonna read 1st Timothy one through four.

Call 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 in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then our verses. As I urge you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which gives rise to mere speculation, rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith."

So, the first question is, what is the motive of this letter? So this is the beginning of his letter to Timothy. So what is the motive here? What's expressed as the motive? From verse three, I'll give you a hint. I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct. What would be the motive? Come on now, this isn't a tough question. Instruct the men not to teach the bad doctrine? You are so brave, Russ. All these other chickens in here are just, yes. It was a pretty easy question. They're going to get a little harder as we go on.

So Mike had in his notes, he quoted an expositor saying, the motive of this letter is to provide Timothy with a written memorandum of previous verbal instructions especially with a view to novel speculations about the laws which sap the vitality of the gospel, the root of which is sincerity and love." So, does that sound describing his motive? I like to write a written memorandum of previous verbal instructions.

So, remember, did they have the full Bible at this time? They didn't have any of that. I'm always amazed at how the early church functioned, really. And these letters that got passed around from church to church and verbally. And it says here, verbally. So Paul went and taught at these churches and left to read verbally. He taught for quite a while. But then with these, we see several letters written to the different churches, this one being to Timothy at Ephesus. He's basically saying, instruct them in what I've taught you, and keep that going to minimize these bad teachings, which we'll see. So, going back to our study of Titus, what do the epistles of Timothy and Titus have in common? Lots of false teaching. False teaching. What are they called? Pastoral. They're pastoral.

So Paul is, and I like the way that commentator said, he's doing the same thing he did to Titus. He's telling him how to function, how to minister to the body in Crete for Titus and Ephesus for Timothy. So it's really kind of teaching him, giving him confidence, giving him instruction. He's telling me, don't forget about the things that taught you remind you of those things.

So that's kind of the motive there. Paul was encouraging and providing guidance on maintaining and growing the believers in church bodies in Ephesus, and Ephesus for Timothy and Crete for Titus. So these are, again, the pastoral ones, how to shepherd the church at the two locations they were at, in Crete and Ephesus. So that, again, is the motive of it. It's kind of the pastoral aspect of what Paul was giving to Timothy and Titus. So any other thoughts on the motive? Did they stay there for a considerable time? Do we know?

I think Titus left, then eventually I think from historical records he came back to Crete and that's where he finally ended up I think. Timothy, I can't remember. He was there at Ephesus for quite a while I think, but I can't remember if he ultimately left. In the verses, it's Paul who left, and where were they? Where's he? Yeah, but she was asking about Timothy, if he stayed there for a while. I just can't remember about that. I don't know if somebody looked that up. He's writing from, or to Ephesus, Timothy in Ephesus.

Yeah, but Donna's asking, did Timothy stay, yeah, how long did Timothy stay there? He was the pastor of the church, so the exhortation was to get him even though he wanted to travel. Right, which will get him to stay there and fulfill that role of Sebastian. But did he, and how long did he stay? That's, I guess, one of those questions.

And I can't remember. I think in my riori, I read some of the history there, as in the first there is laid out. But I don't know if somebody checked that. But I think, like I said, if my recollection is right, Titus was there in Crete. He left, but then ultimately came back to that and ended. his life or whatever recorded was in Crete. But I don't know about Timothy, how long he stayed in there. We'll get into this one. Question two, in urging Timothy, does it look like Timothy had other plans? He wanted to stay with Paul, didn't he?

Yeah. Verse 3, as I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus, so that you may instruct. Mike had another commentator in his notes. The word urge, parakaleo, to beg and treat beseeched. It is a strong word. Evidently, Timothy had other plans, and it needed Paul's pleading to get him to stay at the Ephesian church. He may have wanted to accompany Paul on his journeys.

Share your thoughts. Sound feasible? I had a kind of a different one, but then I kind of, I kind of had a different name came back because I said, all of this is speculation is we do not have a direct verse or historical reference to verify a false motive to urge Timothy or to verify that Timothy had quote other plans. My original thought was, like his words to Titus, it was to prepare or direct Timothy on what he's to expect at Ephesus.

He's saying, I urge you to remain there because you need to be there. You need to shepherd this body at Ephesus. And so I thought it was just kind of encouraging to say, hey, it's going to be tough sledding. It's going to be a hard thing. Just remain on there. Instruct them. Because all these false doctrines that are coming in, all these things, remain on there. Be strong. Stay there.

