PAUL’S CHARGE TO “GUARD THE GOSPEL”
(I Tim. 6:20-21)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-6:21
4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church
4:3-5 Common Grace
4:6 Word of God in Life of the Believer
4:7a Godliness – Divine / Human Role
4:7b Train Yourself to be Godly
4:7c Spiritual Disciplines (The Word of God)
4:7d Spiritual Disciplines (Devotions, Worship)
4.7e Spiritual Disciplines (Church Attendance, Journaling, Practicing Presence of God)
4:8-9 Why Godliness Has Great Value
4:10 Putting Our Hope in the Living God
4:12 Setting an Example for Believers
4:13 What a Christian Worship Service Looked Like in the First Century
4:14 Neglecting the Spiritual Gift God has Given Us
4:15-16 Getting Home Before Dark
5:1-2 So, How Should We Describe the Church?
5:3-16 God’s Tilt Towards the Disenfranchised
5:3-16 Sorting Out those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical Approach to Social Welfare
5:3-16 The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Relatives
5:5-16 The Tale of Two Widows – A Biblical Approach to Pleasure
5:9-10 The Good Works of a New Testament Woman
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Breaking Celibacy Vows
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Gossiping False Teaching
5:15 Satan’s Effort to Keep Jesus from Fulfilling His Mission
5:17-18 Honoring the Work of Elders
5:19-20 How NT Church Discipline Illustrates Cultural Formation
5:21 Partiality – A Christian Problem?
5:22-24 Selecting Church Leadership
5:23 The Christian’s Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages
6:1 Honoring God’s Name
6:1-2 A What In Christianity Undermined Slavery?
6:1-2 B The Evangelical Awakening and Abolition of Slavery
6:1-2 C Masters and Slaves / Employers and Employees
6:3-5 Why Do Some Christians Become False Teachers?
6:6-8 Christian Contentment
6:9-10 For the Love of Money
6:11 Holiness – Living on the Run
6:12 Fighting for the Faith; Holding on to Life
6:13-14 What Motivates the Christian – Part A
6:15-16 What Motivates the Christian – Part B
6:17-19 Paul’s Charge to the Christian Rich
6:20-21 Paul’s Charge to “Guard the Gospel”
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you (I Tim. 6:20-21)
INTRODUCTION:
1. The remainder of this letter has Paul issuing five charges:
a. To False Teachers (3-5)
b. To the Christian Poor (6-10)
c. To the ‘man of God’(11-16)
d. To the Christian Rich (17-19)
(1) Dangers that face the wealthy Christian.
(2) The special responsibility of the wealthy Christian.
(3) The wealthy Christian’s motives for giving.
e. To Timothy (20-21)
1. The Gospel is Our Treasure.
2. We are to “guard” the Gospel.
3. We guard the Gospel by avoiding syncretism.
4. We guard the Gospel by entrusting it to faithful people.
The similarities between I Tim. 6:20-21 and I Tim. 1:3-6 are striking.
. . . stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. . . . Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk (1:3-4, 6).
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you (I Tim. 6:20-21).
At the beginning Paul charges Timothy to stand against false teaching and ends his letter with the same emphasis!
Gordon Fee sees that the whole purpose of I Timothy is focused on encouraging Timothy to refute, avoid and stand against the false teaching that is floating around Ephesus.
I. THE GOSPEL IS OUR “DEPOSIT,” TO BE GUARDED
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care (I Tim. 6:19).
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (II Tim. 1:14).
There are several opinions of what the “good deposit” is. It certainly would include “sound teaching.” In II Tim. 2:2 Paul refers to “the things you have heard from me.”
By using the word “guard” and “entrust” and “deposit” Paul is using a metaphor treating the “teaching” as a “commodity.” Of course the “core” of the “teaching” is the Gospel.
ILLUSTRATION: There is a story that a group of theologians in Britain were discussing the uniqueness of Christianity. They went on for sometime and could not come to a conclusion on what was unique. C.S. Lewis, who had not been sitting with the group came in. They asked him his opinion and he immediately responded, “Salvation by grace” which of course is the Gospel.
ACTIVITY: Limiting yourself to just 8 words, how would you summarize the meaning of the word “Gospel?”
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, …. By this gospel you are saved … For what I received I passed on to you … that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (I Cor. 15:1-4).
How important is the “Gospel” for the Christian Community?
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Mt. 24:14).
So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere (Luke 9:6).
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile (Romans 1:16).
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power (I Cor. 1:17).
Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (I Cor. 9:16).
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news [gospel]!” (Romans 10:15).
After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:10).
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel (Eph. 6:19).
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (II Cor. 4:4).
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus (II Thes. 1:8).
ILLUSTRATION: I read somewhere that without the Gospel the church is like a ship without a sail, a well without water, sheath without a sword, a cupboard without food.
APPLICATION: A failure on our part to take the Gospel seriously is a failure to take God seriously. Without the Gospel we are nothing! We the Gospel we have the whole of heaven standing with us!
II. WE ARE TO GUARD THE GOSPEL
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care (I Tim. 6:19).
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (II Tim. 1:14).
“Guard” only appears here in the Bible and in II Tim. 1:12,14.
“Guard what is entrusted to you” (parakatatheke) was a legal technical term, which was used of money or valuables deposited with somebody for safe keeping (Stott, 163).
