Pastoral Epistles - Lesson 3
1 Timothy 1:8–20
Paul gives the theological argument up front as to why the false teachers were wrong and Timothy needs to silence them. They are legalists, applying the Mosaic Law to all Chrsitians. Rather, salvation is by God's mercy and grace as seen in Paul's conversion. But things have gotten bad in Ephesus, and Paul had to take a firm stance on dealing with two of the leaders of the opposition.
1 Timothy 1:8–20
1 Timothy 1:8-11
Anticipates a objection from v 7
“Law” and the “Just” person
The FT were using the Law “unlawfully”
1. “Legalists”
2. Applied the law to all people
In what sense is the Law not for the just?
Vice list
First 3 of the 10 Commandments are sins directly against God
Begins to parallel Commandments 5-9 in closer detail
Church needs to be careful at defining sin too closely
Legalism wants to carefully define sin
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Thanksgiving (1:12-13a)
"Has given me strength"
Notice Paul's amazement
Paul's merciful and gracious salvation (1:13b-14)
Paul is not saying that he deserved God's mercy
Triad of grace, faith, and love
Paul's role in God's plan of salvation (1:15-16)
Amazement
First of 5 “Faithful Sayings”
Paul lives with the abiding sense of being a sinner redeemed
What was the ultimate reason God showed mercy to Paul?
Doxology (1:17)
If you truly know the extent of your own sin and depth of depravity,
Doxology stresses the transcendent nature of God
1 Timothy 1:18-20
1:18-19A
“Entrust”
#7. There is more at stake that you and your church
Don't be discouraged
Prophesied gifts are the tools by which Timothy fights the fight
#8. Weapons to defeat false teaching
"Holding faith and a good conscience"
#9. Warning: anybody can fall, including Timothy
Attention turns to the false teachers
Unlike Timothy, FT had rejected faith and good conscience
Result? "Some have made shipwreck of their faith"
"Whom I have handed over to Satan" — Excommunicated
#10. Ultimate goal is remedial
Position paper on church discipline
Other passages on this same basic topic
Pastoral Epistles
Dr. Bill Mounce
nt630-03
1 Timothy 1:8–20
Lesson Transcript
Well, welcome back from lunch. I enjoyed some barbecue. And I usually have protein lolz. So if I just kind of drift off for an hour, just continue without me. I'll be back in about 10 minutes. So if you see me going for my five hour energy drink, you'll know that lunch is kicking in. During grad school, I always did my library work for the hour after lunch because I was so tired. I can sit at my desk. So I would walk around and do the card catalog stuff. You remember card catalogs, don't you? Yeah, I'll tell our age, but there's nothing like a smell of a card catalog room. I'm sorry. That must be musty old cardboard. Anyway. Okay. We went really slowly to the first part because I needed to affirm the. Um, the nature of the, the false teaching and will speed up a bit. One of the nice things is you read the commentary and so I don't have to talk about everything that's going to hit the high point. So that's fun. In first Timothy one starting at verse eight. We have what is generally viewed as the beginning of a parenthesis. Almost every commentary out there says that 8 to 11 and then 12 to 17 are parenthetical statements, and partly because they don't figure out how they fit into the flow of thought, but also because 118 picks up beautifully from one seven because it talks about the charge again. And when I first started working on the commentaries, everybody says that it must be true, right? That's the basic rule, I think, to me. And but the more I got looking at, I go, I just don't think Paul speaks in parentheses. Certainly not big parentheses and not the beginning of a letter.
That didn't make any sense to me at all. Uh, you know, I know First Corinthians 13 is generally viewed as a parenthesis, and I remember on the ESV committee, I won't tell too many story translation stories, but I'll tell some. We got finished with First Corinthians 13 and worked really hard with the rhythm and rhyme of the poetry and all that kind of stuff, because this is, you know, read it, weddings and all that kind of stuff. And at the very end, I still to this day, don't know who it is. Um, but one of the translators said under his breath. I wonder if First Corinthians 13 is really parenthetical poetry. And we went on with Chapter 14 and it really struck me and I went back and I don't think 40 I don't think 13 has anything to do with weddings. And it's not parenthetical. It's not. Is Paul going to spiritual gifts? He goes, Guys, love patient. Can you get it to your heads? It's kind of you know, I mean, he's there's there's very little poetic vaccine. I would argue there's no poetry in first Corinthians 13. There's rhetorical parallelism. There's some of that kind of stuff. But Paul's not happy. So if that parenthesis doesn't exist, I have no reason to think that this should be in parentheses. So that was kind of were my starting point. And what I, at least in my opinion, as far as I know, I'm the only one saying this, but doesn't make a right or wrong, but is I think these chapters are key to understanding what the pastors are all about. I think the reason it feels parenthetical is that we don't know what the heresy was. We don't know what the false teaching was.
And I think he's and it's often said one of the reasons Paul couldn't have written the pastors is because his solution to the problem is structural get better elders, get better deacons. And Paul, we all know, would answer the problem theologically. Well, this is pure theology, right? 8 to 11, 12 to 17 is all theology. But we say it's parenthetical. We remove it from the discussion and then blame the author for not being theological. And I said, I wonder if this actually is theology that is answering the problem. And the answer, I think, is it is. That's exactly what it's doing. Now, the problem is Paul's not giving us the full picture of what's being taught in Ephesus. And it's we're so we're only hearing, you know, part of one side of the story. But I think if we look into this, we find out what really is going on in Ephesus and why theologically, it was wrong. So he starts in verse eight and he goes, Now we know that the law is good in words. I'm going to agree with you that far, but you have to use it lawfully. It's a pun in Greek and the law lawfully carries the pun. But the idea is the law is good, but you have to use the law as it was intended to be used. Now, the minute you hear Paul say that, you know, what do you start hearing? They were misusing the law. They were overusing the law. They were applying the law in ways that it wasn't is supposed to be something along those lines. You can hear Paul addressing that. There's a real emphasis on the law in the false teaching. Doesn't say much more than that. Okay. It says, okay, understanding this.
And in other words, this is how you use the law lawfully. The law wasn't laid down for the just person, but for and then he starts this depressing list. And then the question is, what is the law and who is the just person? That's the question you have to answer. And if you're not opposed appalling authorship and you look at it, say, well, how does Paul use the word law? How does Paul use the word just? And does that fit the context? Is a it's a natural way to do your act to Jesus. Now, Paul uses the word law many ways. How many? You were in Doug's class on Romans? Okay, So you heard. You heard the master. Explain all the ways Paul uses law. Right. I mean, it's very, very varied. But if the law is what you would expect from Paul, the Mosaic Law. And if the just person is the person who is justified by faith, can you make sense of this passage? My contention is that you can. Some people say, you know, by just we mean Paul is talking about the good citizen. Well, if this is about the good citizen, if the law is not for the good citizen, then it's not Pauline. That's real simple. I mean, Paul simply wouldn't say that the Mosaic Law has no effect on the non-Christian who's a good person. That he wouldn't say that. Um, but I think understanding this is the Mosaic law. And with it a legal mind set. I mean, in other words, the the false charges were legal. The attention was on the outside. You, you. You determine whether you are or are not acceptable to God based on outside criteria, not inside criteria. I mean, if you take all the normal polling uses of these words, he's saying, we agree the law is good, but you got to use it as the law was intended.
