1 Timothy 1:3-7

As we saw in the Introduction to 1 Timothy, based on what Paul says in chapter 3:14-15 and on the content of the letter itself, the main purpose of 1 Timothy is to promote the good order and functioning of the local church. Once we understand that this is Paul’s main aim in the letter, then we can see why he spends so much time dealing with the issue of leadership, both negatively as he addresses false teachers and what they are teaching, and positively as he instructs Timothy and the Ephesians very carefully as to what sort of persons they ought to be putting into positions of leadership in their congregations.

In 1 Timothy 1:3-7, after a pretty standard sort of greeting, Paul immediately launched into the subject of false teaching and false teachers. The fact that he did so without any opening words of thanksgiving or a prayer or anything like that is a departure from his usual style, and it tells us that he must have felt some sense of urgency in writing this letter. He didn’t have any time for pleasantries, but addressed the matter of false teachers right away.

He did this for several reasons. He did it because the Ephesians were departing from the truths that Paul told them to hang on to. He did it because they were driven by wrong motives. And he did it because the result of their efforts was interfering with the good order and functioning of the Ephesian church. For all these reasons and more, Paul wanted the false teachers stopped.

Right from the outset of this letter, Paul began addressing the problems in Ephesus by instructing his disciple Timothy to stop certain people from teaching “false doctrine” (NIV) or “different doctrine” (ESV). Now, in thinking about this whole matter, I want to draw our attention to Paul’s meeting with the elders of the Ephesian church during his third missionary journey. During that meeting, Paul related some things that happened earlier in Paul’s life, in the early days of the Ephesian Church Planting Project:

“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears” (Acts 20:28-31 NIV).

Isn’t that fascinating? Paul warned the Ephesians with tears, even as he was leaving them, saying that after he left “savage wolves” would come in and not spare the flock. He told them that people from among their own congregation would rise up and distort the truth in order to generate followings and create their own little empires.

And is this not precisely what has happened in the Ephesian congregation? Is this not exactly the problem that Paul addressed in his letter to Timothy? Paul anticipated these things and prophetically spoke of the day when they would happen — and in Timothy’s day there were happening.

But Paul’s preparation of his congregation for this eventuality did not simply consist of his warning the Ephesian congregation about these things as he was leaving. Long before he gave them this warning, he had set apart elders to shepherd and guard the flock. And even before then he had instructed the congregation, explaining to them the Gospel and the things of God in a systematic fashion, entrusting them with a specific set of truths, a body of doctrine or a statement of faith, if you will.

If you were to read right through the Pastoral Epistles (1&2 Timothy and Titus), you would easily see this. Nothing could be clearer than the fact that Paul had a certain set of defined beliefs that were to be accepted, taught, guarded, and passed on from one generation to the next. There was a system of doctrine that was the content of their belief, which they were not free to depart from or to modify in any way.

Paul spoke about this in a number of places. For example, in 1 Timothy 3:16 he summarized some of what he had passed on to them in this very letter regarding doctrinal statements about the Lord Jesus Christ: “He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory” (ESV). Other doctrinal statements about the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the Pastoral Epistles include:

“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” (1 Tim. 6:20 NIV).

“What you have heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you - guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (2 Tim. 1:13-14 NIV).

“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” (2 Tim. 2:2 NIV).

Do you see it? It’s like runners in a relay race who must pass on the baton — a certain baton and no other baton will do. There were certain beliefs and particular truths that Paul wanted to be taught and believed and guarded and passed along. And this is where the false teachers had gotten into trouble. Instead of sticking to what Paul had taught, they had wandered off into strange and speculative sorts of teachings, teaching centered upon things that Paul called “myths” and based upon what Paul referred to as “genealogies.”

Now, the fact that Paul described these false teachers as having “wandered away” seems to indicate that they were once in step with the Ephesian congregation, perhaps even in its leadership. Whatever the case, they were people who were known in the congregation and who were once on track, but who were no longer orthodox. They had strayed into some strange theology, adopting some weird ideas that were completely foreign to what Paul taught, all the while talking very confidently of things about which they were abysmally ignorant, as Paul indicated in verse 7: “They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm” (NIV). Such were the false teachers at Ephesus. And Paul essentially said to Timothy, “Command these men not to teach false doctrines any longer.” So much for religious tolerance!

