Lesson for September 12, 2021
The Book of I Timothy
Chapter 1:1-7
“Paul, 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 son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Just as I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, to remain on at Ephesus so that you would instruct certain people not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to useless speculation rather than advance the plan of God, which is by faith, so I urge you now. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith. Some people have strayed from these things and have turned aside to fruitless discussion,wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.”
Verses 1-2
“Paul, 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 and Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Paul’s name before salvation was Saul, which is a Hebrew name. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. The Greek word for apostle is “apostolos,” which means sent one. The gift of apostleship is the highest rank that God ever gave within the Church. An apostle had the authority to establish churches, to appoint pastors, to regulate doctrine, to judge dissension, and train pastors, until the Canon of Scripture was completely written.
The word “Christ” refers to His Messiahship, David’s descendant, the Anointed One. Jesus is the name of the humanity of Christ and means deliverer. Paul was not self-appointed. He was appointed by God as the twelfth apostle to take the place vacated by Judas. (Acts 9) Christ is a person’s only hope for salvation and a spiritual life. Hope in the Bible means full confidence.
To Timothy my true child in the faith. Timothy was the son of an unbelieving Greek man and a believing Jewish woman. (Acts 16:1-3) His mother and grandmother were believers and led Timothy to Christ at an early age. (II Timothy 1:5; II Timothy 3:14-15) He was ordained to the ministry. (I Timothy 4:14; II Timothy 4:5) He went to Philippi with Paul, Silas, and Luke. (Acts 16:12) Paul thought that he could trust him with a congregation, so he was left behind at Philippi to pastor the new Philippian church. (Philippians 2:22) Later, he was left behind at Berea with Silas. (Acts 17:14) He later joined Paul in Athens. There was no problem with these churches where the congregation was positive to doctrine. From Athens he was sent to Thessalonica. (I Thessalonians 3:2) There was no problem there because the Thessalonians were strong in accurate doctrine. He was sent to Corinth, and this is where he had problems. (I Corinthians 16:10) He failed miserably because the Corinthians were tough, hard-nosed, carnal believers and he couldn’t handle them. He shared the first imprisonment with Paul in Rome. (Philippians 1:1; 2:19; Colossians 1:1; Philemon 1) After his first imprisonment, he went with Paul to Ephesus where he remained as the pastor. At the time of this epistle Timothy was the pastor of Ephesus.
Verse 3-5
“Just as I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, to remain on at Ephesus so that you would instruct certain people not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to useless speculation rather than advance the plan of God, which is by faith, so I urge you now. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith.”
These verses refer to the pastor’s responsibility. This is not a detailed study of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. Timothy understood the principles of being a pastor-teacher. Paul is reminding Timothy of his purpose as pastor. The purpose for which Timothy remained behind was to continue teaching the believers in Ephesus. There were still believers in Ephesus who were being deceived by the satanic doctrine of false teachers, Jewish fables, and legends.
Nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to useless speculation rather than advance the plan of God, which is by faith, so I urge you now.Verse 4 is a second purpose of orienting to dispensational theology. The Old Testament Scriptures were being distorted into legalism. The Ephesian church where Timothy was the pastor was under the influence of false doctrine from false teachers. Myths refers to the false spiritual heritage of the Jews. This was not their true spiritual heritage but a false spiritual heritage; not what is found in the Old Testament but what is found in the Jewish writings. These were legends and myths which claimed that Moses had not written down all the mysteries that were revealed by God, and they claimed to have some extra information that Moses didn’t write. This is called “the Kabbala” in which certain legends and myths were accumulated, referring to angels, philosophical concepts, miracles, and myths. The Ephesians had become fascinated by these.
Endless genealogies means limitless, tiresome enumeration of detail. The genealogies in the Scripture are all important. The genealogies have a purpose. For example, from David to Christ is very important. It establishes a literal purpose, a principle in the Davidic Covenant. It is not designed to teach some symbolic truth; it is a literal genealogy. “Myths and genealogies” describe a system of false doctrine which disoriented believers and led them astray from dispensational understanding of the Scriptures. They ignored the Church Age, so myths and genealogies were used to perpetuate the Jewish Age even though a new dispensation had begun. The significance of the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Session of Christ were lost to these false teachers, called Judaizers, and they ignored the beginning of the Church Age. They went right on with the Jewish Age and were tempting believers to follow their lead.