And for the righteous person, for the person has been justified by his faith. The law doesn't have the same role in their life. It's it's not for them, not in the sense that this has nothing to do, but it doesn't have primary force on them any longer. And that's what Paul teaches in Galatians. Right? We've been set free. The law was our temporary guide to the fullness of Christ. It served its function as Luther. It taught us to bring us to our knees, to admit our inability to do anything about our sinful state before God. I mean, that's the function of the law, right? And so if a person is just if he's been justified by his faith, then the law has doesn't have the same set of restrictions, the same role in our life. But fair way to say it. I wish he had said it that way. It'd be easier. A little clear. But, you know, Paul doesn't ever check with me before he writes something. If if that is what else I want to add. When you look at the other discussions of the false teaching, you really do see they're legalistic, that there's there's a demand and a control that they want to have over people's lives. And the thou shalt and thou shalt not is primary. So, for example, we're going to learn in chapter four, you know, thou shalt not marry. We'll see. Thou shalt not eat certain foods. They were very much into a legalistic way to approach life that you should you must do this and you must not. And that applies to everyone, Christian and non Christian alike. So that's what Paul's saying. So that's for those of us who are justified by our faith, because I have to add that in the law has a different role.
The false teachers are wrong. Who's the law for? Well, and then what you get is this wonderful paralleling of the Decalogue. And it's interesting in in what they do parallel and what he doesn't parallel. And one of my questions in heaven, if I care at that point, is I want to know why he skipped covered the 10th commandment and why he skipped Sabbath, the fourth commandment. But so he starts off by saying the laws for the lawless and the disobedient, the ungodly and the sinners, the unholy and the profane. So you have this first group which parallels the first three commandments of the Decalogue, right? You have no other gods before me. You have no images. You don't swear. So those these three roughly parallel those. He skips the Sabbath commandment. And then he starts really paralleling the Decalogue carefully. And I think this makes for really, really good sermons, by the way. It's kind of an unlikely place. And your people will probably never have heard these sermons. But this shows you how Paul understands the Decalogue, and I think that's helpful. So the fifth Commandment is honor your father and mother. One way to violate that Fifth Commandment is to. That was. Is to strike your mom and dad. Okay. This is beating on them. Obviously, it's up to you. That's easy. You know, that's not honoring them at all. So the Fifth Commandment is violated by hitting your parents. The sixth commandment, Thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not murder, depending upon whether you follow Gordon one them or not in his commentary. But Paul says murderers. So a murderer is violating the sixth Commandment, Thou shalt not kill. Then here's where it gets really interesting. What is the seventh commandment? Thou shalt not? Commit adultery.
All right. For Paul. The that that commandment is broken by being sexually immoral. Very broad term is it's paranoia. I think it's the second. Foreign oil shale is the Pawnee. A word group is the most general broad term there is for sexual misconduct. In other words, Paul's agreeing with Jesus that it's not just the act of adultery that violates the commandment. It's sexually immoral behavior that violates the commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery. So we all have to deal with these issues in our churches. When it comes to issues of divorce, especially remarriage. It comes up in the discussion of leadership. You know what? What violates this commandment? So well. If a man has an affair, then we basically agree that violates the commandment. Okay. What if he's addicted to pornography? What if he's verbally abusive but not sexually abusive to his wife? I mean, you know, this whole this whole issue, it's really hard. What's interesting here to me is that what the Pharisees did all the way through Jesus life was they tried to narrow the commandments. So the commandment, thou shalt commit adultery is narrow to the act of adultery. Jesus, no ever looks at a woman with the intent of lust has violated the commandment. And so Jesus is always broadening the commandments to include the heart of Jesus. As always, the Pharisees are narrowing to the act. Jesus is broadening to the heart that goes with it. And that's exactly what Paul is doing here. The the commandment did not commit adultery is violated by any kind of sexually immoral activity. One example, of course, this is interpretive. One example is men who practice homosexuality. So that homosexuality, the act of homosexuality, is one way in which the commandment is violated.
And there was Here's Paul broadening the commandment from the Jewish intent to narrow it. Now, I would tell you this was one of the more interesting learning experiences I had on the committee. And I don't know, I think both the ESV and the Navy were really concerned with this. Just the way the ESV worked is that we started with the RSV and dad went through and made thousands of suggested changes. Then it came to me and I had a yay or nay, which is really weird saying, No, dad, you're wrong. You know, I'm his son. Anyway, that's what we did. Those changes then went to the committee and if no one objected to them, they automatically went into the ESV. So Dad's responsible for a roughly 80% of the changes between the RSV and the ESV in the New Testament all by himself. I'll give him the credit. If anybody on the committee raised the question, then that went into a packet and when we got together, we voted on it. And at that point, there had to be I think it was a two thirds vote to change the RSV. Okay. That's the I mean, I'm sure this is public information. That's basically how it happened. So. I don't know what the View said here, but we probably just said homosexuals or homosexuality or something like that. And it was a really good. Education because they said, no, Bill, you can't say that You can't take a label and make it a sin. It has to be those who are doing it. And what's the difference? And it was it was a it was a cool Bible study for me. Well, do we say that a propensity to anger is a sin or is it when a man actually gets angry that we have to deal with it? I mean, we all have our weak spots in our personality, right? Some of us may move to lost.
Some of us may move to anger, some of us may move to pride and arrogance. Some of us may move a sexual direction. We all have those weak spots in our personality where Satan does what he goes after, right. And he tries to get a toehold in that area. And so the the thrust in both committees was you you can't just say like you can't just say that the emotion anger is wrong because it's not. Just like, you know, I mean, emotions are neutral. Are you guys comfortable with this distinction? I wasn't when I first heard it, but emotions are neutral. Anger is a warning signal that God put in us that there's harm being done. And so anger is in its good sense as well. In Ephesians, Paul says being angry but sin, not. That anger is one of those emotions that God gives us, that you're in danger, do something about it. The problem is when we don't do anything about it and then we sit in the emotion, okay, well, that was the kind of lesson for me here. There are people that have tendencies this way. They have tendencies that way. And it's not the tendency that's wrong. So the temptation is to giving into temptation. It's not knowing that my DNA is made in such a way that I tend to get angry faster than most. It's when I do get angry and it's no longer pointing to a problem. I'm just living in my anger. If I beat this horse to death, enough here. That was that was why the translations are now saying things. Men who practice homosexuality, the translators are being very, very careful to not say that something we struggle with in our heart because of how we've been put together is necessarily wrong.
It's when we give in to temptation that we sit. So that's why the translations that way. Yeah. I'm not mean. I'm just curious because, you know, he doesn't have any to. Well, it. What do we what do we do to our homosexual, actually. Yes, they are cynical or cynical. What did the what did we end up doing? In the new one. I'm only I'm only going to be concerned that it uses the word, which is what I said. Oh, that's that's the that's the older and idea. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay. As of February 28, the Navy 1984 is no longer available on any website, and you cannot buy it electronically. The only way you can get it on paper is if Lifeway has got a bunch in the back corner. Yeah. Yeah. So the night the 2011 I've is now the only one you can access. Um, and I'm sure that we did not leave it, pervert. Practicing homosexuality. Okay. In the new Gibson Greek New Testament experience. Yeah. That's, that's really a that's, that's a poor translation. I don't, I don't know who Professor Newman is either. Um, but it's Yeah, an I.V. is for the sexually immoral for those practicing homosexuality. I mean, there are many kinds of sexual perversions that are not homosexual perversions. I mean, that's, um. Yeah, I still always get. Only. Yeah. Rumors centering around. Yeah, that is those. My label is great. I am. I am. My memory is faulty. Here I am remembering a discussion. And I had to do this on video. I'm wrong. I'm wrong forever. Um. I think the word specifically means those practicing, I think is part of the meaning of the Greek word. But I'm going to have to. Actually, it's in the commentary.