In the verse, Paul says, I urge you upon my departure for Macedonia. remain on in Ephesus. So that's where I think the speculation is that Paul's leaving for Macedonia. Hey, I'm coming with you. I'm not staying here at Ephesus. So I can see it both ways that Timothy had potentially the desire to leave Ephesus and go with Paul and travel with Paul. I mean, being with Paul, amazing. But he said, remain on here at Ephesus. So I think it's kind of both. Stay here. And I want to encourage you to shepherd the sheep here. Keep them away from this false doctrine.

Scofield's notes say that the dates of the epistle turns upon the question of two imprisonments of Paul. If there were two, Acts 28, that's his note. Then it's clear that 1 Timothy was written during the intervals between first and second. If Paul endured but one Roman imprisonment, the epistle was written shortly before Paul's last journey to Jerusalem.

So whether Timothy wanted to go with it? So yeah, so I get it. Maybe it's a dual thing, giving encouragement to remain on there, stay strong. Here, I'm going to give you instructions. But also, remain there. You don't need to come with me. You're more valuable to stay at Ephesus. So it's, again, speculation. I don't think we'll know for sure. Again, some of the things, the urging, which is, you know, the word pericleo is a very, very strong word. So, like, remain there. Don't, but that could go either way. Remain there. It's going to be tough. Stay there. Or, no, remain there. I want you there. Don't come with me.

So, either one, I think, would fit. So, any other thoughts? And if he had other plans, I think, again, it's speculation. I find it interesting that Timothy had something he wanted to do. And Paul said, no, that's not what you should be doing. You ought to, you have to. Well, if he's wanting to go with Paul. You know? Yeah. You shouldn't be going with him.

God gave you the ministry of being a shepherd and ethicist, and that's what you need to do. And I find that interesting, because I think, contemporarily, You find guys going all kinds of places and forgetting what God really wants them to do. And I think also, from my secondary thought, it's going to be a tough leave. And I think maybe this is his encouragement.

Remain there. It's a tough work. It's a big work. Remain on. So I think both fit. the encouragement that it's going to be tough, so remain there. Your position is there. Yeah. I was just looking at Reece's expanded translation. He translates it just as, I beg you to continue on, in emphasis.

I mean, I'd have to spend more time with the word urge, but if it has that connotation of begging you to continue, It could point to the fact that it leans more towards, he might have had other plans, and Paul's begging him to continue to face these false teachings by instructing.

And I was going to ask on the first question, how do you do that? How does that look? What do you think of that instruction that Timothy was urged to continue to give to this false teacher? How do you instruct false teachers? Well, I think it goes back to the first question, that you teach what I taught you. I think that's what he's saying. Stay there and teach what I taught you. Lead them in the way I led them. I think that's what he's telling them to do and instructing them. We'll get into, in a little bit, further questions about that, what that means. But I think it's really, he's encouraging them to stay there.

Either don't leave or it's going to get tough, they're going to be, and because he's just going to say, all these guys are bringing in false doctrines. So you're going to have to battle this. You're going to have to fight this. So again, I still think it's both ways. I urge you, don't give up. These guys are going to come after you with false doctrines, endless genealogies, all this stuff. Stay strong. So I see it as a dual one. But maybe the urge you to remain. It's the remain one and how you take that.

Do you remain because you want to leave, or do you remain because it's going to be tough? And it's a pure speculation. I don't think we have anything that said Timothy was on his way out or any other historical documents or anything else that relate.

Can you imagine being established in a church on, say, whatever the money was in terms of that transition that Paul was making, and then your charge is to go up against You're going to have to go battle. That's kind of mine. That's why he's encouraging these pastoral ones. I think it's like, you've got to come up against these guys. And again, what I said at the beginning of this, they didn't have the Bible. Remember that.

This is Paul's teachings. Now maybe he had a thousand other letters that we never saw, you know, who knows, but a lot of it was verbal communication. He sat there and he taught however long Paul stayed at Ephesus and taught. Timothy was there and understanding and doing all this, so he got it, but now he has to keep that and instruct them. Without taking notes.

