TRUTH, FALSE TEACHERS, STRIFE AND CONVETOUSNESS
(I Tim. 6:3-5)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-6:5
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?
If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain (I Tim. 6:3-5).
INTRODUCTION:
1. You could see verses 3-5 as a continuation of instructions to various groups in the church: Widows, Elders, Slaves and now False Teachers.
2. But it is better to see in the remainder of this letter 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)
e. To Timothy (20-21)
3. We will talk about “false teachers” but at the end will try to answer a very pertinent question: Why do some “Christians” become false teachers?”
4. John Stott breaks down I Tim. 6:3-5 as follows, False Teachers:
a. Deviate from the Faith – Sacrifice Truth
b. Split the Church – Destroy Unity
c. Love Money – Motivated by Covetousness
I. FALSE TEACHERS DEVIATE FROM THE FAITH –SACRIFICE TRUTH.
If anyone teaches false doctrines….
A. False Teachers in the Ephesian Church.
The Ephesian false teachers are the reason for everything – for Timothy’s presence in Ephesus, for the writing of this letter, for the “falling away” by some in the church. They involved women and especially single women in spreading their extra-Biblical concepts through-out the Ephesian house churches.
What were they teaching? Myths and endless genealogies, Old Testament law-keeping (1:3-7), forbidding people to marry, demanding people abstain from certain foods, that God’s creation was not good (4:1-5), the resurrection is already past (II Tim. 2:17) etc, and it all amounted to blasphemy.
“… 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).
B. False teaching in the Christian Church today.
“False teaching may take many forms. It may deny God’s existence, or teach error about His nature and attributes. It may deny the Trinity. Error about Christ’s Person and work is also common in false systems. Thos who deny His virgin birth, sinless perfection, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection or future return show signs of a dangerous infection. False teachers also teach error about the nature, person, and works of the Holy Spirit. Yet another strain of the disease of false teaching denies the authenticity, inspiration, authority, or inerrancy of Scripture. That strain is particularly virulent in the church today.” (MacArthur, 239).
Some False Doctrines taught today:
1) The Wealth Gospel
Most Christians have heard some of the following: “You can have what you say,” “The reason you haven’t been healed is that you don’t have enough faith,” “We can write our own ticket with God if we decide what we want, believe that it’s ours, and confess it,” “He wants you rich and healthy,” “What is the desire of your heart? Name it, claim it by faith, and it is yours! Your heavenly Father has promised it. It’s right there in the Bible.” (The Watchman Expositor)
2) God intends everyone to be healed
“I am fully convinced – I would die saying it is so – that it is the plan of Our Father God, in His great love and in His great mercy, that no believer should ever be sick; that every believer should live his full life span down here on this earth; and that every believer should finally just fall asleep in Jesus” (Kenneth E. Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know about Divine Healing, p. 21).
3) God doesn’t know what decisions we will make in the future.
4) Homosexuality / deviant behavior is not sin.
JESUS warned his followers about false teachers: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits” (Mt. 7:15-16 NKJV).
C. We Possess “the Truth.”
…does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, … men … who have been robbed of the truth …
QUESTION: What do we mean when we say, “We have the truth”? What is the meaning of truth?
Cremer: Truth is the reality lying at the basis of an appearance; the manifested, veritable essence of a matter.
For the Christian “the truth” is the standard of Christian belief which is referred to in I Timothy 6 as ‘teaching’ (1,3b), ‘sound instruction’ (3), ‘the truth’ (5), ‘the faith’ (10,12,21), the ‘command’ (14) and ‘what has been entrusted’ (20)
“… the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ …” could be referring to the Gospel of Luke if it had been written by this time or to the circulated saying of Jesus (I Tim 5:18, Acts 20:35) or to the words of the Apostles that had been received from Jesus.
“sound instruction” here is a medical metaphor used also in 1:10 when Paul referred to “sound doctrine.”
“sound” is hugiaino in Greek and is the word we get hygiene from. It means sound, well, in good health. When Jesus healed the man in Luke 6:10 Luke writes that he stretched out his hand and it was whole (sound).
D. QUESTION: According to the Scriptures, what are Christians to do with the Truth.
We are to know the truth (John. 8:32), believe the truth (II Thes. 2:12-13), love the truth (II Thes. 2:10), rejoice in the truth (I Cor. 13:6), walk in the truth (II John 1:4), obey the truth (Romans 2:8, Gal. 3:1), speak the truth (Eph. 4:15,25) and witness unto the truth (John 5:33, 18:37).
In our text “agree” means to “attach” ourselves to the truth.
We are to “guard what has been entrusted” to us (I Tim. 6:20; II Tim. 1:14)
E. The Basic Truth a Christian Must Adhere to.
The Bible is loaded with concepts and ideas and doctrines. Christians in all ages have disagreed on some of these truths and still were children of God.
QUESTION: What would we say is the basic / minimal truth a Christian needs to believe and hold to in order to be considered a Christian?