I have to look it up in your lexicon as a male engaged, same gender sexual activity. Yeah. Yes. We'll see. Sodomite, pederasty, bestiality all fall under the same condemnation. Of sexual immorality of porn. But I mean, why did they make this? Well, it's not. It's not because there's any pro homosexuals in the Navy, I'll tell you that. This is this has nothing to do with the committee. I would say they're sensitive. I would say they're sensitive. There's you become to have to be homosexual in the sense of tracking to another to say sex without practicing that you can't be a partner without having a partner. But you can be you can be heterosexual without engaging in federal sexual activity. You know, James, you have you have to hate in order to be a murderer. That would be the emotion leading up to that. Yeah, I think that. But. But in terms of I, I think that's what I think. You know, the Navy gets blamed for a lot of things and some of it deserves the vast majority of it doesn't. There's not a liberal person on the committee. There's not a single person with a low view of scripture. Um, I mean, it's there's not you know, I read an article the other day that talked about how Doug move was a compliment, an egalitarian. He's the head of the committee. That was not a complimentary to me. He's written articles on this defending, um. I'm sorry. He's not an egalitarian. He's written articles on being a complimentary. But people will see a person instead of a man in the Navy. And so they blame Doug for it. I mean, it's just the garbage that's out there is just that's French for garbage is just overwhelming at times.
The Navy people, I have learned to really, really appreciate them. So, yes, he does the same thing. That's why that was the first place I heard the discussion. So the discussion is I'm recalling is just like we don't want to condemn a person whose personality tends towards anger and yet has learned to deal with anger in a biblical spirit led way. So also, we don't want to condemn a person who is the weakness in their life is an attraction to a member of the same sex, and yet under the spirit doesn't act on it and deals with it. We did not. I will I will say that we did not want to condemn that person. And that's the problem with the labels. Labels can be really condemning. But anyway, it's just I think what's really important for the past rules is that you can watch Paul doing what Jesus is doing, and that is. Opening up the commandments to understand that it's not just the action, but it's attitudes that are connected with it. Here's the interesting here's the nub. The next the next commandment is the commandment number eight is thou shalt not. Steel. And Paul interprets one kind of theft as being you know, there was such a word as enslaver. It's just someone who's in who's involved in the slave traffic. Tremendously important word. Does the Bible support slavery? We're going to talk about slavery. And first, Timothy six. And when I was writing the commentary, the documentation is all there. A friend of mine did a master's thesis on the pre-war South Churches defense. Some of it defense of slavery. And then if you haven't read that stuff, you need to read it. You need you need to see how wrong the church can be.
You know, blacks aren't human. They don't have souls. It's the mark of Cain there. I mean, these were things being preached from the pulpit. And he he showed me the literature and I read it and it was just like, my goodness. So the church gets slammed for the sport of slavery. And so the question is, does the Bible support slavery? The answer is no, it doesn't. Um, and this is one of the most important phrases. HEILEMANN Is the most important passage. Where Paul tells Philemon that honest difference is to be received as a person, as a brother, is a radical redefining of the of the essential philosophy of slavery. But here Paul is saying one kind of theft is to be involved in the slave traffic. So, yes, slavery is a violation of the eighth commandment, Thou shalt not steal. The Bible does contain the germs of the slaves out the right word. The well didn't. Is that the phrase we use? The very beginning, it just sounded funny to say the word germ, but the whole anti the abolition movement does have its germination in in in the Bible. And so that's an important thing to notice. He goes on the eighth ninth commandment is thou shalt not bear false witness. The context natural context is that of the courtroom Paul enlarges. It includes perjury. But liars in general. And then while he doesn't go and talk about. The thou shalt not covet. And perhaps he does it because these are all observable things. And the covetousness is is really in the heart. He just is. And whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Now. This is a vote I lost and I am still sore about it and I will still continue to say the ESV is wrong.
The translation Sound Doctrine. We changed it to health, to healthy doctrine. It is a medical metaphor. It refers to spirit, it refers to physical health and is used metaphorically of spiritual health. That sin is spiritually unhealthy, sickness is physically, it destroys the body. So also sin destroys the soul. And it should have been healthy doctrine. And in a last movement, in a last minute vote, they changed it to health. So anyway, there got a footnote. Yeah, that's because I was fussing big time. Anyway, it's a it's a wonderful metaphor. It's one of the indications, I think, that Luke is the amanuensis. Medical imagery is all the way through. And I just believe, as in a narrative, that if God inspired his word. In using a metaphor, the translator should use a metaphor on 100% opposed to interpreting metaphors in translation for for deep theological reasons. I think when God conveys as word, it's how it's conveyed is also part of the inspiration process. And so if Paul uses a metaphor, walk by the Spirit, then we have no business removing the metaphor and saying Live by the Spirit, which is what the old and Ivy did. It now says, Walk by the Spirit. Don't want to interpret metaphors. Genius with a playful sense of the word doctrine. However, I would put it as and try to. Sure. Yeah. As opposed to. Yeah. That good thing I'm really surprised is not in. It's not in my notes. The Greek words did it did a Scalia has a very specific nuance in the pastoral. It's one of the distinctness of the pastoral. And in the pastoral did a Scalia refers to theology. It's not just teaching in general as we see it used. It's theological instruction. And so in this particular case, there is a lot of teaching that is teaching in general.
But in the pastoral for this word, the emphasis is on theology. And so he's saying, well, the law is for these kinds of people and for anything else that makes you spiritually sick. And the the the judgment, the sounding board or how you decide whether something is healthy or not is is it in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which Paul has been instructed? But this this whole let's see, I'm worried, this whole thing. Is theology. It's why you need to be preaching theology. You can't just tell a story. You just can't. If you tell a story, you're not you're not teaching in accordance with the pastoral. All See, all story has a point, doesn't it? I mean, I love preaching story and I know it's kind of the fad, but story in Jesus always has a point. It always goes somewhere. Sometimes I hear a pastor preach and story form. I go, okay, what's the point? And I know I'm a propositional oriented kind of person, but Jesus, his stories had points and in God and then in the past rules. The point is doctrine. The point is the formulation of what we believe in do a consistent whole. By the way, this is a funny story that in accordance with the glorious gospel, this is one of those genitive that's hard. It can be in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. And we went initially with this is, you know, the ESV just went through a very quiet update. They told virtually no. One. It got updated about a year ago. You'll find the word bonds servant a lot more in the ESV. They're mixed between four Douglas, between slave and servant. But this was also changed.
Earlier on. I thought it was the glorious gospel. And we got a letter from a very well known pastor who's all about the glory of God. But you think just for a second who that might be. And he made a passionate appeal that the gospel is about the glory of the blessed God. And we agreed with him. And we changed that between printings to the in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. So all kinds of internal things happened in translation. So anyway, that is Paul beginning his discussion of the theological problems with what they were teaching, that they were. It was an overemphasis on the law and they were forcing it on everyone in a legalistic fashion. And Paul says the law is good, but the law was never intended to be the dominating, controlling, condemning influence in the life of a just person. That's what the spirit is about. It seems to me that there's always conversations going on on what's nonessential, especially when we're talking about a school like ours. Right. Can you really determine what is doctrine and gospel? I mean, what is he talking about? Is it just that the way he's using it doesn't. Um, I'm trying to think of. He he defined the gospel in Titus twice really beautifully. So I think in defining the gospel in the past rules, you just have to go to his formulations and the hymn. And first, Timothy three about the mystery of God, and you got the Incarnation and the Ascension and all these different things. So I think you can safely define it, you know, and you're not going to find any denominational distinctiveness in the pastoral. And in fact, even in terms of what kind of what form of government do we have, everybody claims, whether it's congregational or or whatever this basis is in the pastoral.
