Bible Talks - Family Church (9:45am)
Series: 1 Timothy
Local Leadership
Sunday, 10 October 2004
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Chapter 3 of 1 Timothy ends with the Apostle Paul referring to the church as 'the pillar and foundation of the truth'. In contrast with this Chapter 4 opens with a reference to the false teachers and their lies (1‑2). Paul warns Timothy that the false teachers are denying what the church confesses. Throughout this chapter Paul is preoccupied with these two sets of teachers in opposition to one another. On the one hand, some people are abandoning the faith and embracing falsehood. On the other, some are questioning the truth Timothy is teaching, on account of his comparative youthfulness. So the two topics which Paul develops are:
· first, how false teaching may be detected and exposed, in spite of its plausibility (1‑10); and
· second, how true teaching may be commended and endorsed, in spite of Timothy's youth (4:11 ‑5:2).
Both topics seem to come appropriately under the heading of 'Local leadership', because the local church is the main arena in which the unremitting struggle between truth and error is fought out. So local leaders need help both in detecting error and in commending truth. We may not like theological debate but, especially as in our increasingly post-modern world people summarily dismiss the very concept of objective truth, it cannot be avoided.
1. The detection of false teaching (4:1‑10)
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2SUch teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 'They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 'because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. `If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. `Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 'For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 'This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance "(and for this we labour and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of those who believe.
The key statement of verses 1-10 is that, in spite of the church's role as the guardian of the truth, some will abandon the faith. This Christian apostasy will take place “in later times”. But Paul quickly slips from the future tense into the present , indicating his belief that the 'later times' have already begun. It is the same in 2 Timothy 3, where he writes of 'the last days' and almost immediately says that they have arrived by telling Timothy to avoid the people he has been describing. So 'later times' and 'the last days' both denote the Christian era, which Jesus inaugurated at his first coming and will consummate at his second. In other words we are in these later times or last days now.
Paul then outlines the causes of error, how it arises and spreads in the church, and secondly its tests (3‑10), the criteria by which it may be detected and found wanting.
On the surface the situation is quite straightforward. Certain teachers begin to spread their erroneous views, and some gullible people listen to them, are taken in by them, and in consequence abandon the apostolic faith. But Paul looks beneath this surface appearance, and explains to Timothy the underlying spiritual dynamic.
The first cause of error is diabolical. Those who abandon the faith do so because they have been following deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. We tend not to take this fact sufficiently seriously. Scripture portrays the devil not only as the tempter, enticing people into sin, but also as the deceiver, seducing people into error. Perhaps this is why otherwise intelligent and educated people can swallow the fantastic specula?tions of the pseudo-Christian cults like Scientism and New Age paganism, or some of the far‑fetched doctrines of the ethnic religions, and the barrenness of atheistic philosophies?
Secondly, error has a human cause. The devil does not usually deceive people direct. 'Demon‑inspired doctrines' gain an entry into the world and the church through human agents. Such teachings says Paul come through hypocritical liars. The false teachers, although seduced by deceiving spirits, are themselves intentional deceivers, however misleading their mask of learning and religion may be. They do not themselves believe what they are teaching.
The third and basic cause of error is moral. For the hypocritical lies of the false teachers are now traced back to the violation of their consciences, which have been seared as with a hot iron. 'By constantly arguing with conscience, stifling its warnings and muffling its bell',' its voice is smothered and eventually silenced. In that state of moral insensibility' false teachers easily fall prey to error. Paul has already mentioned Hymenaeus and Alexander as examples who by rejecting their conscience they 'shipwrecked their faith'
So the grim sequence of events in the career of the false teachers is revealed. First, they turned a deaf ear to their conscience, until it became cauterized. Next, they felt no scruple in becoming hypocritical liars. Thirdly, they exposed themselves to the influence of deceiving spirits and finally, they led their listeners to abandon the faith. The descent into error begins when we tamper with our consciences. Instead, we need to say with Paul: 'I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." (Acts 24:16)
b. The tests of error (4:3‑10)
Let’s look at what the false teaching they were propagating. Paul puts into Timothy's, and our, hands two important criteria which may be applied to all teaching. It is clear that the false teaching in Ephesus consisted of a false asceticism: They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods (3a).
