First Timothy lesson 5 cont.
1 Timothy · Courtney Hemenway · May 12, 2024
1 Timothy, No. 13
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261935101499

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, I think, so we are on lesson five in 1 Timothy. I'll go over the verses. We are in chapter one, verses nine through 11, but for context, I always want to go through, or I want to add in verse eight. So 1 Timothy, beginning in verse eight, and we'll go through 11.

But we know now that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted."

So again, it's just quite a litany of the wonderful people That he's addressing here, and it's so the laws for those people which so so by Contrast you know really the law is is not for us to be under it's for these people That are all these you know incredibly bad people and last week. We went through and I kind of went through individually what all those those were the words were in the Greek and Again, the English is good, but when you really break into the Greek, how bad all of those things were. It got into profane, what profane was, and it's just terrible people. And those who kill their mothers and fathers, it seems like that was, you know, maybe, I don't know how the English was interpreting that, but it was. Literally, there's the word patrolus for one who kills their father, metrolus. who murder their mothers, manslayers, androphinists, all these ones. Homosexuals, I wondered if there really was a word in the Greek for homosexual, because that's just common interpretation, but there really is a word for it, a man who lies in bed with another male homosexual.

So we went through all those and really kind of laid out you know, how bad all these traits or individuals are. And we got through profane, which is somebody who is really just probably not one who either was or ought to have been debarred from the threshold or entrance of a temple, lacks all relationship or affinity to God. So again, we kind of went through all of that.

So the question now is in question four, and I think it's a good one. Has our society downplayed the severity of some of the sins today? So I guess what I added on, which of the listed traits or actions do you think society has downplayed today? Any of them? All of them. That's what I said. I mean, when you look at that, you know, the list, I think it's almost every one of those.

And it shows where we are today. And it's funny, today versus when, realize when Paul gave this instruction to Timothy, Things weren't a whole lot better, evidently. And so this has continued for thousands of years, that these issues still remain, even from Paul's time to our time. Because he's addressing them in his time. But when you look at it in our time, we're just the same. But we downplay these now. And I was wondering, from Paul's time, Did they downplay them or know that these were bad and it was just kind of a blight and they knew it was a blight on society? Or did they, like us, basically downplay it?

Like, nah, it's not a problem. And I wonder about that from his time to our time. But the applications are still the same. So I said all of them, but what about homosexuality today? Is that downplayed? Legislated into existence. Exactly. We, you know, I think about this is, you know, in a lot of these things, I think for us.

It's kind of like the frog in the in the, you know, the, the pot. It's slowly, you know, when you turn up the heat slowly, the frog never jumps out and he boils to death. I'm old and I think of homosexuality was really a very kind of strong stigma when I was younger. You didn't hear about it much and it was a very, very negative thing.

People thought that was a gross sin and that it was kind of, as they said, kept in the closet. Now, they came out of the closet at some point during my lifetime. They started to come out of the closet, so to speak. And they not only come out of the closet now, as you said, it's now enshrined in our laws that it's okay. And I think some of the more gripping part of that is, and this is in the biblical sense now when we see that society's downplayed it, but has the church downplayed it also?

And that's, I think, in contrast to what we're seeing in this section of scripture, is that it's against sound doctrine. Have we moved so far away from sound doctrine that we allow this now? And I mean, I think that, you know, homosexuality is one of those ones I think was the United Methodist just now said that they're allowing gay marriage in their church. So think of where we are and think of it as against sound doctrine. And, you know, how has this been allowed? Has it been compared to sound doctrine? They used their civil rights as an excuse to justify it. But why doesn't society downplay it or, you know, why is it allowed it to transpire? Because of rebellion. Rebellion? Yeah, it's man's rebellion against God's word. Yeah, we're getting closer to what I think of. You know, I think it's, we, general society, you know, our society has moved further and further away from scripture.

And as we do that, do we have the checks and balances against this? It's just what Paul's teaching here is against sound doctrine. Do we as, you know, a society value sound doctrine? So, not very productive, no. Who laid them out of the closet, though? Well, that's what I'm saying. You know, I think as believers, are we the salt and light now? Do we shine upon, you know, light on darkness?

