It is good to be around the Lord's people, so I'm thankful for that. Alright, so if you check out for the rest of this, listen to this. You can read your Bibles. I'm not saying you should. You should. I am saying you are capable, okay? Sometimes we get the perspective, like the guy up there in the suit, he's got somehow a different inset of knowledge and ability that's beyond me and I can't attain to it, so I'm just going to listen passively and leave it at that. No. You can read your Bible. You have that ability, okay? Can you read your Bibles? You can. If you know how to read, you can read your Bibles, okay? Remember that, okay? Is it good for you to read the Word of God? Yeah. Well, is it important to have breakfast? I tend to skip breakfast. Is it important to have lunch? By lunchtime, I'm pretty hungry, right? That's important. If I skip breakfast and lunch, what happens at dinnertime? I'm feeling a little grumpy, a little weak-headed. I need some food! My family knows when I skip breakfast and lunch. That's not a good thing, but they know, right? You need daily food of spiritual food. The Word of God is spiritual food. You need that nourishment. Do we believe that? Yeah, we know that up here, but what do we forget to do? Go eat! If you've ever been on a cruise, most of the time they've got a buffet that's always open. People are going to get their money's worth, right? We're going to go to that buffet three or four times a day. 24-7. The buffet is open. Come and dine. Right? Okay? Okay. That's my introduction. All right. How do I, as the preacher, approach teaching a book? Well I could just do it and then I could teach the book or I could teach you how I approach it. Okay? There's nothing magical about it. Alright? Who wrote the letter to Timothy? Paul! Who did he write it to? Timothy! You've already learned something. Good. This letter was not written in a vacuum. What do I mean by that? It means it wasn't just put on paper and then posted on a bulletin board and anybody who happened to come by and see it can see it. This was written at a specific time from an individual who we know, the Apostle Paul, to an individual who we know, Timothy. So, when I'm reading a letter, I want to know everything I can about it in the context of what do I know about those individuals, when is it written, what's going on, so that I can kind of piece together what is this letter talking about, right? If you were to write a letter to your best friend, would you give all the back story for all the references of everything that happens in that letter? You know, you're talking kind of shorthand at times, right? Because you already know, right? You've had this common experience and so there are things that you can say shortly or in brief that you don't have to give the 10,000 word version of it because the person reading it already knows, okay? So we have a writer and we have a reader that was originally written to. Now, this is Scripture. This is inspired by God. And so it is therefore profitable for all of us. And so there are things we can definitely take out of this and learn and apply. Yes, please do. But when you're starting from it, start from the simplest spot. Who was it written from? Who was it written to? And what do you know about those individuals? Where is a good place to learn a whole lot about the Apostle Paul? The book of Acts, the book of Acts of the apostles, right? Paul's an apostle, right? He wasn't there at the very beginning. He was brought in a little bit later, right? He used to be. a really bad dude. That's the technical term. He was an enemy overtly of God. He was a terrorist of the church. If we were in Paul's day before he was converted and we were meeting here, he could come in the door and bring the sheriff with him and haul us out in chains because we are professing that Jesus is the Christ. And that's when God said, I'm going to make this guy to be one of my chief emissaries or ambassadors to speak on my behalf. Paul, you can learn a whole lot about him by reading the Acts of the Apostles. So what do I recommend you do? Read the whole Acts of the Apostles, right? And you'll see that the Apostle Paul goes on multiple trips, okay? And I would, when you're reading the Acts of the Apostles, get that little map out of the back of your Bible, and kind of follow along with the finger, because there's really four of them, or two that are combined together. It says, all right, his first trip, he went here, and you see all these arrows, and you can just look at it, and your eyes can glaze over. Or you can be reading along your text, and say, oh, I can see that one, okay? And then a little bit, oh, he's down here. Well, that's like, that's like 100 miles away. And he wasn't going by car, right? foot or ship or something, and you just kind of go through and you kind of get an idea. Well, over the course of his first trip, he comes to a particular town, and I'm going to be paraphrasing at the 10,000 foot level today, okay? Give me that grace today, because if I go in detail, we won't be here until like four in the afternoon. I'm going to try not to do that. One of the first towns that he visits on that first trip happens to be a town that Timothy lives at, right? And Timothy's grandmother and mother, who are Jews, They're believers. Timothy's father is a Greek. We don't know much about him, other than we know that Timothy wasn't circumcised, which is what would normally happen for a young Jewish boy. We don't hear anything about Timothy in that trip, other than Paul went to his town. And