The terms here come from the banking language and are consistent with the earlier instructions about being “rich in good workds” and “storing up … treasure” (6:18-19). (Life, 139).
In the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the OT) the same word is used when referring to a trust:
The LORD said to Moses: “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, …. “ (Lev. 16:1-2).
ILLUSTRATION: There was a famous Greek story which told just how such a trust was. The Spartans were famous for their strict honor and honesty. A certain man of Miletus came to a certain Glaucus of Sparta. He said that he had heard such great reports of the honesty of the Sparta that he had turned half his possessions into money and wished to deposit that money with Glaucus, until he or his heirs should claim it again. Certain symbols were given and received which would identify the rightful claimant when he should make his claim. The years passed on; the man of Miletus died; his sons came to Sparta to see Glaucus, produced the identifying tallies and asked for the return of the deposited money. But Glaucus claimed that he had no memory of ever receiving it. The sons from Miletus went sorrowfully away; but Glaucus went to the famous oracle at Delphi (shrine in Greece which they considered the navel of the world and where they got advice on important matters … oracle … from a priestess) to see whether he should admit the trust or, as Greek law entitled him to do, should swear that he knew nothing about it. The priestess responded saying that he could deny the deposit / trust if he wished but it would have a negative impact on his descendents. He apologized to the priestess for asking such a question, called the heirs from Miletus and restored the money. The oracle told him that to have tempted the god with such a question was as bad as doing the deed. As a result Glaucus did not leave a single descendent. To the Greeks “guarding a trust” was a sacred duty. (Barclay, 151-2)
APPLICATION: This matter of guarding the Gospel is not to be taken lightly. This is a sacred duty of every Christian.
III. WE GUARD THE GOSPEL BY AVOIDING SYNCRETISM
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you (I Tim. 6:20-21)
TURN AWAY FROM “GODLESS CHATTER.”
Profane babblings, irreligious and frivolous talk, profane pratings, futile phrases, empty discussions, empty and worldly chatter, profane jargon, empty talk, irreverent babble and godless chatter, meaningless talk.
ILLUSTRATION: Middle ages some theologians used to argue about how many angels could stand on the point of a needle.
TURN AWAY FROM: “OPPOSING IDEAS”
“Opposing ideas” = anti-thesis. One translation “pseudo science.” This is probably close to New Age ideas where people counter with opinions and ideas that are not grounded on revealed truth, the Scripture, but on their opinions.
These “opposing ideas” were called “knowledge” or “gnosis” from where we get the word knowledge and “Gnostics” an ancient cult.
The false teachers were claiming quite naturally that their teaching was the true knowledge 9gnosis), a characteristic certainly not confined to second-century gnosticism. It is evident in all the modern cults which claim an exclusive grasp of ‘true knowledge’ (Guthrie, pg. 131).
Two major theological errors of these teachers was claiming that the resurrection was already past (II Tim. 2:18) and that the physical world was evil (I Tim. 4:3) … e.g. don’t marry, abstain from foods.
APPLICATION: We evangelicals move into this area when we start defending our dreams, visions, experiences as if the were Biblical without any Biblical basis. For example, “God told me to divorce my husband.”
The situation was so serious in Ephesus that Paul left Timothy there to straighten it out as he states clearly in I Tim. 1: 3, “…stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer….”
Guarding the Gospel meant not even entertaining false teaching but turning away from it.
Paul was concerned about people wandering away from the Gospel:
Some have wandered away from these…. (1:6). … Some have rejected these and shipwrecked their faith (1:19). Abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits (4:2) . . . Turned away to follow Satan (5:15) …. Who have been robbed of the truth (6:5) …in so doing have wandered from the faith (6:21).
QUESTION: How can we tell if a person, church, society, culture, nation has “wandered” from the Gospel?
If you are not hearing the core of the Gospel being repeated, taught, preached, sung about, communicated, the message of salvation from sin by the grace of God, then the church is slowly “wandering” from the Gospel.
IV. WE GUARD THE GOSPEL BEST WHEN WE PASS IT ON
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you (I Tim. 6:20-21)
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (II Tim. 1:14).
In II Tim. 1:12 we read, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard that which I have entrusted to him for that day.”
Now God entrusts us with the Gospel, the good deposit. So we need God, but in God’s plan He needs us.
Paul had been entrusted with the Gospel “. . . and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me …” (Titus 1:3).
The Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man (Paul) is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15).
Paul is now entrusting the Gospel / teachings to Timothy. “Timothy was to guard the treasure … not by burying it and keeping it hidden, but by entrusting it to faithful men and women, who would teach it to others, who in turn would teach it to others, and on through the centuries. Because men like Timothy “guarded the treasure” as Paul had commanded, two thousand years later we too have the true gospel, the sound doctrine that we are commanded to entrust to others.” (Life, 170).
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others (II Tim. 2:2).
This is a great, an important task, and we are not left to do it on our own. We guard and pass on the Gospel with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (II Tim. 1:14).
SO WHAT????
1. The Gospel is the core of Christian belief, the message that has saved us and the message that we bear to the world.
2. We are to “guard” the Gospel. We do this by avoid diluting it with other teachings and also by propagating it.
3. God has given us the Gospel as a sacred trust. We are to keep it safe and the only way we can truly keep it safe is by passing it on to future generations.