Speculation means they were inventing stories and calling them Scripture. Jewish myths and genealogies were seeking to perpetuate the Age of Israel and by default cancel out the Church Age. This was a satanic attack upon the Church Age and the mystery doctrine. The people who fell for this heresy and apostasy had failed to orient to dispensational theology, therefore Timothy was to emphasize dispensational theology. Every pastor in accurately interpreting the Word of God must emphasize dispensational distinctions, which comes by teaching accurate Bible doctrine. All believers of this dispensation must first be oriented to the Church Age. No pastor can lead his congregation to spiritual maturity or fulfill his ministry apart from dispensational orientation.
But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from a sincere faith. Verse 5 is the objective of the ministry, the purpose for pastors. Everything revolves around doctrine. The objective of the ministry is to fulfill the objectives of Bible teaching with love. Pastors show their love for the congregation by teaching accurate Bible doctrine.
Pure heart refers to the mentality of your soul. Love is a characteristic of the soul with emphasis on what you think. Love is thinking, thinking about something or someone else. Your conscience automatically eliminates certain types of things as the objects for love. Love is a mental attitude which expresses itself in many ways, but it still is a mental attitude.
Conscience means we have norms or standards in our souls which are the basis for determining whether something is acceptable or not, good or bad, moral or immoral, true or false, what we like and what we don’t like. Good is the Greek word “agathos,” which means good of lasting value, and refers to divine good. A good conscience is one saturated with Bible doctrine forming the norms and standards of life. Obviously, there are various sets of norms and standards. Empirical standards are based upon taste, sight, smell, hearing – the sensory systems. So, the sensory system sets up its own standards. There are standards which are not covered in doctrine. If there is ever a conflict between a doctrinal norm and standard and any other norm and standard, the doctrinal norm and standard supersedes all others.
A sincere faith means faith (doctrine) without hypocrisy. These hypocritical false teachers had infiltrated these local churches with the express purpose of teaching works for salvation and for the spiritual life by keeping the Mosaic Law. This was hypocrisy because keeping the Mosaic Law was never the means of salvation or spirituality. The doctrine Paul, Timothy and the other apostles taught was not hypocritical because it was accurate and taught with sincere love for the Ephesians, not for personal gain or notoriety.
Verses 6-7
“Some people have strayed from these things and have turned aside to fruitless discussion,wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.”
Verses 6 and 7 are instructions to avoid apostasy, arrogance, and stupidity. Some men refers to pastors who had become reversionists. The Greek word for strayed is “astocheo,” which means to swerve, to deviate or to go astray. Reversionism causes pastors to swerve, to deviate, or to turn aside. They have turned aside from their responsibility to teach accurate Bible doctrine. They have strayed from a pure heart, a sincere faith, and a good conscience.
Fruitless discussion means empty talk. It is a reference to the teaching of reversionistic pastors who under the influence of evil cannot communicate accurate doctrine. They are arrogant, stupid, apostate; their teaching is ineffective. It is not accomplishing the objective for which the Holy Spirit gave them the gift of pastor-teacher. The reversionistic pastors were trying to go back into the dispensation of Israel and become a teacher of the Law of Moses. This was the big problem in the first century. They were just a few years removed from the Age of Israel and as far as they were concerned there was no new dispensation. They were still living under the Law. In other words, their stupidity was being anti-dispensational, which is still a problem today.
The Judaizers had come to Ephesus. They came teaching legalism by distorting the Mosaic Law. They emphasized the Mosaic Law as the way of salvation and as a way of spirituality. The problem of the Judaizers of Paul’s day and the great attack upon the Ephesians came because of ignorance of the doctrine of dispensations. The Church Age had begun, and the Mosaic Law was no longer to be practiced by believers in Christ.