then later, Paul goes back to his home church there in Antioch, and he reports about how it went. And then later, he and Barnabas decide, we need to go back and check on all those people, all those churches that we founded, see how they're doing. And so they go, except for they kind of had a tiff over who they were going to take with them, because Barnabas' nephew, John Mark, kind of abandoned ship. early, early on in that first port of the first trip. And so Paul's like, no, I don't want to take this guy. He's not he's not useful. Getting too far in the details. Anyway, Paul takes Silas and he goes. And eventually on the course of that second trip, he's going to get back to that town and he's going to meet Timothy. Timothy at this time is already a believer. He's already got a really good reputation there in town and even the city abroad. And Paul decides, I'm going to take you with me on my trip. OK. And so he is going to continue on, and we're traveling through Turkey, by the way, and eventually they're going to go across the Aegean Sea to Greece, and they're going to travel through Philippi and Thessalonica, down to Athens and Corinth, and I'm hitting a lot of cities, and I'm saying those cities because you should recognize letters that were later sent to the churches there. The letter to the Philippians, that's the church at? Philippi. The Thessalonicans, letter to the Thessalonians, right? Thessalonica, that city. Corinth, they had? It's a big city in southern Greece, northern Greece, down in southern Greece. All right. Why are you going through all this, Brother John? Well, Timothy spent a good deal of time with Paul, OK? Paul, we know, was in Corinth for about 18 months, maybe even two years. And when he finished up that journey, he kind of bypassed Ephesus. He didn't really Take a long stop there. But later on his third journey, he would come to the city of Ephesus, and they hadn't even heard the whole teaching of the gospel yet. They still had only heard up until John the Baptist's teaching. And so he's teaching them about the Holy Spirit, and they're getting baptized again, right? All that scene where he is staying, and then he stays at Ephesus. Paul's there at Ephesus for another couple years. So you've got these journeys that Timothy's on. We don't know how long that journey took. We know when he stayed somewhere a long time. We know that he was with Paul for several years. Five, six, seven, I don't know. And then after his fourth journey, Paul is going to wind up going back to Jerusalem, having a really bad day. He's going to be falsely accused of bringing a Jew into a Jewish, a Gentile into a Jewish only portion of the temple, and they're going to try and kill him. like just beat him to death or whatever, and the Romans wind up intervening. And Paul winds up being put in prison, probably for several years. He goes through several different Roman overseers of the community as he's kind of on trial. The Jews want to kill him. I mean, there's some guys who made a facet that said, we're not going to eat or drink anything until that guy's dead. I think eventually they ate, because he didn't die. Jesus actually appeared to him and said, you're going to Rome. You're going to preach there. And so he's got this long trip where Paul goes by ship, via shipwreck, all the way to Rome. And the Acts of the Apostles ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest. They say he was there for two years. That's as far as we know about that chronology of early church, Jesus' ascension, up to Paul being under house arrest. So if you've kind of got that all under your belt, which I know you don't at this point, but you can read the whole book of Acts and kind of buffer that up. When you approach this letter in Timothy, you're trying to figure out, all right, where does this fall into play? Where in the midst of all this journey does it take place? And so we're going to give you some of the clues that I'm looking for. Sorry about that. So verse 3. Paul is writing to Timothy. We spent two messages on those first two verses. Verse three says, I besought thee to abide still in Ephesus when I went into Macedonia. Macedonia is a region. That is northern Greece. That's where Philippi is. Thessalonica, Berea, all those things if you're looking on your map. So, where is Timothy at? Ephesus I told you to stay behind because the rest of letters gonna be giving you some instructions on what to do there says well I went ahead to Macedonia now I Won't make you spend the rest of the week trying to find where that occurs in the book of Acts It's not there Okay, there's not a time where you see Paul going ahead and Timothy staying behind at Ephesus and There's times when it's reversed, where Paul's staying in Ephesus, and Timothy goes ahead to Macedonia. And so you've got one of two conclusions. Either there's something that Luke, a journey that he didn't record, or you're dealing with events that occur after Paul gets out of house arrest in those two years in Rome, which is the more likely of the two, because when you read 2 Timothy, he talks about, at his first defense, no man stood with him. And then now he's got a second defense coming up where he thinks he's going to die. And so here you've got something that's going on, most likely after all the things that have taken place in the Book of Acts. Well, what happened at Ephesus when Timothy went ahead and Paul stayed behind? That was a riot. There was a mob. The silversmiths got really upset. But this guy Paul is coming to town saying there is