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I Timothy 1 "Building Each Other Up"
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. To Timothy, a true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. (I Tim. 1: 1-2)
This week we will begin our study of the two letters that the apostle Paul wrote to his young protoge, Timothy. Timothy had followed Paul around on his missionary journeys, learning from Paul as he watched and helped. Now Paul has given Timothy a specific mission to stay in Ephesus as Paul travels on. This is Paul's letter to Timothy encouraging him to continue on in this assignment.
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia -- remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless geneologies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. (I Tim. 1:3-5)
Paul was not interested in creating a megachurch. He was
not interested in being the leader of a huge church that people would
flock to from all over the world. Instead, Paul wanted to take the gospel
of Jesus Christ to each city and town, establishing churches to continue
his work in each of those places. Paul planted the church in Ephesus,
but then he moved on, heading into a new area where the gospel had not
gone before. I think that Paul had to make a difficult choice. He could
stay with the church in Ephesus until it was perfect, or he could move
on to tell more people about the gospel. Paul consistently chose to
leave, considering the spread of the gospel to be more important than
the nurture of these infant churches. It didn't always work out well.
Paul needed to write some harsh letters to the churches in Corinth and
Galatia and to send Timothy to Ephesus to set the church back the way
that it supposed to go. But Paul also trusted that the head of the church
is the Lord Jesus Himself and Jesus would lead His church.
I can imagine that there were many things that were less than perfect
about the church in Ephesus. But what were the things that Paul wanted
Timothy to correct? First, Paul tells Timothy to stop people from spending
time on things that cause arguments rather than building each other
up in the faith. I come from a culture which loves to argue. My brother
and I would sit around the living room arguing about anything just to
have a good discussion. Whatever my brother would start to talk about,
I would take the opposite view just for arguments sake. The discussion
would go around and around with neither of us making much progress,
until we finally got bored of it and moved on to another topic. There
are many spiritual things that can turn into this kind of dispute, but
Paul says that they are worthless. Does this mean that we can't stretch
our minds at church? Does it mean that we can only talk about things
that we know, that are safe, that are approved? No, but it means that
we need to make sure that our talk is productive. Let me give you some
guidlines about what is and what is not productive. We have many small
group meetings, Bible studies, and chances for people to talk one on
one, so it is a good things to learn what is good for building others
up in their faith.
Let's start with the Bible. We believe that the Bible is our primary
source of truth, God's word revealed to us. So, the Bible becomes our
best way to measure what is helpful and what is not. There is a lot
of extra material out there, many books and testimonies of spiritual
experiences that people have had. But if it is not in the Bible then
it does not build us up. Even though it sounds really good. Recently
there has been a boom in angels in the U.S. Suddenly everybody was talking
about experiences with angels. Near-death experiences are also popular,
with people reporting seeing a bright light or seeing loved ones who
have died. These things seem to be harmless. After all there are angels
in the Bible, right. Near-death experiences help prove that there is
life after death, right. Actually what they do is distract people away
from the real issue at hand, which is that they need to be assured of
their salvation in Jesus Christ. They need to grow in grace and love
so that they can rely on the power of Jesus Christ. These kinds of topics
might be interesting but they don't build us up.
Another kind of thing that we like to talk about are stories that we
don't really know to be true. A spiritual discussion can degenerate
to trading stories that we heard from friends about the miracle or the
healing that happened to their great aunt twenty years ago. This is
more a kind of Christian entertainment than actually building up anyone's
faith. Paul calls these things fables. Who knows, your friend's great
aunt might really have been healed twenty years ago, but the point is
"who knows?" It doesn't build up anyone's faith. This is why
I continually ask you to share what God has been doing in your life.
There are enough real miracles that we do not have to start trading
tall tales.
Paul also mentions "endless geneologies". In the Jewish culture
it was very important which tribe you were descended from. It still
is important, as a recent report on CNN showed. Some DNA research was
done on the rabbinical class of Kohathite Jews. It turns out that they
really are descended directly for over 400 years and possibly for thousands
of years. What these geneologies did though was to set up who was over
whom. It was a way of determining who was more important in the church.
Nowadays we might not do it by geneologies but power struggles in churches
are very common and once it begins, Paul is right in saying that it
is endless. Battles over power in a church just go back and forth, with
each side forgetting what Jesus said about the first being last and
he who would be greatest being a servant of all.
The goal of our talk should be to build each other up in our relationship
with God. All of these things that we have talked about; stuff that
is not in the Bible, fantastic stories that you cannot prove, power
struggles and gossip about other people in the church, they might be
interesting but they do not bring us closer to God. So Paul told his
young leader, Timothy to shut it down.
Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was commited to my trust. (I Tim. 1:5-11)
There was another problem that Paul needed to talk with
Timothy about as well. There were some in the church who thought that
they knew the Bible better than everyone else. These people wanted to
become teachers of the law, telling everybody else what to do. I often
run across this kind of guy. He is on fire for the truth. He really
talks about discipleship and commitment and holiness. But Paul really
was a teacher of the law, he had been trained at the best rabbinical
school in Jerusalem. And Paul says, "We know that the law is good
if one uses it lawfully" Oh, yeah, the law is great, if you use
it the way that it was meant to be used. And the way it is meant to
be used is not on the righteous, but for the sinners. The law shows
the sinner what is right and the depth of his need for God. So if you
are a sinner, lawless and insubordinate, go ahead and dive into the
law. But if you are like me, saved by grace, then rely on that grace.
Does this mean that holiness and discipleship and commitment are not
important? Not at all. It is my strong desire that each of you become
committed to working out the truth of the Bible in your own lives. I
hope that each one of you will submit yourselves to the Lordship of
Jesus Christ in all areas of your lives. But what I do not want to allow
is for anyone to put you back into slavery. Jesus Christ paid the price
to set us free from sin. Don't let anyone hang sin around your neck
again telling you "Don't do this, don't do that or else you will
be breaking the law." This is not how we do it. Paul tells us that
these teachers have "strayed". They have gotten off course.
It is very easy to do. But, "The purpose of the commandment is
love", if you get away from this theme then you are in danger of
teaching what you do not understand. My purpose is not discipleship.
My purpose is not personal holiness. My purpose is not discovering the
truth. My purpose is love. Now I know that to love effectively, I need
to be disciplined in my walk with Christ. To love effectively, I need
to walk in holiness, imitating Christ. To love effectively, I need to
know the truth about myself and God. But the purpose of all these things
is that I might love. If I stray from this I am in danger of putting
myself back under the law.
Paul expands on this by saying what kind of love we should be aiming
for. "Love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere
faith." A pure heart means one that is totally devoted to Jesus.
If you are totally devoted to Jesus you will be holy. It is not a question
of being afraid of punishment, or trying to keep a set of rules. A good
conscience is one that is at peace with itself. If you are constantly
trying to figure out what is right and wrong, what is sin and what is
not, what is bad and what can I get away with, then your conscience
is not at peace. If you are struggling with your conscience, my best
advice to you is to give up. Let your conscience win, it is only doing
its job. Finally our love is from a sincere faith. Faith that trusts
that the Lord who loved us enough to save us, also loves us enough to
perfect us. We need to believe that God is good enough to work with
us through our faults. Like Paul was willing to leave the baby churches
in the hands of God so that He could get on with spreading the love
of Jesus to other places, we also need to trust God that He will grow
us in holiness as we focus on spreading His love.
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according
to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may
wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some
having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom
are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may
learn not to blaspheme. (I Tim. 1:12-20)
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