So everybody finds their government there. So so you're not going to find denominational distinctions. You're just going to find the heart of the gospel. What you're going to find is the question on teaching is interesting. We know it's a term that refers to theology. But again, this is part of the problem of him writing to his best friend. Timothy knew exactly what Paul meant by the essentials of did a Scalia. He just he didn't have to be told. Apparently the Ephesians didn't have certain points either, so. There's not a lot of discussion in the past rules on the actual content of the theology. You're going to have to go to Romans and effusions and some of these other places to get that. A good question. Okay. That's all been kind of negative, hasn't it? As like, here, here's what's wrong. What Paul does in the next passage is he says, Let me show you what's right. And again, people look at this and this is Paul's personal testimony, and you go, okay, his parenthetical again, this is this isn't really relevant to what we're talking about. But the fact of the matter is that Paul's personal testimony is a testimony not of law. Right. His his testimony is a testimony of of love and grace and faith. And so he's retelling the story of his testimony. But the purpose is theological. The purpose is to say, you know, you stewards of the Fusion Church, you know, you're spending all this time on the law and a legalistic mentality and the thou shalt not. And really what you should be doing is it's just look at my example. This is where you should be focusing. So I think you have the negative and the positive theological explanation of why the opponents are wrong.
So this isn't just a personal testimony. It's it's saying this, well, here's here's some theology you have to believe. That may be one way to put it. The salvation is not due to law or, you know, of observing law, but is is due to God's mercy and grace through faith. And all you have to do is look at my story and you should have seen that. So that's what's going on. Paul says, I thank him, who has given me strength that identifies to him as Christ Jesus, our Lord. And the reason he's thanking him, I'm going to kind of walk through my phrasing a little more detailed here. The reason I'm thanking him is because he judged me faithful. Now, the giving of the strength is most likely of the Damascus Road experience. So I'm checking my tenses here. Yeah, it's an error. So this is not necessarily ongoing. Um, it could be just life in general, but is probably sinking back to Damascus because the Damascus is kind of, uh, pervades the rest of the verses as well. But it says God has given me strength. Um, he has called me to my apostolic ministry. But. But why? It's because he judge me faithful. It's really easy to misunderstand that Paul is not saying that I deserve to have grace. Because we never deserve to have grace, Right? We never deserve to have mercy. And the whole point of mercy and grace is we don't deserve it. So he's not saying that God that is that God judged him faithful. And in some sense, Paul deserved to be a disciple. I think what Paul is saying is that God knew I was going to be faithful. He knew I was a faithful kind of person.
That's why he saved me. He know that if he saved me and empowered me, that by God's spirit, I would be the kind of person who would be faithful. So what is this? Because he judge me faithful can't in any sense be pretty cool. Quid pro quo. It can't be in any sense. I deserve this, right? So he he I'm thinking is in in my conversion. He judge me to be faithful. That was to show that judgment was shown when he appointed me to his service. And what's amazing about this appointment to service is who I was. And there's triads running all the way through this passage. So you need to see the threes. I was a blasphemer. I was a persecutor. I was. And I was an insolent person. I was. I was really a jerk, is what Paul say. And the. The use of threes is an have break way to really add emphasis. Is it just it's not just the piling up but is the threes. It says I really really really was a bad person. And that's and that's what's so amazing to me in his appointing me to his service because of who I was, I wasn't a faithful kind of person. I didn't deserve anything. But despite the fact of who I was, in light of what God knew I would become, second half verse 13, I received mercy. And then He gives another reason why he received mercy. He said, I receive mercy because the ideas in my former life of persecution, I was acting in ignorance. I was acting in on belief. Now, Paul is not saying that this is how God treats all ignorant, unbelieving people. But this is most likely the Old Testament distinction between intentional and unintentional, since we all know that there is no sacrifice for intentional sin.
Right? All sacrifices in the Old Testament are for unintentional. The only option there is in the Old Testament for an intentional sin is to throw yourself into the merciful arms of God. Even in the Old Testament that that is clear. But there is a distinction between I've done something wrong and I meant to do it and I've done something wrong, and I didn't know it was wrong. And what Paul is saying is that with all my persecution, I was not intentionally, knowingly fighting God. I thought I was doing God a favor. So he said my son was unintentional. It was fueled by my unbelief. And because my sins were unintended, they were sins, but because they were unintentional, God chose, in my case, to extend mercy to me. And then he says, in the grace of our Lord overflowed. And so is another made up word, Paul, that Paul makes up. He just makes up words, just super, abundantly lavishly overflowed for me with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. So the triad of how bad he was in verse 13 is overcome by the triad of grace, faith and love that come to him through the work of Jesus Christ. So why did he do that? Why did why did God treat Paul that way? Why did he choose Paul? In verse 15, he gives us the bigger picture of what's going on, and he starts with this faithful saying formula. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. This is a formula that runs through the pastoral. Yes, none of my notes. So I think I think it occurs five times. And it's a formula that at first glance it looks like he's saying. Let me quote to you something you already know that he's citing traditional material.
The problem is that one of the faithful sayings is in first Timothy three one, the saying is faithful and further and worthy of full acceptance that whoever desires to be an elder desires a good thing. And you go, Really? That was a saying, a proverbial saying that was passed around. That doesn't make any sense. And then one of the other faithful sayings is kind of like that. So the conclusion I came to is that this is just appalling way and it's just in the just in first Timothy, if it is a Pauline way of just saying pay really close attention to what I'm about to say. All right. And sometimes what he says is a citation is the quotation, and other times it's just something he wants to say. But this the saying is trustworthy, is deserving of full acceptance. It's just Paul saying pay really close attention. What I'm saying, it's really, really important. He says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am. And it's the present tense, for I am the foremost. And there was one commentary writer that called this So such an unmasking, an affirmation that Paul couldn't possibly have said it. There's a lot of junk out there you have to read when you write commentaries. Really, your definition of a man is someone who can't confess is a sinner. I just I don't I don't know if I quoted in the commentary or not, but it just struck me as one of the the commentary that I was looking at. He was saying more about himself and it was about the text. Pay really close attention to this, people. Paul says Jesus came to the world to save sinners. And I think what Paul is saying is that I live as in the constant awareness of being a sinner redeemed.
Paul knows more than anyone else how dark his heart is even after he's been saved. And so he lives in this awareness that he is a sinner, much like Martin Luther did. My grandma tells the story that when you first wake up in the morning and you kind of kind of get your eyes open and the sun is just coming in the window, you can see the big things, maybe the chest of drawers and, you know, the end of your bed or something. And if you live there long enough, your eyes start to adjust. You start seeing more and more things in the room. You see the clothes you left on the floor and whatever. And and if you stay there long enough, you actually start seeing the dust particles in the air. Right? When the sun comes in, you see all the dust. You never saw the dust before, but you see it if you stay there long enough. And that was grandma's illustration of the Christian walk. And when you for we first become believers, we see the big things, don't we? We see the unfaithfulness or we. We see the anger. We see the hatred or or the arrogance of putting ourselves on the throne of our life and not God. And so, you know, we first become a Christian and God's light shines on us. We see those things. But as as all of us start to grow up in Christ, does anyone here get perfect from that? We're going to see if there's any Ultra Wesley's in the room. John Wesley did not teach a second worker. Grace Eradication of the sin nature. You're aware of that, right? Well, I taught at the Wesley. I'm a Calvinist. I taught at a kind of a kind of a Calvinist.