one God and all these little silver figurines that we've been selling and making some really good merch and people are buying them like crazy. They don't believe that those are real anymore and our revenue stream is going to be hurt and so we need to kill him. That's what they want to do. So there's a big old mob and they're all hooping and hollering because Ephesus was known as a real kind of pilgrimage or Mecca spot for Diana. It was it was kind of one of the wonders of the ancient world and so people would travel to Ephesus because it was associated with the goddess of Diana and so these silversmiths were really good at making little images of Diana and they really didn't want to stop because then they wouldn't make any money, right? It's upsetting. He was messing with their pocketbooks. You want to upset people, mess with their pocketbooks, right? So There's this massive mob and Paul tries to go into this amphitheater where they're all gathered together, the whole town shouting and saying, great is Diana, the goddess, all this stuff. And the apostles, not the apostles, the other disciples say, no, Paul, don't go in there. They've already gathered some of their friends. They don't want Paul because they're afraid he's going to die. And so just pretty shortly thereafter, Paul leaves Ephesus to go on and join Timothy, who was abroad. So, all that being said is when I'm reading a book, I'm trying to figure out where does it fall into place. So you've got where's the writer at, where's he from, all these kind of little clues that you can piece together. Many of the letters that Paul wrote, he was writing when he was in jail. How do you know that? Because he uses the expression, in my bonds. We've got several examples in here that says, verse 14 of chapter 3. These things I write unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God." So he is anticipating that he's going to be able to come back. Well, not always. He went to Macedonia, so he's got freedom of travel. He's hoping to be able to come back to Ephesus to teach and encourage him some more. Also, in chapter 4, down in verse 13, he uses the expression, you know, remember all these things, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. What's the benefit of this, Brother Jonathan? I'm trying to teach you how to look for clues. You could go read a summary that someone else has prepared on the letter of 1 Timothy. If you've got a study Bible or something, they'll give you some and they'll state very authoritatively, this is when it happened and this is the year, all these things. And often they're giving you information that's not in Scripture. They're relying on extra-scriptural Sources. Scripture is sufficient. Often, y'all will ask me questions and I will have to say, it doesn't say. Sometimes I say, I don't know. I'll look, but sometimes the answer doesn't say. What kind of dog did Adam have? You want to argue about it? It doesn't say, right? And that's one of the things Paul's going to be addressing towards Timothy, is that there's an amount of information that God has given and contained in His Word, and it's sufficient. And if it's not there, don't go chasing after it. You don't need extra-scriptural information in order to understand this. Sometimes those are cheat sheets, and they can tell you, hey, go look here in this verse, and this verse, and this verse, and this verse. That's fine. I have no problem with you using references that send you back to Scripture. But if you get to an author who just says, well, just trust me. I'm a scholar. Go to Scripture. You can read your Bibles. And you can read your Bibles with the intent of studying your Bibles. Y'all know the difference between reading and studying. Generally, one has a pen involved, right? Because you can't hang on to everything, all these different connections. All right, Paul's over here at Ephesus at this time, and now he's over here, and you kind of got to go with a pen and think about what it is you're trying to figure out. Well, my question here as I'm first approaching this letter is, when does this fall in place? Because I need to know what experiences have Paul and Timothy already both experienced and experienced together, okay? And so knowing that this is most likely occurring after the Book of Acts, then I can pretty much assure you that all that background in Acts has occurred. So things like Paul sending Timothy back to Thessalonica. He has already been sent on trips. either with someone else, but without Paul's benefit, where he had to go and teach, and encourage, and hold people accountable. So this is not the first time that that's happened. Also, if you look to the years, okay? Go look for years in Corinth. How many years was there? How many years was in Ephesus? How many years was he in prison in Rome? You start adding up those years, and even though we don't know exactly how long those journeys took, you start covering some time. We talk about, oh, young Timothy. He'd probably been with Paul for over a decade at this point. He's not a greenhorn. He's been traveling for a long, long time, but he is still in a really hard spot because the Apostle left him here at Ephesus, and there's problems. And not only present problems, Paul is a prophet. When he says, the Spirit speaketh expressly, that means the Holy Spirit is telling Paul, this is something that's going to happen in the future. I have enough trouble trying to deal with problems right now. If I know about the problems of the future, that's a big task that Timothy is going to be tasked