Marriage and food relate to the two most basic appetites of the human body, sex and hunger. They are natural appetites too, although both can be abused by the degenerating into lust and greed. Yet from the beginning of church history some teachers have gone further, and have argued that sex and hunger are themselves unclean appetites, that the body itself is a nasty encumbrance (if not actually evil), and that the only way to holiness is abstinence, the voluntary renunciation of sex and marriage, and, since eating cannot be given up altogether, then at least the renunciation of meat or any rich food.
One origin of these tendencies was Jewish. The Essenes of Qumran. for example, were said by the historian Josephus to 'reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem continence ... to be virtue', and to 'neglect marriage'." Later this Jewish aberration came to be mingled with the dualism of Greek philosophy, especially with incipient Gnosti?cism which regarded matter as evil and despised the material creation. Some of the early church fathers, like Tertullian, were themselves tainted with an exaggerated asceti?cism, and regarded virginity as always higher and holier than marriage. In rejecting this, we do not forget that according to Jesus and Paul some people are called to remain single, or that fasting has a place in Christian discipleship, but these are special cases. The point is that celibacy and vegetarianism are not God's general will for everybody; to forbid marriage and meat‑eating is to be guilty of serious error.
Paul now supplies two widely applicable fundamental tests for false teaching; the first is a theological test, the doctrine of creation (3‑5), the second is an ethical test, the priority of godliness (6‑10).
Marriage and certain foods, which the false teachers were forbidding, are gifts which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. The principle is plain. How can anybody despise marriage, let alone forbid it, when God instituted it? How can anybody command abstention from certain foods, when God created them to be received with thanksgiving?
Notice carefully, however, that what Paul writes is not that “everything is good”, but that “everything created by God is good”. Not everything that exists has come unsullied from the Creator's hand. Creation was followed by the fall, which introduced evil into the world and spoiled much of God's good creation. Indeed the creation has been ,subjected to frustration' and is now 'groaning' in pain.` There is a tendency to celebrate aspects of sinful behaviour claiming that this is how God has made us rather than seeing them as sinful aberrations from the way God made us.
And there is a lingering evangelical asceticism. World‑denying Gnosticism has not yet been altogether eradicated from our theology and practice. We pride ourselves on our super‑spirituality, detached from the natural order, and we look forward to an ethereal heaven, forgetting the promise of a new earth. We tend to have a better doctrine of redemption than of creation, and so are more grateful for the blessings of grace than of nature.
Perhaps G. K. Chesterton is quoted in his biography as saying:
You say grace before meals. All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
We need to recognize and acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate, all the gifts of the Creator: the glory of the heavens and of the earth, of mountain, river and sea, of forest and flowers, of birds, beasts and butterflies, and of the intricate balance of the natural environment; the unique privileges of our humanness as we were created in God's image and appointed his stewards; the joys of gender, marriage, sex, children, parenthood and family life, and of our extended family and friends; the rhythm of work and rest, of daily work as a means to cooperate with God and serve the common good, and of the Lord's day when we exchange work for worship; the blessings of peace, freedom, justice and good government, and of food and drink, clothing and shelter; and our human creativity expressed in music, literature, painting, sculpture and drama, and in the skills and strengths displayed in sport. To reject these things is to abandon the faith, since it insults the Creator. To receive them thankfully and celebrate them joyfully is to glorify God.
ii. An ethical test.. godliness (4:6‑10)
As the Colin Buchanan song says, we are to practice being godly.
Richard Baxter in his book “The Reformed Pastor” wrote that what the minister owes his congregation more than anything else is his own godliness. His daily walk with God. The daily lives of the teachers are one of the indications of the godliness of their teachings. Paul makes it plain that it is the good teaching which makes the good minister, both in instructing people in it and nourishing himself on it. Behind the ministry of public teaching there lies the discipline of private study. All the best teachers have themselves remained students. They teach well because they learn well. So before we can effectively instruct others in the truth we must have 'really digested' it ourselves.
But, Paul says, we are to have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales (7a), for they are spiritual junk food.
Turning to the metaphor of exercise, Paul tells Timothy: train yourself to be godly. Of the fifteen occurrences of godliness and godly in the New Testament, thirteen are in the Pastoral Letters, of which nine are in 1 Timothy. Godly people are God‑fearing people. They have experi?enced the Copernican revolution of Christian conversion from self-centeredness to God‑centredness.