And I think, you know, Paul is teaching is, you know, the laws are for these people and the balance against it is sound doctrine, which is for us. But I think we have moved away or believers have moved away from sound doctrine a lot to where the United Methodist Church has allowed gay marriage. You know, there have been some, you know, now that I know that there are believers that are homosexuals that are getting married, that are quote, believers. And how is that tolerated under sound doctrine?

Yeah, JD. Yeah, Les and I were just kind of chatting amongst ourselves here. There's a progression in Romans 1 that talks about this, right? And where it ultimately culminates is this exchange. And I think the exchange that's mentioned in verse 25, was it? Yeah, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served creation, any form of creation. So I guess what we can say is that they exchanged sound doctrine not as believers, but they exchange the availability of sound teaching to themselves, or the lies that serve creation rather than the creator himself. And that progression reaches itself in Romans 1 with this type of behavior.

And so, how do you do that? How do you exchange the truth or a lie? Well, you've got to do some interpretive gymnastics. And you start to look at God's sound teaching and interpret it through your own creature mindset, which is always going to serve self and put yourself in the forefront. So what you want is now sound teaching and God's word can support that because I've made that exchange. Yeah, I think the two words in there to me are exchange and sound. They have to justify What will they exchange? They take the truth and exchange it for something else. That's number one. What are they exchanging?

Sound doctrine for self or whatever they want. So I think that's right, JD. I think it's the two things that are, you're exchanging it, you're taking something, the sound doctrine, and exchanging it for your own. That's the key, I think, and that's what Paul is telling here. You contrast this against sound doctrine. And if you don't have the sound doctrine, what are you comparing it to? your own value system or whatever you do. And when you exchange that, that's how we get off.

And we allow this now as a society, you know, believers. And like I said, the sad part is I see believers now not following sound doctrine is what Paul is teaching here. And they're allowing this. You know, one of the reasons that the question of what is a profane person that they're the ones who make themselves accessible to evil influences. So you have a society that makes themselves available to the influences of the world, evil or otherwise, and that's in place of Sound Doctrine.

Well, everybody does it. I remember when Bill Clinton was a president, and people don't know that in important lives, And people admire them for doing it. Oh, yeah. And so the point, Gene, is that there is this battle that goes on between those who would make themselves available to God and those who won't. And if you're one of those that won't, the influences of the world, like the frog in the pot, begin to influence and your whole viewpoint of everything needs to change.

And on top of that, God gives them over to that. Yeah, that's right. But it'll take Scripture out of its context, too. What do you mean? Well, if you look at Galatians, it says there's neither bond nor free. male or female. For those that are in, right? Yeah. To justify, no male, doesn't matter, you're male to male, female to female.

You know, there's so many things in it, and it's always, and I can go back to what JD says, it's the exchange. You exchange the truth, which is an absolute, for a moral relativism. that your own selfish whatever, that the moral absolute is not there. And when you have that, when you get away from that, that means you can go anywhere. And that's where they go, is they go anywhere but what is the absolute.

And you know, think about all the other things. Besides the homosexuality, think about the gender preference that's going on right now. You can suddenly decide to be a female or a male or whatever, or one of the 53 other identifications that you can do, which is, again, going directly against God. I think the whole vein of that transgender is to go against God and sound doctrine, which is God created man and God created woman. And it's to go against that. And it's the sound doctrine is, God created man, God created woman.

And now let's see if we can mess that all up. And so the unbelievers that, and again, we have to go back to the main of all this, or the main thought is, who is the law for? It's for these people to, you know, Be under the law to show and what does the law do it exacerbates and it points out sin and it does all that.

That's what it's for. So, the law kind of shows that these people are wrong, but the bad part is now our laws are going in. The societal laws are being drawn into these type of things. And so we kind of have to put back the picture of what this is, what law was meant for. It was to basically identify these sins. And now we're moving away from that. Now we're almost, the law is encouraging these things.

You know, by now you can, you know, gay marriage and transgender stuff and all the different things, all the, you know, different sexual things. You know, one of the other ones on the list is kidnappers. Is that something today that's going on? I mean, we get kidnappings, but what on a general, kidnappers? What do we see that, what does that sound like today? What?