Now, what were some of these “false doctrines” or “different doctrines” that these unhelpful teachers were promoting among the Ephesians? What did Paul mean by “myths” and “genealogies”? Well, from the very beginning it needs to be acknowledged that there is no consensus on what these words mean amongst Bible scholars. Paul simply did not provide us with enough information to be absolutely certain, but he did leave us some clues.

For instance, in Titus 1:10-14, Paul gave a similar warning about false teachers and also brought up the subject of myths, but he qualified it a bit more:

“Rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth” (Tit. 1:13-14 NIV).

In Titus, Paul talked about “Jewish” myths, so it is at least possible that he was talking about the same sort of thing in 1 Timothy. This possibility seems more likely in light of the fact that in the Timothy passage, right after talking about myths and genealogies, he wrote in verse 8 about how the law is good “if one uses it properly,” implying that perhaps there are those around who do not use it properly.

Further, when we look outside the Bible at other sources that talk about the practices of Jewish peoples in various eras, we find that there was a common practice among some of the Jews in that day with regard to how they would use the Scriptures of the Old Testament. In short, there had developed over the years this practice of building great and fanciful interpretations out of very little textual information. This even included the use of genealogies: A name was extracted from a long list of names, and from that barest of starting points some Jewish interpreters would engage in a very imaginative reconstruction of events and ideas related to that name, with no further texts or information to support their reconstructions. In other words, instead of trying to derive meaning from the text they were pouring meaning into the text, much more meaning than was actually there. Obviously, this approach to interpreting Scripture is open to all sorts of abuse.

So, it is likely that this, or something close to it, is what Paul was referring to in verse 4 when he talked about the false teachers who devoted themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These were probably people who had adopted some unsound Jewish interpretive practices which were leading them away from the sound doctrine they had received from Paul.

Now, the problem with the false teachers was not only that they had departed from Paul’s teaching, but also that their motives were wrong. And one way of seeing this is to look at what their motives and goals should have been. And we can best see that by seeing what Paul’s motives were. In verse 5 Paul wrote, “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (NIV).

Here Paul summarized his own motivation for what he said and did in ministry, including the motivation for trying to get Timothy to stop the false teachers. The reason for this command, and indeed every other command, was love. Love was the ultimate goal toward which Paul was working, the one thing that he wanted to see manifested in both Timothy and the Ephesian believers. And not just any kind of love, but love that comes from hearts that are pure, and consciences that are good, not from consciences that have been “seared” by false teaching (cf. 4:2). This was love that springs from sincere, genuine faith.

This is why Paul was so adamant that the false teachers be stopped. Paul knew that false teaching does not produce pure hearts and good consciences and sincere faith. Rather, it produces speculation and doubt and controversy and quarreling and fighting and division and faithlessness. False teaching does not produce the soil from which love naturally springs.

And so, love was not the false teachers’ motivation. Their motivation was something else, part of which we see in the verses before us and another part of which does not surface until chapter 6. In verse 7 we see that while Paul’s aim was to see love manifested in the life of the people, the aim of the false teachers was to be teachers of the law, probably driven by pride or a desire for status and power, or even by both. One thing we can say for certain, their goal was not to see pure hearts and good consciences and sincere faith develop in those they taught. We know this because Paul said so in verse 6 when he commented that these teachers had “wandered away” from these things, meaning that they had wandered away from seeking pure hearts and good consciences and sincere faith. Their goals were more self-centered. They were interested in becoming teachers and in gaining a following.

Why were they interested in gaining a following? Well, there may be a whole host of unhealthy reasons for that. Perhaps it was vanity, or a lust for power or control, or greed. This last reason, as well as some of the others just mentioned, certainly seems to be the motivation that Paul highlights later on in the letter:

“If anyone does teach 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” (1 Tim. 6:3-5 NIV).

The false teachers, with all sorts of wrong motivations, had departed from Paul’s teaching, and in so doing were corrupting hearts and searing consciences and working against the faith. And the fruit of their labor was not love but controversies and meaningless, pointless discussions and bickering and fighting. It’s not hard to understand why Paul was so eager for Timothy to put a stop to their nonsense.