2. The commendation of true teaching (4:11 ‑ 5:2)
In the second half of today’s passage from 1 Timothy Paul begins with a dramatic contrast between verse 11 and verse 12, which sums up the problem Timothy faced as a young leader. On the one hand, he had been put into a position of considerable responsibility as the apostle Paul's representative in Ephesus. Command and teach these things. On the other hand. he was still a relatively young man, probably in his thirties, so that Paul had to add: Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young. Timothy had been called to Christian leadership beyond his years. His respons?ibility to 'command and teach' was in danger of being undermined by his youthfulness, and by the signs that his ministry was being rejected. Paul is not concerned now with error, and how it could be detected and rejected, but with truth, and how it could be commended and so accepted.
Perhaps some people were jealous of Timothy; they resented his having been promoted over their heads. Others simply looked down their noses at this pretentious youth. It is a perennial problem. Older people have always found it difficult to accept young people as responsible adults in their own right, let alone as leaders. And young people are understandably irritated when their elders keep reminding them of their immaturity and inexperience, and treat them with contempt. Too many churches want young ministers because of their energy and enthusiasm but they want them to have the benefit of 30 years of ministry experience.
How then should young Christian leaders react in this situation, so that their youth is not despised and their ministry is not rejected? Not by boastful, assertive or aggressive behaviour. Not by throwing their weight about and trying to impose their will. But by different means altogether. The apostle goes on to give Timothy six ways in which he should commend his ministry and gain acceptance for it.
a. Timothy must watch his example
Paul was careful about the example he set. He was never shy of inviting his readers to imitate him and Timothy must do the same. Paul tells him to set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. People would not despise his youth if they could admire his example. The apostle Peter gave the same instruction to church elders 1 Peter 5:3, urging them to serve humbly, 'not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock', and both Paul and Peter were only echoing the teaching of our Lord Jesus, who introduced into the world a new style of humble, servant‑leadership.
b. Timothy must identify his authority
Paul's next instruction is this: Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. A certain authority had been delegated to Timothy as Paul's represent?ative in Ephesus, but his authority was of course subordinate to the apostle's in two respects. On the one hand, what he was to command and teach was these things; he was to teach only Paul's teaching, not his own. On the other hand, he would continue only until Paul arrived, when the apostle would take over. Meanwhile, Paul reminded Timothy that he had another authority in Old Testament Scripture. The reading of the Old Testament was taken over by Christians from synagogue to church. Also the apostles directed that the churches should read their letters aloud in the Christian assembly. 'I charge you before the Lord', Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, 'to have this letter read to all the brothers.` He gave a similar instruction to the Colossian church: 'After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. The book of Revelation also opens with a similar command: 'Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy.
These are extraordinary instructions. They indicate that the apostles put their writings on a level with the Old Testament Scriptures. So each local church, would begin to make its collection of the letters and memoirs of the apostles, so that on the Lord's day in the Lord's assembly there would be two public readings, first from the Old Testament Scriptures and then from the apostolic writings. And this practice continues in many churches today where there are regular readings from the Old and New Testaments. Paul goes on to require instructing, exhorting, preaching and teaching to be added to the Scripture reading. It was already customary in the synagogue for the reading of Scripture to be followed by an exposition, and this practice was carried over into the Christian assemblies, being the origin of the sermon in public worship. It was taken for granted from the beginning that Christian preaching would be expository preaching, that is, that all Christian instruction and exhortation would be drawn out of the passage which had been read.
But the public reading of Scripture came first, identifying the authority for the teaching. Timothy's own authority was thus seen to be secondary, both to the Scripture and to the apostle Paul. All Christian teachers occupy the same subordinate position as Timothy did. They will be wise, therefore, especially if they are young, to demonstrate both their submission to the authority of Scripture and their conscientious integrity in expounding it, so that their teaching is seen to be not theirs but the word of God.
c. Timothy must exercise his gift
Paul tells him “Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you”. It is not an anachronism to refer to this as Timothy's ordination'. Probably Timothy's gift was his teaching ministry, together with the authority and power to exercise it. Paul mentions a 'prophetic message', which had been uttered about him Timothy and through which the gift was given. And it was the body of elders' who had 'laid their hands' on him, including Paul," in order to signify the church's confirmation of God's call and gift.
