1 Timothy 1:1-11
We are back with a new year and I was going to continue with the book of Daniel but I have been studying 1 Timothy and because of that I would like to start the year off there. We will go to Daniel a little later.
One last thing before we get started feel free to post I love to hear everyone’s thoughts. It is ok to disagree with others, just understand we may disagree with you as will.
(1 Timothy 1:1-11)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 To Timothy, a true son in the faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. 5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
8 But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 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, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.
My Thoughts:
The problem I have seen during my time in the church is that people love to come in and distract the members with things that do not really matter. They spend their days telling us what they have been studying is “New light” and tell the people that this is for no better term a sal vational issue and if we do not listen and believe what they are telling us well we might as well stay home.
Well that is why I am starting this series this Sabbath and I will be posting the sermons by the following Monday morning.
So what are we going to get out of 1 Timothy today?
We’ll see that this book tells us that we most have accurate beliefs. Accurate beliefs about God, about our world, and about ourselves and we will see that they are essential to putting down deep spiritual roots. How do we plant these roots? We do this through prayer, Bible study, solitude, and even confessing our sins.
There is an old song by Kenny Chesney called “everyone wants to go to Heaven” and in there he say that he put a 20 in the offering plate a dollar for everything he did last night and one to get him through today. Now I know it is just a song but most people practice religion that way.
So my point here is, it’s hard to have Christian community when you look at the back of another person’s head for an hour and then go home until next week.
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 To Timothy, a true son in the faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
This letter begins in a typical fashion, with Paul naming himself as the sender and naming Timothy as the addressee. However, even though Paul only names Timothy in these letters, it appears that Paul also had the entire Ephesian church in the back of his mind when he wrote.
Paul assumed that the Ephesian church members would also read this letter, so he writes to bolster Timothy’s spiritual authority as Paul’s official representative to try to make Timothy’s job a little easier.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.
Here we also learn why Paul has Timothy staying in Ephesus. Apparently some people in the Ephesian church are teaching false ideas about God. It was only about five years earlier, Paul had a special meeting with all the elders of the church in Ephesus, and he warned them at that time that he feared some of the elders would fall away and become false teachers. Apparently Paul’s fear had come to pass.
We don’t know much about what these false teachers were saying, but we learn here that at least part of it has something to do with devotion to myths and genealogies. When Paul wrote this letter, several Jewish writings had been produced that tried to read between the lines of these genealogies found in the Old Testament. Entire books had been written that speculated about what happened to the people mentioned in these genealogies. And these books consisted of legends and tales of these people, and they were pure fiction.
So, Paul says this excessive devotion to myths, genealogies and other issues that they were focusing on were leading them to nothing but controversy. Paul tells us that it only hinders rather than promotes God’s work.
Accurate beliefs involve us in this process of reaching out to lost people and helping each other grow into full devotion to Christ. Inaccurate beliefs distract us from this master plan, focusing our attention instead of controversies that can’t be solved.
5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,
Paul states his purpose for giving Timothy this command to silence false teachers. Although this command to silence false teachers is going to be a difficult one to accomplish. Paul’s aim is to produce love rather than controversy, reconciliation rather than strife.
Where does this kind of love come from? It comes from “a pure heart.” This is not a heart that’s never been dirty, but it’s a dirty heart that’s being cleansed by God through Jesus Christ. All of our hearts need continual and ongoing cleansing from sin, and Christ’s death on the cross provides for this cleansing. Hearts that aren’t cleansed by Jesus Christ can’t love with the kind of love Paul is speaking of here.
This kind of love also comes from “a sincere faith.” This refers to an authentic trust in God, a trust in God that’s not just religious showboating.
6 from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.
8 But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 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, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.
Apparently, in addition to speculating about the genealogies in the Bible, these false teachers desperately wanted to be “teachers of the law.” And as, as rigid as these false teachers were, they really didn’t understand God’s law. Paul tells us that just reading the Law and even being able to recite it does not mean that you understand to law. And he reminds us that the Old Testament Law of Moses found in the Ten Commandments is only valuable if it’s used properly.