with trying to address. Okay? So, let's look. So Paul is riding. He's not in jail. Most likely he's still across the Aegean Sea, several hundred miles away. And he's concerned for Timothy. Yes, he is younger. He was a young man when he picked him up there in Acts 16 or so. But we've had a lot of time that's passed since then. He's been with Paul. He's been watching. He's been having assignments where he has to go off on his own, right? And you read in the Corinthians letter, he says, I'm going to send Timothy unto you. You just do, oh, that's the other thing, all right? Study tips. You want to learn more about Timothy? Do a word search for the word Timothy. and Timotheus. Two different spellings, same guy. And then you can see all the times he's referenced. And the times he says, I'm sending, or he just came back from your I'm sending. Timothy was a busy little fella. I don't know how old he was at this point, but the idea is that he had a lot of experience before you got to this letter. Also, Timothy tended to be sent times, sent to places for a relatively short period of time. There is a conception in church history, which is that's what we use as a term for when people are using information that's not contained in scripture, that Timothy was the first bishop or pastor at the city of Ephesus. Pastors and bishops tend to be those that stay put. Rather, Timothy was a representative of the Apostle Paul. He was an evangelist delivering an apostolic message. So he was not there to oversee the church. He was there to teach and encourage primarily the elders, to make sure that they're all on the same page, teaching the right thing, and then to make sure that the church is not getting off into various distractions. Let's see how much farther we can get today. All right, so when I'm reading, Timothy, I want to know as much as I can about the writer. I want to know as much as I can about the recipient. I want to know when has it occurred, and I want to know what clues within the letter and other references happen. You're swapping me out? I appreciate you. All right. Now, we're going to spend a good amount of time going through Timothy because it's just chock full of stuff. It's wonderful. And if the Lord wills, in 30 minutes I'm going to try and give you a summary of the whole book. We'll see how it goes. Because I don't know how else to approach this because so often we zoom in so close on one piece of scripture that we kind of lose the, what's the whole thing? What's going on? Alright? What's going on? Big picture. Paul's not there. Agree? He's across the Aegean Sea. He's riding back. And there's some things. I'm sure he talked to Timothy before he left. And it takes a little bit of time for a letter to get back several hundred miles, right? This is not days of one-day shipping or two-day shipping, right? You've got to hand your letter to a carrier, one of your friends who's willing to get on a boat and travel probably several days or weeks or months, however far the distance is, to get to the site, all right? So, he's concerned that Timothy knows some things. The Holy Spirit's inspiring him to make sure he writes it. And so, what are some things he needs to be on guard about? So, verse 3, I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus. This is why I asked you to stay there while I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some, that they teach no other doctrine, Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do." Alright, so, big picture for the letter. There are two kind of aspects that Timothy is going to be responsible for dealing with. One, destructive doctrinal deviations. Shimmer of alliteration, remember that, right? Doctrinal deviations. and problematic practices. There's teaching a bad doctrine that he needs to charge them to be on guard against, not to teach it and not to pay attention to it. And there's also some bad practices problematic practices that he needs to affirmatively address. Okay, that's really everything else in that letter is going to fall into one of those two buckets of doctrine or practice. And generally in a teaching, you know, traditional teaching form, it's going to be, here's the negative thing to avoid, but you don't just leave it there. It's a, here's the positive thing that you do instead. Okay. All right. You as a parent, if you just tell your kid, don't do that and you don't give them that something else of here's the right thing to do, you're going to, struggle, right? So, starting off with precautions against these doctrinal deviations. Again, trying to give summary level. Charging someone that they teach no other doctrine. Well, what are they talking about? Well, what's the original, right? when it talks about just the faith, right? Well, what's that? That's the message that Paul came and taught, right? That Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He has delivered all of His peoples from their sins, and that the faith that He gives us that connects us to Him is how that we know and are assured of what He's done, alright? His work is sufficient. This is the good news of the Gospel, alright? Now I want you to think about this, going back to that church. If Timothy is there and he's talking to the church, what is not sitting in their laps? Bible, right. The New Testament hadn't been written yet. Okay? And so, Paul leaves and you've got another individual who comes into town coming, I've come to give you the good word. Yes, we know Paul. Yes, he forgot to tell you something. He left out a part. He didn't emphasize the