Trafficking. Yeah, human trafficking. Just think of all the stuff on the border now where the human trafficking. So it's relevant to today. The kidnappers are just a, it's not like you're taking one person. Now the human trafficking, we're moving thousands of people, you know, basically getting them, taking them and for human sexual trafficking and all the different things that go on.

Just think about the sexual perversion that's on right now that's rampant and that's accepted. Now basically any sexual thing in the world, away from believers now, although believers get into some things that in that's scripturally wrong, but the sexual perversion that goes on today is incredible. Again, I think of what I've grown up with, I'm an old guy again, just what was tolerated when I was a child to what is tolerated now, it is incredible. And where are we going to end up unless we have an incredible revival? The world is just taking off and the moral absolutes are gone. deviating into all these different perversions and different things that Paul listed in this list.

And we should not, I mean, the law was not for us in this fact, because if we're under sound doctrine, these are not part of who we are. But it's amazing how the law was meant for all these. But I wonder now, the laws that we're creating, the societal laws, are promoting this now. And I wonder when Paul put this out that the law was meant for, and was he talking about societal laws or biblical laws?

Stump the panel. I'd say both. I think it's both, too, because I think the laws were meant for the unbeliever. So I think that probably encompasses both, that the law points out these things. The biblical Ten Commandments, different things, those laws will point those things out. But then I think the law that is created in the unbeliever world promotes this.

It's contrary to sound teaching. Well, it's like truth is white. And when you shine that light, there's got to be the love. Because you've got to speak the truth in love. Well, I think this is kind of on the other side. This is the darkness side. Yeah.

You know, light is sound doctrine, you know, which we use to point this out. But it's, you know, I go back to us as believers in this world. We are Christ's ambassadors. We are the light and the salt, supposedly the light and salt in this world. We are to bring forth, you know, people see Christ through us. You know, I think as we gravitate, or a lot of the church has moved away from sound doctrine, we get this kind of tarnished view of who Christ is in the world.

Because we're being sucked into the moral law side, or the, well, this way of saying, away from sound doctrine, and getting into you know, what the world says is right. We'll get into that right now. Let's get into question five. Elaborate, because I've been saying it. Elaborate on the word sound teaching. What does that mean? What does sound teaching mean? Nobody knows. Don't worry, Mike.

I would say that probably, so to speak, would be a focus on Paul's Epistles, the Doctrine of Grace, and the realities of what God has done for those who love Him, based on the life of the Resurrected Christ, or based on the life of Christ the human being.

And so the doctrine, there's a progressive revelation that goes on from Israel through from the resurrection to Pentecost to Pentecost, and when Paul comes on the scene, all of that can be cataloged under sound documents. And a believer today's focus is different. He lives under a principle of grace rather than law. His desires and His will are controlled by what the Holy Spirit wants to conform Him to the image of Christ.

In a world that is dauntless. And so it isn't the kind of thing like, well, I've got the answer, so I'm going to tell you what it is, and you need to listen to me. That's not it. It's the Lord Jesus lit the lights that people were drawn to. what they wanted to get rid of. It's pretty simple. So I'm going to go back to what you brought up. And maybe a little bit to what Mike maybe brought up, Mike Pola.

So Sound Doctrine, you know, the greeky geeky here. So the Greek word is, for sound, and I'll butcher the name, but there's hoog-ee-ahn-ee-no. That means actually be healthy, sound, physically well. So they violated the definition. Healthy, sound, physically well. So something good.

The second word is doctrine. The Greek word is dyskideia. And the words stress the act of teaching or literally meaning that which belongs to the teacher. The content of teaching suggested by this term is apparent in such phrases like precepts and doctrines or sound doctrine. So this is sound teaching. is healthy sound, good doctrine, or doctrine that belongs to the teacher. When I think of that, and I think of the sound teaching, what about people who are reformed teaching?

Or they're using biblical, or even Mormonism. What about Mormonism? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What about those? They take God's Word, and is that sound teaching? We would say no. Right. But why? Well, yeah. Because we Paul is going to tell Timothy in 2 Timothy that we are to study and show ourselves that a workman needs to be approved with rightly dividing what is truth.

We are supposed to, under grace, learn what God's prescription under grace is, which is to lead us to live in the manifest light of Christ. The contrast to that is things like Mormonism, Catholicism, you name it. And the basic doctrine of Christianity being grace.