Definition of an Evangelical (According to David Bebbington, British historian):
1. Conversion, or ‘belief that lives need to be changed.’
2. The Bible, or the ‘belief that all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages.”
3. Activism, or the dedication of all believers, including lay people, to lives of service for God, especially as manifested in evangelism (spreading the good news) and mission (taking the gospel to other societies).
4. Crucicentrism, or the conviction that Christ’s death was the crucial matter in providing atonement for sin (i.e., providing reconciliation between a holy God and sinful humans).
(The Rise of Evangelicalism, Mark Noll, Pg. 19)
Cennick, John, 1718-55: John Cennick, born at Reading, Berkshire, England, December 12, 1718, the son of a Quacker, was first a preacher under Wesley, then under Whitefield. In 1745 he joined the Moravian Brethren, and died in London, July 4, 1755. His hymns are found in his Sacred Hymns for the Children of God in the Days of Their Pilgrimage (1741-42), in Sacred Hymns for the Use of Religious Societies (1743-45), and in Hymns for Children (1754). Some of his unpublished hymns were included in the collections of the Moravian Brethren
II. FALSE TEACHERS SPLIT THE CHURCH – DESTROY UNITY
…he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction …
Free Translation: This false teacher is puffed up and blinded with pride, a real ignoramus. He has a sickly and morbid appetite for word wars about the law, genealogies etc. These word wars result in envy, quarreling, abusive language and evil insinuations that produce constant friction and turmoil in the church fellowship.
John Stott says Paul refers to the false teacher as a conceited idiot and a pompous ignoramus. John MacArthur says that they are full of hot air.
QUESTION: Why such a strong indictment, such strong language? They were setting up their teaching as superior to the Word of God and the sayings and teachings of Jesus.
They had an “unhealthy interest,” a morbid or sickly interest in controversies …. Over against the “sound” (healthy, wholesome) instruction referred to earlier.
John MacArthur says some Christian teachers show an unhealthy interest in specious theorizing … e.g. debating forever about whether or not the seven days of creation were 24 hour days or whether Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the so called JEDP theory.
All of this specious teaching in the Ephesian church led to word battles which caused strife and constant friction.
James 3:17 says that the wisdom from above, heavenly wisdom, is peace loving, considerate, full of mercy etc. But in our text we have the following words describing the emotional state of the Ephesian churches: controversies, quarrels, envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, constant friction.
III. FALSE TEACHERS LOVE MONEY – ARE MOTIVATED BY COVETOUSNESS
… and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
A. Teaching for Money in the Ancient World
There were men called sophists (wise men), who made it their business, so to speak, to sell philosophy. They had two lines. They claimed for a fee to be able to teach men to argue cleverly; they were the men who with their smooth tongues and their adroit minds were skilled in “making the worse appear the better reason.” They had turned philosophy into a way of becoming rich. Their other line was to give demonstrations of public speaking. The Greek had always been fascinated by the spoken word; he loved an orator; and these wandering sophists went from town to town, given their oratorical demonstrations. They went in for advertising on an intensive scale and even went the length of delivering by hand personal invitations to their displays. The most famous of them drew people literally by the thousand to their lectures; they were in their day the equivalent of the modern pop start. Philostratus tells us that Adrian, one of the most famous of them, had such a popular power that, when his messenger appeared with that news that he was to speak, even the senate and the circus emptied, and the whole population flocked to the Athenaeum to hear him. …. These performing sophists were the pets of society. They became senators, governors, ambassadors. When they died monuments were erected to them with, with inscriptions to them such as, “The Queen of Cities to the King of Eloquence.”
These kind of men invaded the church …. For here to was a source of income. They saw a means of financial gain in teaching in the church. To them godliness (religion) in this sense was a money making business, a business that would yield dividends. (Barclay, Pg. 124)
C. Paul Avoided Charges of Living Off the Gospel.
Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you” (I Thes. 2:9)
I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions” (Acts 20:33-34).
Paul is not against Christian workers being paid for their labors. In I Tim. 5:17 he wrote that elders are worthy of double-honor. But the flip side is that an elder is not to be a lover of money (I Timothy 3:3).
C. Jesus was Very Plain About the Role of Money
18Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful (Mark 4:18-19).
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)
58Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)
B. The Church and the Religious Hucksterism
The church fell into this trap of religion as a business too, for it was after Simon Magus, who tried to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we have the word “Simony” which refers to the sale and purchase of spiritual privilege and church office.
John Stott writes, “The church was discredited during the Middle Ages on account of the disgraceful sale of indulgences; religious cults still charge exorbitant fees for personal tuition in their particular tenets; some evangelists appeal for ‘love offerings’ which are never publicly audited; and some television preachers promise their viewers personal prosperity on condition that they send in enough ‘seed money.’ (John Stott, pg. 148)
Paul and Peter warn Christians to watch out for those Christian workers who are greedy for money (Rom. 16:17-18; I Peter 5:2).
17I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people (Romans 16:17-18).
2Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve (I Peter 5:2).
ILLUSTRATION: Robert Tilton testimony from Searching For God Knows What, Donald Miller, pg 26.
