I TIMOTHY 1:3-4a

1. INTRODUCTION

“As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, 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” (I Tim. 1:3-4a).

We prefer the positive – so teaching about “false teaching” is not too appealing. Yet so much of the effort of the New Testament is geared to helping us master our belief system and keep it in tact. Due to our humanness, our fallen state, the impact of the world and the flesh and the devil, it is so easy for us to go astray. Knowing what we believe and letting our belief system impact our lives is a great part of “being a Christian.”

QUOTE / TRANSPAR [Unknown A1] ENCY: “… religious syncretism was in the air in the Hellenistic world, and many Hellenistic Jews appear to have been involved in such speculations (genealogies). When Gentiles were converted, they, too, brought to the faith a lot of foreign baggage, both philosophical and religious, that to them seemed easy enough to absorb within their new faith in Christ” (Fee, pg 9).

It will be clear from any careful reading that a concern for the gospel is the driving force behind the Pastoral Epistles. Preserving and reaffirming “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (1:11) against errors absolutely dominates I Timothy, is still a vital concern in Titus, and returns in 2 Timothy as the crux of everything. (Fee, 15)

2. SOURCE OF FALSE TEACHING

“…. some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (I Tim. 4:1).

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden ‘?” (Gen 3:1)

Jesus said: “ … the devil … he is a liar and the father of lies…” (John 8:44,45).

“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur …” (Rev. 20:10).

3. OVERVIEW OF FALSE TEACHING FACING EPHESIAN CHURCH

I Timothy 1:4 – myths; I Timothy 4:7 – godless myths; Titus 1:14 – Jewish myths.

I Tim 1:4 & Titus 3:9 – endless genealogies.

I Tim. 4:1 – Things taught by demons (don’t marry, abstain from certain foods).

I Tim. 4:7 – Old wives tales

I Tim. 6:20 – knowledge, falsely so called

II Tim. 2:18 – Resurrection is past

OVERALL: Myths, “false” knowledge, deny resurrection

Mythical histories – some Jewish teachers developed mythical histories based on genealogies about people’s origins, trying to trace and speculate about ancestry all the way back to Adam and Even. Philo, the great Jewish Hellenist philosopher from Alexandria in Egypt, wrote in this vein.

“The ancient world had a passion for genealogies. We can see that even in the Old Testament with its chapters and names and in the New Testament with the genealogies of Jesus with which Matthew and Luke begin their Gospels. A man like Alexander the Great had a completely artificial pedigree constructed in which he traced his lineage back on the one side to Achilles and Andromache and on the other to Perseus and Hercules.” (Barclay on I Timothy, pg. 26).

Incipient Gnosticism – God is good, matter is evil. Therefore God could not have created the world. God put out emanation after emanation until one emanation was so far removed from God that it could create the world. … Gnostics provided each emanation with a complete bio. Thus they built an elaborate mythology of gods and emanations, each with his story and his biography and his genealogy.

1. IMPACT OF FALSE TEACHING ON EPHESIAN CHURCH

I Tim. 1:19; II Tim 2:17 – Faith is destroyed, shipwrecked.

I Tim. 4:1, 5:15 – Follow deceiving spirits, Satan

I Tim. 3:4; I Tim 6:3-4 – Involved in quarrels and controversies.

I Tim. 1:4-5 – Distraction from God’s work and First Commandment.

2. FALSE TEACHING AND THE CHURCH TODAY

a. Modern philosophies that impact the way we interpret Christian values

Existentialism: One must choose one’s own way without a moral standard of right and wrong. No objective moral standard can be found for moral decisions. “I must find truth that is true for me… the idea for which I can live or die. (Soren Kierkegaard, 19^th century Danish philosopher).

Nihilism: The belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.

Modern Humanism: Also called Naturalistic Humanism, Scientific Humanism, Ethical Humanism and Democratic Humanism is defined by one of its leading proponents, Corliss Lamont, as “a naturalistic philosophy that rejects all supernaturalism and relies primarily upon reason and science, democracy and human compassion.”

Hedonism: The view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness. Life’s goal is to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In fact all of our actions should have that aim. This philosophy was taught by Epicurus (342-270bc).

Post-Modernism: “…the post-modern mind … declares that there is no such thing as objective or universal truth; that all so-called “truth’ is purely subjective, being culturally conditioned (Truth does not correspond to reality, it is simply one’s subjective preference.); and that therefore we all have our own truth which has as much right to respect as anybody else’s. Pluralism is an offspring of postmodernism; it affirms the independent validity of every faith and ideology, and demands in shrill tones that we abandon as impossibly arrogant any attempt to convert somebody to our opinion” (John Stott, The Message of First Timothy and Titus, Pg. 10).

b. Modern philosophies impact our “so called” Christian society.

“A recent Washington Post Magazine feature recounted the tale of Gauvin Hughes McCullough and his deaf parents: Sharon Ducheseneau, his birth mother, and Candace McCullough, his adoptive mother. The article ignited a controversy, no so much because Gauvin has two mommies – sadly, that’s hardly news anymore – but because Duchesneau and McCullough went out of their way to see that their child had what most people would consider a serious disability. The pair recruited a deaf friend as a sperm donor in the hope their son would be born deaf. Several months after Gauvin’s birth, an audiologist confirmed the “good “ news: The baby was indeed deaf. The mothers were elated. (Charles Colson, Christianity Today, Oct. 7, 2002, pg. 156.)

QUESTION: WHAT MODERN DAY CONCEPT / PHILOSOPHY GUIDED THEIR DECISION TO BIRTH A DEAF CHILD?

c. Case study of modern day philosophies impacting Christian belief.

“If because of the Sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word, (Isa. 58:13).

120 years ago in Scotland the Christians held protests throughout Scotland when the government decided to run the trains on Sundays. This was a major concern, and certain segments of the evangelical Christian public were deeply concerned. Around that time Eric Linder, a Scottish Christian, refused to run in the Olympic Games on Sunday because to him Sunday was a day of worship and rest (Chariots of Fire). Today no evangelical Christian has a problem using public conveyance on Sunday or attending professional sporting events on Sunday. Four years ago I set in a Sunday School class when the teacher set this problem before us: His son wanted to play ice hockey. The practices were on Sunday morning. He therefore was wrestling with the fact of whether or not he should let his son play ice hockey on Sunday morning and miss going to church and worship services

QUESTION: FORGETTING THE MATTER OF “LEGALISM,” WHAT MODERN DAY PHILOSOPHY HAS BROUGHT US TO SUCH A CHANGE IN OUR TREATMENT OF THE LORD’S DAY?

6. SO WHAT?

We believe in objective truth, right and wrong. We don’t discover truth for ourselves, truth that fits our preference, that works for me, but believe “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (II Tim. 3:16-17.

We are convinced that every person who “…who hears these words of mine [of Jesus] and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Mt. 7:24).

Our responsibility is to know these commands (objective truth), preserve, communicate and obey them.

QUOTE / TRANSPAR [Unknown A2] ENCY: “History is little more than the rise and fall of great ideas — the worldviews — that form our values and move us to act. …. The real war is a cosmic struggle of worldviews — between the Christian worldview and the various secular and spiritual worldviews arrayed against it” (17) …the drama of history is played out along the frontiers of great belief systems.