Beware Of Confident False Teachers (1 Tim. 1:1-7)

 

Paul was making his way to Macedonia (northern Greece) and he left Timothy at Ephesus, to fight the wolves and to feed the sheep.

  1. The pastoral authority of Paul.
    • 1:1-2. Paul writes as an apostle of the Messiah Jesus, not by good luck or as circumstances would have it, but by the command of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope. God is the Saviour of Christians in 1 Tim.1:1; 2:3; 4:10; Tit.1:3; 2:10; 3:4.

    Timothy is ‘my true child in the faith’ – what Paul believed, Timothy believed.

  2. Beware of myths and speculations.
    • 1:3-4, 6-7. These seem to be teachers of a kind of Jewish Gnosticism; that is what is mentioned in Titus 1:14. In the Book of Jubilees, we learn all sorts of weird things, such as the angels practise circumcision.
    • I heard the Egyptian pope speak on the Christ child in Egypt – Matt.2:13-15a, 19-22. He had slides of the various places – and explained how it sanctified Egypt. That kind of stuff is pointless.
    • the Bible is about history – 2 Pet.1:16. When Paul was in Ephesus he warned the elders about the wolves – Acts 20:29-30. As Calvin says, there are poisonous plants that look beautiful.
  3. Aim at teaching which edifies.
    • 1:4-5. What is the aim of faith? Love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience (Heb.10:19-22) and a ‘unhypocritical’ faith.
    • false and true confidence in 1 Tim.1:7 and 2 Tim.1:12. Josiah Bull wrote of John Newton: ‘it was his goodness rather than his greatness that rendered him so especially attractive – the abundance of the grace of God that was in him.’