The law was never meant for us to use against each other; I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people using the commandments as a stick to bash someone else over the head. We must remember that the true purpose of the 10 Commandment are to help us understand God’s character.
While many of the religious people back when Paul wrote these words looked at the Ten Commandments in this way, Paul tells young Timothy that this presses the law into a role God never intended for the law.
Throughout the New Testament, God’s gospel is the good news about Jesus and what Jesus accomplished for us. For the Christian, the gospel ought to be the criteria for evaluating every belief we have. We look at life through the lens of the gospel to come to beliefs that are sound and produce spiritual health in our lives.
Ellen White statement:
Not Obedient, but Transgressors, Under Bondage.–Paul in his Epistle to Timothy describes the very men who are under the bondage of the law. They are the transgressors of the law. He names them lawless, disobedient, sinners, unholy, profane, murderers, adulterers, liars, and all who depart from sound doctrine.
The law of God is the mirror to show man the defects in his character. But it is not pleasant to those who take pleasure in unrighteousness to see their moral deformity. They do not prize this faithful mirror, because it reveals to them their sins. Therefore, instead of instituting a war against their carnal minds, they war against the true and faithful mirror, given them by Jehovah for the very purpose that they may not be deceived, but that they may have revealed to them the defects in their character…
The Bondage of Legal Religion.–The spirit of bondage is engendered by seeking to live in accordance with legal religion, through striving to fulfill the claims of the law in our own strength. There is hope for us only as we come under the Abrahamic covenant, which is the covenant of grace by faith in Christ Jesus. The gospel preached to Abraham, through which he had hope, was the same gospel that is preached to us today, through which we have hope. Abraham looked unto Jesus, who is also the Author and the Finisher of our faith. {6BC 1077.7}
Last thoughts:
God what’s to live a life that is free of bondage, but when we allow ourselves to be deceived by these false teachers we limit ourselves to what man has planned for us not what God has planned for us.
About bobh6
40 Days of study 
Hey, Glad you are back. I have been missing these studies. It has been so long my mind is rusty so my comments may only make sense to me. It is amazing to me how many people these days are looking for something but are ready to fall in to the first group that comes along. We, as a group of people who are seeking to follow the Lord in His way must be so careful of others coming in and teaching “New ideas”. We always assume that the Lord will take care of His church and nothing evil or sinful will touch us. Instead, we need to realize that evil is going to attack us at every turn. We must pray and study the Word and pray some more. We need to learn not to attack each other, not to judge each other and live by the Word of God.
I am glad to see you back too Rosi, I agree with you and the first example that comes to my mind is that we have a group trying to focus on the 144,000, to me this is just like what happened in the time of Paul and Timothy, there they focused on genealogy and now we just have something new, but the intent is the same and that is to distract God’s people for the main focus and that is Jesus. Satan plays a hard game and will do everything he can to win.
After reading this, it is brought to my mind that we tend to become legalistic about things. “If I do this, God will do that”. I am really struggling to find God’s will for my life and need this reminder that we need need to continually seek Him in order to know what He has in mind for us. His Word is full of promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him; He wants us to be healthy and prosper; He has our best interests at heart. But we must be obedient to ALL of His commands. Thanks for this new study–I’m looking forward to it!
I think you are right Gayle, I think we can get so wrapped up in our lives and the things that are going on in them that we forget the most basic form of communication with God. I cannot tell you how many times I have forgotten to stop and pray when times are hard in my life. The thing is we try to find ways to fix our problems when all we need to do stop, kneel and pray and ask Jesus to come into our lives and help. I like that: Stop, Kneel and Pray; sounds like a good sermon title and a good approach to life.
I know that God has many things for you Gayle and you and your family is always in our prayers.
I was recommended thjs website by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him
as nobody else know such detailed about my difficulty.
You are amazing! Thanks!
Hi there, just wanted to mention, I liked this article.
It was practical. Keep on posting!