I still marvel at that, the early church. And to me, it's really a demonstration of the Holy Spirit working through these men. It has to be. It just has to be, because again, we have computers, we have written word. After the Bible was first mass printed, we suddenly started having at least that. But up until that time, only the priests had the written words, until there was mass printing of the Bible. You had to go to church to look at a Bible, basically. So even that, through hundreds of years, there really wasn't access to this. So I just think it really is a demonstration to me, when I think about it, it's the Holy Spirit working.

I also think that when we studied One of the tenants in there was, what are the qualifications of a shepherd, of a pastor, of an elder? And Timothy obviously had passed the test, so to speak, and was in fact the shepherd of the Ephesus Church, which meant that he had a great responsibility to the sheep that were there. And so I can see Paul recognizing that the most important thing for a shepherd to do is feed the sheep and protect them.

We're going to get into that. And so I think that's why he wants him to stay there, even though he may want to travel. Right. And who else did? He was already ensconced as the elder of that church, and that was really his job. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we'll touch on that a little bit in the next few questions also.

Question three, why did Paul want Timothy to stay in Ephesus? What do you think or know? What was going on at Ephesus at that time? False teaching. False teaching. So yeah, from verse three, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.

So what is a warning to us through Paul's instruction to Timothy? What's his word to us? The same thing. The same thing. Don't let any false or strange doctrines come into the local body. It's like a cancer. And so Paul, remember, is urging him, beseeching him, remain on, so what? So you can instruct and teach and refute these certain men who are bringing in false doctrines. Paul knew what that would mean if false doctrine starts eking into the local body. So he's urging him, refute these, get on these guys. We'll even see how strong he is on this.

So Mike had a commentator like, after Paul's Roman imprisonment, harmful teachings began to appear at Ephesus. While Paul felt it necessary to go to Macedonia, he urges Timothy to remain on at Ephesus to put an end to the doctrinal error. This reminds us that the maintaining of sound doctrine is more important than Timothy's desire to accompany Paul. So again, you may want to go going to get rough, whichever motive we take, it's to keep false doctrine out of the body. Because Paul knows what that creates. And we'll see in the instruction to elders and different things why that's so important. And you know, why I said the question, how important is that today?

You know, covenant comes in. I don't know, you know. Charismatic. Charismatic, yeah. Yeah, there's all these things that seep in. You know, even just the legal kind of from Baptist, the legal that creeps in. All those things creep in and now we have huge divisions or huge groups that are not teaching what Paul said.

And what does that create? It's just havoc. And it creates, you know, and I still wonder, you know, whether, it's like, I think in the Catholic Church, you know, we knew some Catholics, I think they're believers, but they just aren't growing, they can't grow with the doctrine that they have. The simplicity of the message of salvation, I think is accepted by lots, but there's no growth. It's built on a, false foundations. It's simple and it even says that even a child can understand, but they can't grow, they can't go anywhere.

And I don't know, maybe they're not, but we've had some Catholic friends who we talked, you know, when we were in college and I think they're believers, but they still went to the Catholic church and it's like, You know, it's the tradition, it's the whatever, and they get into that, and it's like, okay, but, and they just can't get out.

I think the environment we live in today, where the predominant theology is coven reform, and were considered the outliers, grace-based teaching. But I think the one guy that really saw that was Miles Stanford. And he quoted Newell and others. He said, the best teaching you can get from a law-based system is sins forgiven and works promoted to get you through sanctification. And it stops there.

Well, as we know from our study, not that we're the smart guys in the block, just studying God's word, boy, there's way more than that. If all I know that my sins are forgiven, that's not enough motivation for me to live the Christian life because uh... you know when the whole concept of the sin nature and how strong it is and co-crucifixion is the answer when that comes up in every christian's life. Well, the reformers say you just have to work harder, give more, pray more, read more, do something more, but it's really on your shoulders. Did you read the Hungry Heart this morning? Yeah. Read more, pray more. That was all for your sanctification. Yeah.

So the thing is, is that false doctrine, as this epistle goes on, legalism is one of the things that he's fighting against because he knew, Paul knew, that as long as there's even a little bit of legalism, it absolutely stunts your growth. You can't grow by your doing anything other than resting by faith in what God has done. A couple things to respond. Galatians is the one that basically says you can't mix the two. If you mix a little law, grace is negated. That's right. However, I look at a couple things which come to mind.