I will obey God because He loves me. It isn't that I have to obey Him so that He won't reward me. I'm not under a program that says, if you do this, then you get that. The program of braces, I already have that. I already have it at a certain price, and that will have something in certain ways.

I think the point is, you know, you can Sound teaching is, and you brought up, it's rightly divining the word of God. But that, if you asked a Mormon, if you asked a Catholic, what is rightly divining the word? And they'd say they're right on. So I had- They would say it could never have been something they're doing. Yeah, they're rightly divining the word. JD, you had? Yeah, I was just going to say that, so we can make the clear statement that sound teaching was not the law. That's clear in these passages. Correct.

Okay, so if sound teaching wasn't the law, then what was it? Well, obviously it has to do with the context of what Paul is saying here. Later on in 1 Timothy, he starts to point out that they need to be nourished by these words, and that the sound doctrine that they have, that they've been following. So they've been following what Paul has been teaching, and Timothy is there to encourage what Paul has laid down that is contrary to following the law. contrary to false teaching, to get a believer underneath a subset of laws in order to satisfy God, right?

Ultimately. We know we see it more clearly in Mormonism, we see it a little bit more clearly in Catholicism, but rightly dividing the word has everything to do with understanding what Paul has said in contrary to the law. I agree, and I think that's part of it. I think the rightly divining is really the key part of that, and it's really in keeping with what Paul taught.

What reforms do is go back to the Old Testament, which really was not applicable to us. I mean, the Old Testament pointed to Christ and everything, but to apply what Israel has and is the same for us and different things, it's sticking to what Paul taught and grace.

I think there's, again, what we see is believers, Millions and billions of believers, but if they don't rightly divine it, they may not grow. It's like, you know, without the identification truths, without knowing what grace is, they're believers by the simple faith in Christ, but they'll never grow. It's when really they start deviating or going back to Old Testament or doing their own interpretation or trying to fit societal truths into biblical truths. And I think that's where you get this melding. which really becomes a problem where it's not sound teaching now.

It's a meld of societal and biblical truth together. It's kind of like law and grace. Law and grace don't match. If you mix a little law in with grace, it's gone. I think when you start taking societal laws or ideas into the biblical teaching is when you get a non... growth situation, but I guess it's really... You know, this, you know, when you look at it, it's like, you know, it's identification or identification through sound teaching. Yes. Because that's what Paul taught positional teaching. Yeah. That's sound teaching. That's what Paul taught.

So it's, it's getting back to one again, the, the epistles, I think, because that's really who, who laid out who the church is without, as we've said many times without Paul, we would never know who we are in Christ. So really, the sound teaching or sound doctrine is going back to what Paul taught, and then really rightly divining it, which is not pulling what you think in from Old Testament or what society is saying today.

You know, Mike, like you said, there's no woman, there's no male, there's no female. Oh, that means we can, you know, have homosexual whatever. But there's clearly other scripture that is contrary to that, that would say, no, that's wrong. So it's rightly divining it.

So I think the key is really, the sound doctrine is, and in context what Timothy, or his words to Timothy are, is Timothy, stick to what I talked to you about, what I told you. That's the correct sound doctrine, stay with that. The laws were meant for these other people, but you stick to the sound doctrine. So it's really coming down to Paul's teaching. is what sound doctrine is for the believer.

One thing to add to that is that there are doctrines in the Old Testament Obviously, the creator-creature distinction. You have the creator, you have the creature. Does he establish that in Romans? Absolutely. He reestablishes all of those Old Testament doctrines that still pertain because that applies to all men. Those are doctrines for all time, all dispensations. They move across all household rules. But he reestablishes those. And he quotes from the Old Testament to establish them. So he stands on the Old Testament. It's not as though the Old Testament doesn't contain sound doctrine. It's just that when it comes to the law and the specific dealings with Israel, that has to be divided. for the church. But there are doctrines that do carry through, and so it's not as though the epistles aren't all we need, you know. No, I guess without Genesis and the fall, what would we know about sin? How did we get here? You know, so now I don't mean to do the exclusion. That's why everything points towards towards the cross.