Paul's purpose in recalling the circumstances of Timothy's ordination was to urge him not to 'neglect' his gift, but rather to 'fan' it 'into flame'."' From this we learn that a gift, a charisma is not a static or permanent endowment from God; its human recipient must use it and develop it. True, Timothy was young and inexperienced. He is to remember and remind others that God had called him through the prophetic word, equipped him through the heavenly gift and commissioned him through the presbyters' hands, and the people as they grasp this will not despise his youth or reject his teaching. Of course it is still important today for Christian leaders to discern, cultivate and exercise their gifts, and be helped to do so by others. For the people will be receptive to their ministry, once they are assured that God has called their leaders and they have not appointed themselves.
d. Timothy must show his progress
Having referred to Timothy's example, to the biblical authority under which he must teach, and to his divine call. gift and commissioning, Paul goes on to Timothy's need for concentration and perseverance. It is not only Timothy's devotion to duty which must be seen, but his 'constant growth'. The example which Christian leaders set, then, whether in their life or their ministry, should be dynamic and progressive. People should be able to observe not only what they are but what they are becoming, supplying evidence that they are growing into maturity in Christ.
One error that some Christian leaders fall into is to imagine that they have to appear perfect, with no visible flaws or blemishes. But there are at least two reasons why this is a mistake. First, it is hypocritical. Since none of us is a paragon of all virtues, especially not me, and it is dishonest to pretend to be. Secondly, the pretence of perfection discourages people, who then suppose that their leaders are altogether exceptional and even inhuman. Paul himself conceded that he had not arrived in Philippians 3. 'Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on.” In the same way we should not give the false impression that we have reached our goal; on the contrary, we are still on the road, still pilgrims. Fortunately for me one commentator then says “nor should we go to the opposite extreme, parading our failures, or making embarrassing public confessions. That helps nobody.”
e. Timothy must mind his consistency to keep a close watch on his life and doctrine. He is not to be so engrossed in teaching others that he neglects himself, nor so concerned with the culture of his own soul that he neglects his ministry to others. Instead. he is to be consistent, applying himself with equal attention and perseverance to himself and to others.
It is fatally easy to become so busy in the Lord's work that we leave no time for the Lord himself, to be so concerned for the welfare of others that we fail to keep a watchful eye on ourselves. It is only by careful discipline that Christian leaders achieve a balance, determined not to neglect either duty for the other.
If you do persevere in these duties, Paul concludes, you will save both yourself and your bearers. Salvation always and everywhere originates not in us but only in the grace and mercy of God. Nevertheless, the reality of our salvation has to be demonstrated in good works of love. It is in this sense that Paul tells us to 'continue to work out' our salvation 'with fear and trembling'." Only those who persevere to the end will be saved." Perseverance is not the cause. but rather the ultimate evidence, of our salvation.
Timothy saves his hearers in the sense that the New Testament often attributes salvation to evangelists, since it is through the gospel they preach that God saves believers. So the ascended Christ could tell Paul that he was sending him to the Gentiles 'to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God'." Similarly he became 'all things to all men', in order that by all possible means he 'might save some'." Of course Paul could not and did not save anybody. Nor could Timothy. But this is the language which ascribes to evangelists direct the salvation which God himself effects indirectly through the gospel which they proclaim.
f. Timothy must adjust his relationships
Paul’s sixth word of advice to Timothy takes us into the first two verses of chapter 5: Do not rebuke an older man harshly but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. Although a comparatively young man, Timothy found himself responsible for several congregations which were mixed both in sex and in age. Paul now tells him that the sex and age of the people should determine his attitude to them.
Take the older folk first. It may be Timothy's duty to admonish somebody considerably older than himself. Paul seems to assume that it will be. In this case, he must perform his duty, but do it as an exhortation, not as a harsh rebuke. In other words, Timothy is to give to senior members of the church the respect which is due to age and the affection which is due to parents. He must treat older men like fathers and older women like mothers, which is what Paul himself did to the mother of Rufus in Rome, affirming that she 'has been a mother to me too.’
Paul also advises Timothy about his attitude to people of his own generation. He is to treat younger men like brothers, loving them, and not condescending to them, and younger women like sisters, loving them too, although with sensible restraint and absolute purity.
In brief, the local church is rightly called 'the church family', in which there are fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, not to mention aunts and uncles, grandparents and children. Leaders should not be insensitive and treat everybody alike. No, they must behave towards their elders with respect, affection and gentleness, their own generation with equality, the opposite sex with self?-control and purity, and all ages of both sexes with that love which binds together members of the same family.
Next week we’ll look at the church’s responsibilities towards particular groups in the congregation.
Let us pray.