And you can't be kind of a Calvinists for two, three and a half. And I'm failing quickly on that one. But when I went to teach at Aziz's Wesleyan School and they wanted me to read some Wesley stuff, and Wesley firmly argued against the concept of eradication of the sin nature. He never believed that your ability to sin was permanently removed. He just said, Holiness is a real possibility, even if it's for a split second. And that we can, by the power of the spirit, get to that point where for this second we're holy. So was it. But it was his it was his students and followers that actually developed the doctrine of eradication. And I read sermons where Wesley was preaching against his followers who are teaching this anyway, Why am I saying, Oh, I think we all understand that in the progress of sanctification, we never make it all the way. And and every time we deal with the dresser or the suitcase lying in the corner, then all of a sudden the light shines a little brighter and we see the clothes we left on the floor. That kind of sin. And as we live longer, longer we start seeing the fine, the fine sin in our life. Um, and I think that's what's going on in this passage. I think Paul doesn't live as a defeated Christian. I think Romans seven Is Paul the Christian speaking? I think it's Paul saying, I'm growing up. I'm becoming more like Christ. I'm being changed one day, one degree of glory to the next to look more like his son, to look more like Jesus. But the more that I see Jesus, the more I see my own sin. And I think that's what's going on here.
This is not Paul being morose or unmanly. This is a very, very mature Christian, acknowledging what every anyone who is growing in the faith should be willing to acknowledge. You read Martin Lloyd-Jones on the Sermon on the Mount? You ever read his sermon series? Yeah, I don't normally read sermon series, but I the I preach to the Sermon on the Mount, and I read Martin Lloyd-Jones, and I have some of the best stuff I've ever read in my life. And he and I just it was it was just wonderful to read it. And most of the stuff he talks about in the book, I, I re-used with credit. I was always quick to credit him. But there was one thing he talked about that it was simply because there were it was in my life and because of some of the conflict in the church, I couldn't preach and it really stuck with me. Um, have you ever had anyone come to say, you know, Pastor So-and-so, you are a jerk. You don't care, you don't listen, you don't put your time in, you don't like people. You ever had those discussions. Anyone who's been a pastor over, what, six months? Yeah, you've had that. Just go, I know you've had that discussion. And what Martin Lloyd-Jones, his answer is, Oh, if only you knew. If only you knew me. You know I'm a lot worse than you think I am. Hmm. Now, the minute you say that in a church, you're giving people information which becomes power, which is used against you. Right. And that how churches work? Some churches work, um, that's always looking at me saying, not every church is like that. Um, that's what's going on here. This is Paul saying.
Guys, do you understand that the core of what Jesus did was to come to save sinners and he saved me, and I was really a jerk. But I live as a sinner. Redeemed. I am. I am the worst in my heart. If you only knew me. I'm so much worse than you possibly could understand. That's why I've got the thaw in the flesh. Doesn't help a lot. I still have whatever struggles I have, I still have. I mean, I just think this is one of the most amazing statements in the pastoral. He uses the term aiming heroin. Is that so? Yes. Yeah ago when when you actually because Greek verbs have their person in the ending. When you have a personal pronoun actually use sometimes is for clarity. You know is that a here a there, you know who you're referring to. But especially in first and second person are you or that when they're present, there's there's always almost always a little extra push. And so, in fact, what's the word order? Um. Yeah. First I am normal Greek orders. Conjunction. Verb. Subject Object. And so if you want to emphasize something in Greek, you switch the order around. And so here it is. You've got you've got a predicate before the verb first. Am I? Yeah, you could have said protest, Amy. Or you could say that Amy brought us it. But this is. This is very, very emphatic. I'm the worst. Anyway. I just think this is a good thing for pastors to hear. For all of us to hear. And do we live as people who live in the constant growing awareness that we are sinners yet redeemed? I would add. So he says, I was really a jerk, but I received mercy.
And here's ultimately why I received mercy. I mean, he I received mercy because he knew I'd be faithful. I received mercy because I was ignorant and what I was doing. But here's the ultimate reason that God save me on Damascus, that in me as the foremost and was, I'm going to be the number one illustration of this. Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience. As an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. And so Paul's. Paul's just. Just really stressing. The reason God saved me, ultimately, is that I'm a I'm a trophy, a grace. I mean, people know who I was and they know what I become. They will be drawn to a loving, merciful God that can so change a miserable wretch such as myself into who I am today. So what you have theologically, I mean in the form is a personal testimony. But what you have theologically is this wonderful example of how grace and mercy and faith work itself out. In his life. And this is counter to the feral false teachers legalistic demands of Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not. And then in good biblical fashion, all theology leads the dark psychology. Right? And Paul can hardly reflect on his own conversion without bursting into praise for God. And so he ends in this wonderful dark geology in response to what God has done for him, to the King of ages, Immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever are men. One of the best things on biblical training is I should check with Frank to make sure it's okay. I pushed biblical training, but I'm sure it is. Is there's in the seminars link. There is a seminar on.
No, I'm sorry we moved it. Matt, Where's Gary? Three hour on worship. It's under discipleship. If you if you click on the discipleship link and scroll all the way down, there's a three and a half hour class on worship by Gary Parrott, who is the C Professor Gordon Cornwell and very good friend of Matt and me and mine. And it is it is a powerful, powerful three and a half hours. I would not allow a single person on a worship team to stand up in front of church without knowing with this stuff. It's that good. And Gary will make the point very clearly that worship is the cycle of revelation response. He as as is often the case is uses Isaiah six. The threefold cycle of I'm a holy God. The response is I'm a sinning human. God reveals himself as a redeeming God. And Isaiah accepts the calls. God reveals himself as a calling, an ascending God. And Isaiah says, Here my send me. And it's this cycle of revelation and response that constitutes worship. And if you don't have one, you don't have worship. Is the point of the is the point of Garry's talk. And so what Paul is doing here is just was it's like Gary would like Paul to do and that is that you it's great to be in to talk about God, but you've got to end up with praising him. You've got to. Yeah. Gary talks about praising as a declaration of who God is and what he has done. We all instinctively know what praise is, right? You know, you'll never need to preach a sermon on praise. We all know what praises. Just have someone talk about Michael Jordan. Or whoever their favorite athlete is.
And tell me about them. And they'll praise him for who he is and they'll praise him for what he has done. God has built it into our hearts to know what praise is. We just need to do the same thing for him to declare who he is and declare what he has done. And that's what Paul does, what Paul's doing. He's been talking about what God has done and now he's declaring who he is. This is what worship is, this is what praise is. And theology that does it end up in docs ology is just wrong. Was incomplete. I'll tell you John Piper's story. It's not in my notes. I'm wondering if I supposed to tell it somewhere else, but. I didn't I didn't know John very well, just by reputation. But one of his best friends is one of my best friends, Tom Schreiner. And so that's how I got to know John. And he was coming up to speak at Gordon Cornwell, and he had been, you know, an academic and moved into the pastorate. I was an academic, was considering leaving Guantanamo to go be a pastor. And I just wanted to find out why he did it. I wanted to hear his story, uh, to see whether it would encourage me to go to the pastorate or not. And so I got to pick him up at the airport and we we talked all the way back to Gordon Conwell, and he told me the story of a sabbatical. And this is actually we did a fellowship for John, a book in his honor about a year ago. And I tell the story there, and it's in much more details. If you want to know more about. John picked that one up.
But he said I had a sabbatical. I was working on Romans nine. The doctor, the judge, his book, Justification by God, but Justification of God came out of his sabbatical research and he was all done with the book and he was trying to go to bed one night. And. He couldn't sleep, which I think is a little unusual for him. And John didn't say he heard a voice, but he got the very clear sense of God asking him. So what's next? What are you going to do with this? And it kept John up most of the night. Thinking, okay, I've just spent six months in the heart of the doctrine of justification. Romans nine All the difficult issues, sovereignty, whatnot. And he wrestled for hours trying to figure out what God wanted him to do. And then again, I don't think John said he heard a voice, but very, very clearly heard God say to him, I am not a God. To be described makes me crazy, cannot be sorry. I'm hyper emotional, so just deal with it. Oh, I am not a God to be described. I'm a God to be proclaimed. John didn't sleep that night. He lay there in bed waiting for Noelle to wake up. She finally opens her eyes. And John says, How would you feel if I quit? If I quit my job and I go find a small church and be a pastor somewhere? Noelle goes, Sure, John. Yeah, whatever. Because really, I mean, you're not just kind of waking up there. Okay, I quit my job. You're a Bethel. She goes, Yeah, I quit. How can you be so sure? Noelle said, I've been waiting for years for you to finally figure this out. So he quit his job and he went down and found a very old dying church downtown Minnesota, called downtown Minneapolis called Bethlehem Baptist, which is now desiring God and all of that.