When I first came here, And it started to make a whole lot of sense, and we're doing this, and all I kept thinking was, we're drinking Kool-Aid, why are we the kids drinking the Kool-Aid in Guyana? You know, we're all gonna go down to Guyana, because we're the little outliers of, but it all made sense. And I thought, this is a little cult here. I was in the Brethren Church, and I started reading all this stuff, and it's all Brethren who used to be promoters of most of the things we teach in the Brethren Church for years. We never taught that. And so it's what's crept in over the years and got away from all these teachings.

Exactly what Paul's worried about, is that when you get into this and you start deviating, it's the frog in the pot. It slowly warms up, doesn't know he's going to die, but he keeps just getting hotter and hotter and hotter until you overhear. And so, again, I think it's a strong warning to them that false doctrine needs to be eradicated. It can't be tolerated. And we'll kind of get into that, too, with how—I'm going to put some questions out, too, about that. So, how do we do it today? But again, it's the false teaching that creeps in, and once it creeps in, it just expands. It's like I said, the best is it's cancer.

Paul knew that and is urging, beseeching Timothy, don't let it happen. Don't let them teach. Very harsh words that we'll get into about what happens, what he wants to do with these men. So, we'll get into question 4. I also said, Paul gave the same instruction and warning to Titus and Crete. He gave qualifications for the elders with the same purpose.

Titus 1.9, this is the qualifications to an elder. Holding fast, the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." So when Paul gives Titus the qualifications for an elder, like Timothy at Ephesus, he's saying the reason why, why he has the qualifications for the elders, is to be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. So again, the pastoral between Timothy and Titus, there's a lot of hooks that go between them, very similar. And Timothy is already in charge of the Ephesus church. Titus is in the whole island of Crete, basically, and the whole church body there. So he's basically setting it up. So he's saying, here, set these men up in the towns and the local churches with these qualifications to do what he's asking to refute these doctrines and sneak in. So, any other thoughts? All right, question four.

Does the word instruct in verse three strong enough for what Paul wants Timothy to do? So again, as I urge you on my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines. So, Is it instructive, sit down with these gentlemen or whoever, bring them aside, let's go have coffee, let's talk about this? Is that what he means to instruct them? Is he talking about just kind of taking them aside and let's chat? My version says command, so it sounds a little more forceful than instruct. Yeah. So I command you that you may command certain men not to teach strange doctrine. Charge you. Yeah.

And again, not to teach. It's not like we think of instructing. We're going to have a Bible study every Wednesday, and we're going to work on this with you guys. This is more, you're done. This doctrine is not acceptable. working it out until the point where they do have to potentially be expelled or come to a realization. I think it's a quick, it's not a long discussion. Probably not.

I say that's where I think the instruct is. It's like, I command you, certain men, not to teach. It's not like I instruct you to go talk to these guys and let's work it out. I command you not to let them teach. Yeah, Donna. Zodiatis says, a proclamation strictly used of commands received from a superior and transmitted to others. Yeah, yeah. It's not a, let's talk about it.

I command you not to let these men teach. So instructed, you know, our English word of instruct is not, as we interpret it today, it's we're going to sit down and work this thing out. It wasn't that way. I command you not to let them teach. Sit them down.

And I'll get into some of the verses, I think from Titus too, or Titus also. So, yeah, I have from Macaulay, the word instruct in verse three is a verb form of the same word translated command in verse 18. And verse 18 is used to describe the instructions command that Paul is sending to Timothy in this letter. Timothy in turn is to take the same instruction received from Paul and pass it on intact to those teaching error in Ephesus. This is true expository preaching, the passing on of the word of God, exactly as it appears in the divine revelation of the scriptures. The word instruct indicates a command with the authority and urgency of a military order. So really, it's not like we say, just talk to him. You're done.

And we'll get into a little bit of that in the commands in Titus about a factious man or one who talks about genealogies and that. He has instructions in Titus, too, about that. So again, Paul is very consistent in these pastoral letters that he's saying this exact same instructions, because it's going to happen in both, which I bring in, how do we handle it here? which I'll touch on too. So any other thoughts?