Number 1, but then number 2, Paul is the one who really threw his life for his teaching. His epistles tells us about who we are in Christ. And that's really where he takes Old Testament. He backs up and shows where Christ is and why Christ is who he is. And he uses Old Testament to bring that forth. But really, his is about who we are in Christ, who the church is.

So, but yeah, you know, you don't throw out all of all of Old Testament, but it's it's like reform or, you know, we're going back and all the truths about Israel now are true about us. Earthly promises, you know, are valid for us. That's that's where you get the melding of the two and it doesn't work. So, again, not sound doctrine, so. Anyway, we have just a minute. Let me see if I can get one more of these through here. Question six, how do all these sins stack up against sound teaching? Are any of the listed activities or traits in agreement with sound doctrine or teaching? Any of those lists, are they in agreement with sound doctrine? Yes.

Any of them? No, because of verse 11. So they're all contrary. They are all contrary. And true doctrine demands a certain conduct. The two are inseparable. To sin is to sin against doctrine. All the more reason to maintain doctrinal purity. You know, all those activities, you know, is a believer caught up in all of those different things if they're under sound doctrine? Are they caught up in it? Kidnapping, sexual, all those different things?

No. No. So one of the things I said, kind of on a bit of a rabbit trail, the folks on this section of scripture is referring to us as, who is the law for? So what is not listed, but I think is just as dangerous as all the terrible things that Paul listed here in 1 Timothy, is bad or incorrect teaching.

I think in many ways it's harder to reach people who have been taught incorrectly than those who have not been taught at all. And so, you know, the sound doctrine, you know, when I think of these things, when we go out and if you, and this is for non-believers, who's harder to get to? Somebody who has been taught Mormonism, Catholicism, what about the Jews? What's harder to go against sound doctrine than somebody who's been taught some of these religious systems? I think that's almost as hard as somebody who is a kidnapper. They know what's wrong.

I think some of these things which are against sound doctrine are some of the things where we talked about in the beginning about don't even give ear to bad teaching. Don't even turn your ear towards them. Because once you start that, you deviate and go off.

That's where I think this sound doctrine, we have to stay focused on sound doctrine. If we start letting things get in, we get Mormonism, we get Catholicism, we get all these other isms, because we're not sticking to the sound doctrine, which he's saying here. And that's where I think he's very adamant about that, about sound teaching. You have to rightly divide the word, and stick to sound doctrine.

Otherwise, all of these other issues come up for the non-believer. And I think for the non-believer who is in one of these Mormonisms or Catholic, who really doesn't know a personal relation with Christ, those are the hard ones, I think. They think they have sound doctrine, but they don't. And so I think the rabbit trail is one of the warnings, I think, is some of the hardest ones for a non-believer is the one that thinks he has sound doctrine. So anyway. I would say one last thing, Matt.

What the law does is it points you to you. And what this verse says is that it talks about the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The focus is not on my performance, it's on another, someone outside of me, initially with the Lord Jesus Christ himself and the glorious gospel about him. So it's a total change in focus. As long as I'm trying to perform based on what I think is the standard I ought to be living, I'm always focused on me and my own behaviors. But if I am involved in learning and growing in the Lord Jesus Christ, He becomes the focus. And He becomes the reason that you get up in the morning.

Well, we'll get that out. I'll hit that last question, which is about what does that, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, mean? We'll hit that in the last question next week. And then, Mike or JD, what about next lesson? I've got it done. I haven't decided who's going to teach it yet. OK. Well, JD, you and I will be, probably one of us will do it next week. All right, let's close. Father, we just thank you. We thank you again, just for this time. We thank you for all these warnings. We just thank you for sound doctrine. Again, that you haven't left us alone. You have given us your word in scripture.

And most importantly, too, you have the indwelling, the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which convicts us and convinces us. And by faith, we believe what is true about us in Christ. And that keeps us focused on you, ultimately to glorify you. And again, just what we have is the indwelling in your word, as opposed to the unbelievers who have these laws that are Changeable, movable, self-focused. So we have an absolute truth in your word. And let us just rely upon that and rest in that, and also rightly divide that word.

So again, we rely upon the Holy Spirit to do that. So Father, be with us this day. Again, that all we say and do will honor and glorify you. Be with Mike as he gives the message in the next meeting. And we just thank you for all these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.