John learned that God is not a God to be described. He's a God to be proclaimed. And that's what you got Paul doing here? You got Paul doing in the end of Ephesians three is what we should be doing in all of our preaching. We just we can not describe God and falls short. Of proclaiming him a religious man. If you do that, if that's not one of your checklists in your sermons, I would really, really encourage you to think through what you're doing, because I just think it's just wrong. They've you can't you cannot describe a sovereign God without reveling in what that means. You can't you can't talk about a God who loves and not reveling in that. We just we can't do that. And that's what we have. That's what we have high opinion of. John Piper. Not that high. This is what we have Paul doing here is moving from description to proclamation. Okay, Well, let's finish off chapter one and then we can take a break. Now that Paul has given his theological answer, he's going to come back. And you notice that verse 18 starts. He goes, this charge, I don't trust you. And you go, What charge is that, Paul? I don't see a charge. Well, he's going back to verse seven, I think. And that's one reason the argument is made that those verses are parenthetical, but they're not. He's just he's given his theological answer to why the false teachers are wrong. And he's going to say one last thing. This charge is this command that you stop these false teachers. I'm entrusting this to you, Timothy, my child, the Greek word translated in trust is a legal term. That means if you entrust something to someone, they are legally responsible for it.
So if I had my phone and I gave it to Matt and said, I am entrusting this to you, and he accepted it, and then I went off to dinner and I came back. If he lost it, he has to buy me another one. So when you entrust something in that culture, there was a legal obligation. And Timothy as an apostolic delegate and and you all as pastors and me as a teacher, we have been entrusted with the gospel and Jesus in general terms. We have a legal. Responsibility before God to handle it the way God intended it to be. Timothy has been entrusted with the charge of silencing doctrinal error, and he must take that trust seriously. Now this brings us are we to seven in our practical steps to dealing with false teaching. Seven. Okay. All right. I'm back on track with numbers. I think you have a seventh principle here on how you deal with false teaching. And that is there's a lot more at stake than you and your church. I think at times, at least with with me, with my personality, when when I would see issues in the church that needed to be dealt with, it was just so hard for me to confront people. I just want everyone to like me. And it just it's hard. And I had to remind myself that the proclamation of the gospel ultimately was at stake. And I didn't have the option of ignoring problems. Not really. I didn't have the option of. Well, I would never do. But, you know, changing the gospel or short changing the gospel or or preaching such a watered down version of it that it's no longer the gospel. I mean, you can you can fill in the blank anywhere you want.
But the gospel has been entrusted to us. And so when we look at dealing with false teaching, it's so easy to say, well, it's just this person or this small group or it's, you know, it's okay. I just kind of will keep it off to the side. I don't know if you feel that way or not, but as people pleasers do. We don't have a right to do that. That there's more when it comes to this whole issue of false teaching. There's more at stake than you and your job and even your church. What's at stake is the gospel, isn't it? And so if Paul is willing to tell his best friend whom he trusts completely and totally. To say, Hey, you have an obligation to follow through with this, God willing, implied God's going to hold you responsible for It is a pretty strong statement, isn't it? So we have an obligation when it comes to the Gospel to not change it or ignore it or to leave it unprotected. So rule number seven, there's there's more at stake when it comes to this false teaching thing than just you and your church and your little group. But notice once he says that he he moves on. And this is very typical of Paul and we go through the second Timothy one, I'm going to have you look at every way that Paul encourages Timothy. I've got I think is 18 ways he does it. You'll probably find some other ways, but there's a pattern in the pastoral. So whenever Paul gives Timothy a charge, he follows it with an encouragement or he gives an encouragement before he gives the charge. But it's always both. It's never just you do this, it Paul just doesn't do that to Timothy.
And so he says, This is really serious. I mean, this discharge is entrusted to you. And now comes the encouragement. He says this is all done in accordance with the prophecies that were previously made about you. So you have the. Entrust the harsh part. But he's saying you've got the gifts, Timothy. You can do this. I mean, this is what ordination services are for, right? Ordination services are those times where the people we respect the most are churches or elders or whatever, affirms that, yes, you are called to ministry. God has given you the gifts to do this. We can all see this. And when times get tough, you reflect back on that. You're going to wait a minute. It's hard right now. But I remember that time. I remember the affirmation. I remember all those people that I really trusted said, You could do this. That's what Paul's doing right now. He's referring to some of it. We don't know for sure what it is. It's elsewhere. He's going to talk about the elders being involved in it. And later on, we're going to find that Paul actually laid hands on them as well. So most likely, I mean, I'm guessing this is an Act 16 thing that when when Timothy did decide to go with Paul, that there was some sort because Paul had to be involved. So I think it couldn't have been before 16, but it had to be some kind of ordination service where the elders got around, Paul got around, they laid hands on him, they prayed for him. Prophecies were stated over Timothy and the provinces are that you're gifted to do this. And again, probably that you are an evangelist and that you are a teacher, among other things.
So this is the first of the three references to this time in Timothy's life. And then he says that by them and by them, I think he means the gifts that the prophecies identified. Um, that buy them, buy your gifts. You waged the good, the good warfare. But as you wage the good warfare, as you fight the fight in emphasis that you have to have. You need to hold on to your faith and you need to hold on to your. Conscience. Okay. Numbers seven and eight. And these are these are interesting principles, I think. You know, you think at 60 I could count, right? I'm 60 years old. You think I could learn to count by now? This is eight. Thank you. That means there are ten total. Cool. Kind of a cool number ten. I like it better than mine anyway. Principle number eight in how to deal with false teaching. To simply ask the question, what are the weapons you're going to use to fight the war with what are your weapons? How do you fight false teaching? And that's why identifying the antecedent of them is really important. What's the them? Yeah. In first Timothy 414, Paul refers back to this event, and it's the time when prophecies spirits specified that Timothy was gifted for the ministry. So it says it. So the prophecies are about his giftedness for the ministry and that what Paul is saying is that use those gifts to wage the warfare. Now, what are other ways that we wage warfare against false teaching? We preaching sound and hopefully that is one of our gifts. I say, what are some wrong ways in which we fight in the church? Part. Facebook. Yeah, I would start a good rumor about someone.
Now I'm thinking of using the bully pulpit. I'm thinking of using institutional power. There's a lot of ways. I mean, you guys are given a lot of power when you're made, when you're ordained in the bully pulpit ministries, aren't you? You're given a tremendous amount of power. I often tell people that the reason people put their pastors up on pedestals is so they can get a clear shot at them. But they do put us up on pedestals for whatever would ever be the reason. And it's really tempting to use the inherent power that you have, I think, to fight the wars. Worst sermon I ever preached in my life was a terrible sermon because I was preaching at someone in the church. Guy. Just he ticks me off. He just made me mad. He was a perfect illustration. I thought of of what the passage was talking about. I never use his name, but it was it was delivered right at him. I went home afterwards and I said to Robin, That was the worst sermon I've ever preached in my life. She goes, Yeah, it was really bad, Bill. And I guess what made it so bad? He said, because you were preaching it. She knew exactly what I was saying. That's the wrong use of power. But I think Timothy is the weapons of Timothy's warfare are as giftedness of teaching and evangelism. I think it's important to remind ourselves in dealing with false teaching while we have a tremendous amount. You all have a tremendous amount of power because you have institutional power, right? Tremendous amount of institutional power. That's not how you fight the fights. Not primarily, anyway. You fight it by using your gifts. And if your gifts are preaching, then you preach the truth of their evangelism.