I just have, you know, as I kind of think through those things, false doctrine. I think about the chosen, really growing, and it seems like, you know, you make allowances. Well, you know, that's not, that's not, it's not so bad. It's not heresy, right? I don't know, I guess in my mind it kind of running through what is false doctrine. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Small things slowly begin to ebb and create large things. Again, I just go to the Catholic Church, the Baptist, very legal. All these things that have crept in that have no relation to what scripture is saying. But what has happened? I mean, how big is the Baptist church? How big is the Catholic church? So this started as an idea or a few people, and then it's grown. So Paul's instruction is, nip it here. Don't let it grow. Don't let it manifest itself to the greater body. And again, it's not to instruct. He's commanding them. Stop them. Don't let them teach.

And so I think some of those ones, I know with The Chosen and others, there are some who just absolutely love that. And yet, when you kind of tear it apart, it's not scriptural. I think there's interpretations that they take, liberal interpretations of it, but then they sneak in other things. make a movie. It's like a movie of whoever, Steve Jobs, Apple. You know lots about him. He's written, he's done. But you're taking things like what he did in between and you're speculating or saying. And I think The Chosen's kind of done that.

But then they sneak in these little tidbits that are not true. And everybody's, oh, yeah. And you get the false with the neutral or whatever. The, hey, it's. Yeah. That's what you do. You present the proofs and then you sneak in the second. Right. Yeah, it's something that looks very like a hundred dollar bill, but it's not. And so it sneaks in and yeah, I'm going to take that. Yeah, it's great. But after a while, and you get more of it, more of it, again, the deviation gets greater and greater.

I have two questions. One is, who's the one in charge of any local church to decide what's sound doctrine and what isn't, number one? And number two, gee, it doesn't seem very Christian to be going to a brother and sitting him down and saying, you have to shut your mouth. Well, that's what I want to get into, because who is it at the local body? I mean, the point is, can't we all get along?

The aggression, I think Paul is being pretty aggressive with Timothy, saying, look, you have to stop this now. And we're assuming that Timothy was instructed about fables and all these other things that were we're coming in, you know. But today, we have so many, you know, it's like, what's the pop thing coming through Christianity today? We've been through the prayer of Jabez, contemporary prayer, you know, all of this stuff that, most of it is so blatant that you can't, but there's subtlety. How about, Progressive dispensationalism sounds like a big long word that what do I care about that?

Yes, they care a lot about sure Contemplative prayer and all these things, you know, it's like empty your mind Sure, where does that come in in Scripture? Yeah empty your mind, you know Create a vacuum a lot of garbage comes in in the back in the vacuum, you know Well, we're talking about a lot of these things on Wednesday night going through that book Pauline dispensationalism and it's interesting how One little issue that the new covenant with Israel, the church is a beneficiary of that covenant. No, they're not. No, they're not.

Well, you know, again, all these different things, like you said, covenant theology, charismatic, all these started somewhere. They started somewhere and they, well, I mean, could be, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Catholic, obviously, you know, and they got off and now it is massive and it's, you know, I think His brother was down in Mozambique and spent time in Spain, I think, or Portugal because of Portuguese.

The hardest people to witness to are Catholics. In Brazil and all these and through, it's hard to witness to them because they're so ingrained in this false teaching. that somebody in the middle of the jungle is a lot easier than somebody who has had this false teaching. Once it's in, it's hard to extract. And I think that's what Paul's getting at here, is don't let it start. Because once it's in, it's hard to remove.

You know, once you go down that road for a while, I mean, covenant theology, I think is going to be, it's hard because you know, everything and what Israel gets and we get, and you know, it's like, yeah, it sounds really good and you can make it sound really good. But that's not anything what we want and what's said, I mean, what's told, what's true about us as believers. We don't want to touch that. And yet, you know, let's, the 10 commandments need to be in every school, you know, Should the 10 components be in every school?

But that's the deviation. That's the little sidetrack that gets off. And then it just goes off the rails. So anyway, I see everybody leaving. Any final comments before? So I guess we will start. Yeah, we'll start in question five next week. All right, let's close with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for this time. Thanks again, just for the warning that we have about false doctrine and teaching. We just pray that we will accurately just interpret your word, and again, through guidance and urgings and convincing of the Holy Spirit, keep us on track with what is the true word, the true gospel, the true Direction that is given in scripture, and we just we pray for that repair for that for individuals We pray for this body and and the greater body at large So we just pray for that we again just thank you for the opportunity again Just to open up your word and and just to receive these warnings so father again May we throughout this day just honor and glorify you and all that we say and do in Jesus name we pray amen amen