Let me draw our attention to a few fairly straightforward implications that Paul’s words to Timothy hold for us today:

First, and this is no great surprise, but it needs to be said frequently: False teaching is alive and well today. The very same things that were being done in Paul’s day within the Ephesian congregation are happening today in congregations all over the place.

For one thing, people continue to teach false ideas that are opposed to sound doctrine. For instance, there the “open theism” is raging in some evangelical circles over the issue of whether or not God knows the future. At the end of the day, it’s a view that sees the sovereignty of the human will as the most important thing in the universe, the thing for which everything else must be sacrificed, including the person of God. Now, it’s absolutely incorrect, and it clearly contradicts Scripture in innumerable ways, but it really is out there and people really are being taken in by it. And the fruit of that sort of thing, let me assure you, will not be love from a pure heart and a sincere faith.

For another thing, just as people in Paul’s day ignored or opposed his teaching, so too do false teachers today continue to dismiss or else flatly oppose Paul. This will become more evident in chapter 2, but it bears being said here.

As another example, just as people in Paul’s day were engaging in questionable interpretive practices which led them to rely on strange teachings that were more myth than fact, so too do false teachers today engage in the same sort of questionable behaviors. Many examples could be offered, but one that pops readily to mind is the whole “Bible Code” thing that came out a few years back. This was supposedly some elaborate mathematical schema which revealed secret hidden messages in the Bible, provided you arranged the words and letters in certain ways and made a whole truck load of assumptions and allowed for a large number of exceptions and qualifications along the way. I mean, the stuff is breathtakingly ridiculous, but it was being taught — and believed — all over the place.

But perhaps the most important thing to say about false teaching in our own day is that it still has the same effect as it did in Paul’s: It leads to meaningless talk, pointless discussions, controversies and fighting. And what happens when people are busy bickering about somebody’s crazy, unfounded speculations about God? What happens is that controversy takes center stage and the work of the gospel is ignored.

Now, don’t mishear me. I’m not saying that there is no place for theological discussion and debate. There is, as long as it is within the “playing field” of the sound doctrine that Paul is talking about, as long as it is driven by real exegesis, and not by myths and legends and people abusing the Scriptures and treating it like an empty canister into which any and every meaning can be poured.

Again, false teaching is alive and well. But so too is the antidote for false teaching. The antidote is what we see in verse 3: Timothy was commissioned to tell the false teachers not to teach false doctrines or, as the ESV puts it, “different doctrines.” Different from what? Different from what Paul taught. The antidote to false teaching is faithful teaching, and the key word there is “faithful” — teaching that is concerned to know and understand from the Bible this “good deposit” of sound doctrine that Paul wanted to be guarded and passed along.

And this leads to the second implication: Faithfulness to God means being concerned about doctrine. And not just any doctrine, but the doctrine about God that Paul passed along and from which he warned his congregations not to depart. You can’t have faithfulness to God apart from a concern for right doctrine. Now, saying those sorts of things is not trendy, and goes right against the grain of Popular Evangelicalism, which is a kind of “Christianity Lite.” But the implications of Paul’s words here are inescapable. People who downplay the importance of doctrine, or who want to say that their faithfulness is past that or beyond that, or who are not concerned with theology — people who say those thing have no idea what they are talking about.

It might sound very pious and spiritual and holy to say things like, “I don’t get all worked up about doctrine” or “I don’t need doctrine, I just need Jesus,” but it isn’t. If you had said that sort of thing to the Apostle Paul, he would have put you over his spiritual knee and given you a verbal spanking. He would have said, “What are you talking about? There is no such thing as a non-doctrinal Gospel or a non-doctrinal Jesus.” Faithfulness to God requires you to be concerned about right doctrine.

Finally, the goal of all these things, the aim for which we should be striving as Paul was striving, is love. To be sure, doctrine is important, but it is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. It is the thing which nurtures and cultivates the pure heart and the good conscience and the sincere faith which become the fertile soil from which the kind of love that Paul is seeking to see manifested will surely and truly grow. This kind of love pursues God with fullness of heart and mind. It is the love that loves one’s neighbor as oneself. It is the love that fulfills the law. It is the love that covers a multitude of sins. It is the love that shows that we are his. It is the love that exists because He first loved us.