Then you evangelize and, you know, whatever your giftedness is. The weapons of your war. What is also the weapons of our warfare are not. What's the verse I'm trying to quote and I can't. They're not they're not flesh and blood. They are. This is terrible. I can't think of. Their spirits, their spiritual powers, aren't they? Somebody can look it up after Brick. You know, our our power to deal with false teaching is is is in the use of our gifts. And not in the institutional power that we often have. I just really encourage you to think through that. Number eight the weapons we use to fight is not by laws and church legislation as much as important as those things are. It's what is your gift? Use your gift. The other point nine. The ninth thing in dealing with false teaching. Is the fact that anybody can feel. Anybody can fail. I mean, look at this. Think about your prophecies, Timothy. Think about the gifts that were prophesied over you. Use those gifts to wage the good warfare. It is the war, right? Is ministry is war. That's Paul's language. But as you were waging the war. Hold on to your own is the idea. Hold on to your own faith and hold on to your own good conscience. Anybody can fall. You got it. This is Paul talking to Timothy, right? This is not Paul talking to a seminary grad. This is not Paul talking to youth. A youth pastor that just came out of young life. As good as young life is. I mean, this is Timothy. I mean, you got to get that in your head, right? Paul's first lieutenant, his right hand man, his best friend is his proven warrior, his his trusted companion.
And to him, he's saying. Hold on to your faith. Hold on to what you believe. Hold on to your conscience, Timothy. You can do the right thing. The wrong way is how I would say it. You can try to do the right things, but in the process of doing it, you can violate your own conscience. I violated my conscience that Sunday. I preached at a person. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway because I was so angry at them. We didn't do it again. I learned my lesson. I learned that lesson. But you all, all of us can do the right thing in the wrong way. We can violate our conscience. And Paul is saying no one is immune to falling. And I mean, he's going to be explicit about this in the first Timothy four. You got to watch yourself, Tim, as you watch your life, your doctrine closely, because you, too, can fall. And so the warning to all of us is that none of us are immune. I know the church thinks that if you're a pastor, you and your kids are immune from everything and you can neglect your kids all you want and it's okay because somehow you're the pastor, right? All of us can feel. And we have to watch it carefully, especially when dealing with false teaching. Okay. The minute you think you're immune, Satan, just one. Ve Day. I mean, it's D-Day. We're just waiting for VE Day. And then what he does is, as he emphasizes to Timothy, that Timothy needs to hold on to his faith in his good conscience. He says, Let's talk about the false teachers for a second. They've rejected their faith. They've rejected their conscience. Did the false teachers know what they're doing? They know it's wrong.
They've they've purposely rejected these true things. And in the process, they've shipwrecked. This is a hard translation. It's not clear whether it's they shipwrecked their own personal faith or they shipwrecked the faith of the efficient church. I don't I never was able to come to a conclusion on this. But it's they've they've devastated the church. They've devastated their lives there, devastated the church. And then in really, really uncharacteristic tones, he names two of them. Paul just doesn't do this. Right. First Corinthians, the man sleeping with his stepmother, doesn't get named, don't get a name, Second Corinthians five, if that's the same guy he's talking about. He says, you know, the pit, the your what you've done to him is enough. He's repentant. You know, you know, forgive him and move on. I mean, Paul just doesn't name people he names these two guys. And Harmonious is going to get named later on. They they must have really been problems. Must have been problems. And he said, these are these people. Hi, my name's Alexander. They've rejected their faith. They've rejected their conscience. They shipwrecked the faith. You know what I did? I gave them to Satan. I've turned them over to Satan. So number ten. Is church discipline. The 10th and the final step on dealing with false teaching is what we generally call church discipline. And that's what he's doing here with Alexander and humaneness. This is the final step. So let me say a few things about that and we'll take a break. Even though Jesus has overcome the world, Satan is still the ruler of this world, right? John 1430. And part of the function of when we meet together as a church again, people are the church. But when we meet together, we meet together regularly.
There is a degree of spiritual protection, is there not? Um, I have no verse to support this, but I think that one of your roles is to provide one of those primary umbrellas of protection for your church. I think that while we all live under the wings of God and He protects us as a head, protects his chicks, I think there's something about a sphere of protection that is that goes around a church when a godly pastor preaches the gospel. I really do. No way to support that. I just believe it. And one of the reasons that we should all gather together is that we need a safe place. The world's pretty horrid, right? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes on out there. Paul says We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and ego. Oh, I don't know. I struggle against flesh and blood quite a bit. But compared to the spiritual battles there are in this world, the physical battles are relatively insignificant. Well, those battles are happening to your people every day. They're happening at the water cooler. They're happening in the parking lot. They're happening over the backyard fence. I mean, your people are under constant attack. And so one of the reasons we come together is so that we can be sheltered together, We can be encouraged together, we can be taught together. And what Paul is saying is these two men are outside of that spiritual protection. And they are they they're being cast out in social ostracism. This is the penalty we see Paul using everywhere as the final step. You want a divisive man once and then twice. If after that he doesn't repent, have nothing to do with them.
Gay people are as tax collectors and sinners. You move them outside the community, which of course in a church of 500 just means they'll go infect some other church. But that's another class that with your class on ecclesiology. Um. So this is what he is proposing. But notice. Notice what's going on. It's remedial, even though Paul is. So let's just say we'll say Paul's mad because we all know that being mad is a bad thing, right? Paul is so displeased with these two men. He is mad enough at him that he's naming them. He still wants them back. He still the punishment is still remedial. And that's part of what church discipline is, is that it is an attempt to restore right. Relationships among the members in the church. Right. And sometimes it's, uh. You ever been in a church where they enjoy church discipline? Just a little too much? I visited one once was very interesting. We had communion. Excommunication and baptism all on the same Sunday. It was really a mixed message. And the woman was refusing to stop having an affair. And so they told the people have nothing to do with. Of course, virtually no one in the church. Newer. There are a thousand people in the church. So it did no good at all other make them leave legally liable to lawsuit again ecclesiology. But it's for Paul. It is remedial it's to bring them back. In fact, the only punishment in all the scripture is not remedial is. Hell. An only. It's the only non remedial punishment of the Bible. Which is why some of us struggle with the doctrine of hell. But that's a different class as well. All right. Let me say some things about number ten.
I believe in health. Don't worry. Number ten on how to deal with false teaching has to be the issue of church discipline. That's where Paul is taking us here. And what I would encourage you to do and I looked over the requirements for the class because I'm teaching the same class in Southern in about four weeks and I keep getting year old classes mixed in my head. But there's two position papers that you get to choose to write on, and I love position papers. I think there's one of the healthiest things a pastor can do because what a position paper does. It explains to people why you do what you do. And even if you can't say, you know, this, this passage unambiguously means this. You can say, this is how the leadership of the church understands this. So that's why they call position papers are not statements of faith or true statements or something, but they're just it's what the position papers are is that you're going to take an issue that's raised in the pastoral and you're going to write a paper that you can put in the foyer of your church if you have a year and where people can say, Well, what do you think about church discipline or what do you think about people that just refuse to stop living in sin or, you know, okay, what are the requirements for elders? Or do we care for widows here? Or, you know, what is our doctrine of salvation? I mean, these are all topics raised in the in the pastoral. And so what you're going to get to do is pick your own two. I would really urge you to make one of them be on elders, because I think that's one of the most important things you could write on.