IV. ONE KEY REASON WHY SOME “CHRISTIANS” BECOME FALSE TEACHERS
No doubt “conceit,” and “unhealthy interest” in theological side issues and an “eagerness for money” play a role. But how does an evangelical clip into a conceited attitude, an unhealthy interest in side issues and an eagerness to make financial gain off the Gospel? How can an evangelical be “robbed of the truth?”
Other verses in the letters to Timothy say that they have “gone astray from the truth” (II Tim. 2:18), “turn their ears away from the truth” (II Tim. 4:4), “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth” (II Tim. 4:7).
ILLUSTRATION: – READ: John MacArthur’s testimony about his three friends, high school, college and seminary, that abandoned the faith. (Hard to Believe, John MacArthur, pg. 100)
A. God Desires a Relationship with People.
QUESTION: What is the most important verse in the Bible?
37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment (Mt. 22:37-38).
QUESTION: What does The Most Important Commandment say about mankind?
Man has the ability to love, man has a heart, soul and mind, man can love God, man has a will.
QUESTION: What does The Most Important Commandment say about God?
God exists, God wants to be loved, God has emotions and can appreciate being loved, God knows that forced love is not love at all.
QUESTION: What is the focus of The Most Important Commandment?
Morality / ethics – We need to learn to love?
Theology – God is and must be the center of our lives?
Philosophy – Love’s the organizing principle of Christianity?
Anthropology – Man is capable of loving?
Relational – God wants a loving relationship with us.
We can have a living relationship with God because God has emotions, He is always present, He is a good listener, He is omniscient and thus really understands us, He has a passionate love for us.
QUESTION: In one word, what is absolutely essential in an enduring relationship with another person?
Love ……… Trust? You could trust someone but what if he didn’t love you?
QUESTION: What metaphors in the Bible are used by God to explain the fact that He wants a relationship with us?
We are God’s children, He is our father, mother. We are the bride, He the bridegroom. We are his family, household, brother, sister, mother. We are His sheep, He our Shepherd.
The closest relationships on earth are the family relationship and the most repeated metaphor is Father/Children and Bridegroom/Bride.
And then I’ll marry you for good–forever! I’ll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness (Hosea 2:19).
For your Maker is your bridegroom, his name, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies! Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel, known as God of the whole earth (Isaiah 54:5).
“Come back, wandering children!” GOD’s Decree: “I, yes I, am your true husband. I’ll pick you out one by one– This one from the city, these two from the country– and bring you to Zion (Jeremiah 3:14).
God delights in His Bride, His children, His family:
4No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight), and your land Beulah (Married), because GOD delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration. 5For as a young man marries his virgin bride, so your builder marries you, And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride, so your God is happy with you (Isa. 62:4-5 – The Message).
I’ll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish (Isa. 62:19 – The Message).
17Your GOD is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs (Zeph. 3:17 – The Message).
Israel, out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them!” GOD told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!” (Jeremiah 3:2-3 – The Message).
B. When We Focus on Cultivating the Relationship We Don’t Fall Away from the Truth.
ILLUSTRATION: “I have a friend who overheard his wife on the phone with another man. She did not know he was in the house, and he walked up behind her, leaned against the frame of the door to hear her confess her love and enjoyment of the other man’s touch. My friend drove around Baltimore in a daze; he went into coffee shops and sat with his head in his hands. He went to a bus station and bought a ticket to Pittsburgh but he missed his bus, sick from smoking a pack of cigarettes. Instead, he spent an hour in the bathroom vomiting yellow muck into a filthy toilet. Our systematic theology reduces the fall of man [in the Garden of Eden] to a technical act of betrayal. We hardly think of it as relational at all. But I think this view distorts what actually happened. I think God must have felt like my friend in Baltimore. I think it was something terribly painful for God to endure. I don’t think we can understand the pain a pure love would feel after being betrayed by the focus of its love. (Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller, Pg. 84).
The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain (Gen. 6:5-6).
“it broke his heart” (The Message); “grieved Him at His heart” (KJV).
C. So What Does a Person Do to Let Himself to be Robbed of the Truth?
He moves away from focusing on his relationship with God and instead lets other things become pre-eminent in his thinking.
ILLUSTRATION – READ: “To be a member of a discussion circle or a Bible Study group and spend enjoyable hours in talk about doctrines does not necessarily make a Christian … Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place whereon we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the Burning Bush from suitable angles: we are chatting about theories of the Atonement with our feet on the mantelpiece, instead of kneeling down before the wounds of Christ” (Barclay, pg. 127).
Truth is of vital importance because it undergirds the relationship … but our primary focus must always be on the relationship.
The Christian life is on ongoing drama / story of our relationship with God.
When the relationship is pushed down the ladder of importance in our lives we are setting ourselves up for spiritual disaster which can mean falling into sin, being robbed of the truth, wandering away from God!
SO WHAT????
1. Am I an evangelical?
2. What about money? Have we ever seen Christian work as a means of financial gain? Have we avoided supporting Christian workers who see Christian work as a means of financial gain?
3. As a Christian is our primary, daily focus on cultivating our relationship with God, our Father, Creator, Savior?