But you may want to write a paper on church discipline. Now, this is this is the one I wrote, and it's available on my web, my personal website. But I basically just went through and I took Matthew 18, took the verses in the pastoral second Thessalonians, don't have anything to do with someone who's lazy and doesn't work. And I went through and I found all the verses that that I thought were relative to step ten on how to deal with false teaching. And I said, Here's the data and here's my best understanding of it. And then what we did most of these, they made for a really good elder retreat, and we just dealt with the paper. And if the elders would come to an agreement, we would call it the elder position paper. If it was something the elders didn't really want to talk about, I would call it the pastor position paper. Just let people know where it was coming from. But I just really encourage you all to find a way to deal with this issue of excommunication in your church. You know that there are organizations that hold weekend seminars for lawyers for the single purpose of how to sue a church. You know, that's going on. All right. You know that the average suit by a pastor wrongfully dismissed. Do you know what the settlement amount is nationwide? You know how much the pastor gets. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this. It's $10 million. The average settlement for a wrongly dismissed pastor's $10 million prize. She got to deal with first Corinthians six. But that's something else. But there's nothing more important in this litigious world than this document. I claim no legal knowledge of any sort. I'm not responsible for anything.
That's my league. My lawyer dismissal. What we were told was the most important thing. First of all, you can't stop yourself from being sued. So if you undergo church discipline, you remove someone from fellowship. It costs about $120. That's all it takes to sue you. You're always going to find a lawyer that for 5050 will do anything right. So, I mean, you're you're going to get sued. The most important thing I was told by a lawyer is to have a position paper and then follow it. Now, if you want to get sued, have a position paper on church discipline and don't follow it. You'll never get to court. You'll never get your you'll be settled out of court. Your insurance, your liability insurance. People will never let it get to court if you have. This is our procedure for dealing with people. And we didn't follow it or we didn't document it. They'll get their 20 million and walk. It's that simple. So that's what they were saying. But that's why this is this is really important is so it's always one on one. If there's no repentance, it's one on two. If that doesn't work, you bring them before the elders. If that doesn't work, then you bring them before the church and remove them. But again, you got all kinds of problems, don't you? This week struggle with in the paper. If you're a church of 1200 people, is bringing someone before the church going to do any good at all? No. Now, if you're a church of small groups and you remove a person from small group from their from their closest intimate set of relationships within the church, is that going to do some good? Yes. So these are all the things you're going to deal with in this paper.
But this is where Paul goes and church discipline. Okay. I'm trying to think if you go to if you go to Bill Monster.com. There is a tab called Publications. And if you scroll down to the bottom, there are some of my position papers that I wrote and this paper on church discipline is there as well as some others. So if you kind of want to see what I'm thinking of in terms of position papers, you can go there to see them.
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Dr. Mounce introduces himself and covers the traditional issues in introductions, including his historical reconstruction of the writing and history behind the Pastorals, basic misconceptions people have of the Pastorals, and the survey of the critical issues often raised.
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Paul begins by reminding Timothy of an earlier visit, and encourages Timothy to stay on at Ephesus, dealing with the issues in the church. Paul's goal is love, which stands in stark contrast to the work of the false teachers. Throughout 1 Timothy 1, Dr. Mounce is enumerating the ways in which Timothy (and we) should deal with false teaching.
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Paul gives the theological argument up front as to why the false teachers were wrong and Timothy needs to silence them. They are legalists, applying the Mosaic Law to all Chrsitians. Rather, salvation is by God's mercy and grace as seen in Paul's conversion. But things have gotten bad in Ephesus, and Paul had to take a firm stance on dealing with two of the leaders of the opposition.
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Having looked at the core teaching on why the false teachers were wrong, the class now looks at the other main pasages in the Pastorals that deal theologically with the false teaching.
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Paul begins a two chapter discussion on issues of leadership in the Ephesian church. He begins by critiquing their habit of praying only for some people, which shows their legalistic way of looking at salvation. Then he deals with issues of public worship, first men then women. These are issues that the leaderhip should have been dealing with but most likely were being caused by poor leadership.
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While this paragraph is not a matter of orthodoxy, it is nevertheless important since there are so many women in the church. Paul lays out the basic principle that women should learn with a submissive attitude, and then restates that principle with an eye to application; they cannot teach certain people in certain situations. Paul looks to the pre-Fall creation and the relationship that Adam and Eve were created to fulfill, and then spells out a consequence of what happens when that relationship is not honored. Because Paul references Genesis 2 and not Genesis 3, this is not a cultural teaching but transcultural.
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After dealing with some questions, the class resumes by finishing the last two verses in chapter 2.
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Paul gives four basic requirements for the leaders of a church. He beghins by emphasizing that leadership is a good thing and insists that leaders must be a certain kind of person, a person's who character is above repreoach. To appoint unqualified people to leadership is a sin, and those appointing them share in the responsibiiltiy when they fail and damage the church. But elders must also have a proven managerial ability of people, be spiritually mature, and have a good reputation in the eyes of people outside the church.
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We conclude our discussion of elders by looking at two other passages on the role, Titus 1:5–9 and 1 Timothy 5:17–25.
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We now move into the discussion of deacons in 1 Tim 3:8–13. There is much overlap between elders and deacons, and yet deacons are more involved in the day-to-day service of the church and are not required to be able to teach. The major interpretive decision is in v 11 as to whether it refers to women (i.e., deaconnesses) or wives (of the deacons).
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This paragraph is the heart of the letter, putting everything that Paul has been discussing into perspective and giving it context. The church is precious, and we should protect the gospel because of the truths it teaches.
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Paul goes back to addressing the needs of the Ephesian church. He deals in summary fashion with people of different ages, with a special note of concern for Timothy in how he deals with young women, which leads him into a discussion of young widows. His concern is that the church care for those who are "truly widows," i.e., who are old, truly alone, and have lived godly lives. Younger widows, however, should remarry and not burden the church. The church has limited resources, and it should initially care for those who are the most vulnerable.
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Paul concludes his letter with a series of different and not always related topics. He deals with slaves, and begins to lay the groundwork for abolition, gives Timothy two tests for correct theology and spells out the download spiral and eventual destruction of the false teacher especially related to their love of money, and then encourages Timothy three ways. And in proper biblical fashion, he concludes with a doxology. The final paragraph (skipped by Dr. Mounce, is a final word to the rich in the church and a final plea to Timothy to be careful.
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Most of the content of Titus has been covered in the lectures over 1 Timothy. However, the letter does have something to add to the discussion of leadership, and its two salvific hymns raise the issue of the reationship between justification and sanctification.
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Paul begins his letter to his best friend by encouraging him to continue in ministry. If ever there were a model for how you encourage someone, especially someone who looks up to you, this is the chapter. The best thing you can do is find how many ways Paul encourages Timothy, and then see how to apply those points in your own life and ministry.
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Paul concludes his encouragement to Timothy, and points out examples of faithless friends, and of one faithful friend.
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Paul continues to encourage the discouraged Timothy, reminding him of the glorious gospel that he proclaims. Even if Paul himself is bound, the gospel is not.
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The false teachers come back into view with a strong emphasis on Timothy's need to remain faithful. But the encouragement is that God's foundation in Timothy's life, and others, is sealed with a promise, and yet Timothy must also pursue righteousness and flee evil. Paul uses his own life as an example of faithfulness, and concludes with a strong admonition to preach the gospel because it comes from the very mouth of God.
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Paul concludes his discussion of the role of Scripture in Timothy's life, reminding Timothy of Paul's own life of faithfulness. Paul makes some personal remarks about a few people, and references his final trial. He knows he will die, but death is merely a loosening.
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