right thing. And so, you've got all of this verbal information that can be given and you don't have the same level of just fact checking in black and white that you and I have today. Okay? And so you also don't have, you know, generations of elders who've been teaching for many, many, many, many, many years. You know, Ephesus is a young church. Paul was there on site for about two years and then he told him bye later and he went to Rome. And so it's probably been a good while that they've been established, but still probably less than 15 years. And again, I'm having to round these numbers. I don't know exactly, but this is not, You know, we established our church in 1837. You've got a 200 year history. It's a baby church without the instruction manual. And so the ability to be deceived, the ability to be let off track, the ability to be distracted from the core things is very real. Now don't get passive in our day and age because it is easy for us to get distracted and to let off track and to listen to all manner of false teachers. Sister Marty sent me a message that was bothering her from somebody on Facebook. It was a fellow who was all dressed up in a black robe and was hanging on a gold cross. flashing pictures between old mosaics of Jesus like in the background. It was about to make me just seasick watching it. But you know, all this impressive visualness and he's just rambling on, but he's trying to have the appearance of credibility. But the idea is that there's a lot of sources of information out there, and you have the ability to really cut a lot of it off at the knees with a little bit of effort in staying grounded in your word. There are those who are going to be coming into this town, and Timothy is going to have to charge them. Who's the them? The teachers. Those could be elders. Those could be just other men who are coming into town claiming to speak on Christ's behalf, and he's got to Keep it straight. Keep it straight and narrow. Keep it to the faith. Not adding things in. What's an example of something that gets added in? Towards the middle of chapter 1, it's going to be people who are coming in and saying, yes, Jesus is great, but you have to keep the law too. Okay? Now, whether that's circumcision, or whether that's the diet you eat, or whether that's traveling to Jerusalem for feasts, they take and pick in pieces of chews. Chews, pick in pieces. They get stuff from the law and try and layer it on. So it's Jesus is great plus model. Jesus plus this that you do, which we call that a work, right? In order for salvation to be effective, right? And so Paul is going to tell Timothy, you've got to charge them not to teach those other doctrines. That Jesus plus model, whatever that plus is, that's an other. But not only do you have to charge them not to teach it, you have to charge them not to give heed to it. One's a charge to the one yapping, the other's a charge to the one listening, giving heed. Husbands, we've had the ability to not give heed to our wives at times, right? We've been accused of selective hearing, right? When that baby's cried at 3 a.m., I just didn't hear. Right? Well, this is not talking about just passing. This is talking about an intentionality of that you're hearing something that's wrong, not laying credit to it, not heeding it, not abiding it. And so what is he talking about? Fables. Endless genealogies, right? Adding in, you know, because there is There's Jewish history and tradition and stories that aren't contained in Scripture that people try to layer on, and it didn't just have to be Jewish, it could be any culture, and try to layer on and say, this is true too, and this matters for your worship, and oh yeah, we've got to track down your genealogy. Which tribe are you from? What descendant of Noah are you? It doesn't matter. Right? It's a distraction. It says those types of things lend themselves to debate and strife and arguing. Right? Well, was Adam's dog a German Shepherd? Well, I think it was a poodle. Right? There is no answer, and so all you can do is fight about it. Is that how God designed His church? No! The purpose of coming together is that we should be edified, built up, strengthened, not torn down because we're trying to see who are each other smarter than the other, right? I don't want to say I'm the best, I'm the smartest, and that means you're not. So I'm going to come up with something new and clever and novel and original, right? We are here to hear about the old, old story. You know the thing about the old, old story? It don't change. And so, if I'm up here, well, I have got some new insight, new revelation, new information that no one's ever heard. Y'all head for the door. All right? That's a problem. Okay? So, dangers in doctrinal deviations. Yeah, well, one's adding in Jesus plus, right? Adding in some work that you have to do in order to be effective. How does Paul counter that? I'm going too slow. I've got to go faster. Maybe I need to talk faster. How does Paul counter that? He says, look at my life for an example. Was I doing the righteous thing before the Lord got a hold of me? He was a church terrorist. And so if your salvation was dependent on you being good enough under the terms of the law, he's like, I wouldn't be a preacher, right? He says that's not even the purpose of the law, and we'll look at this deeper another time, alright? But the idea is that I was a pattern. That's what it says in verse 16. how that I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which hereafter believe on Him, to life everlasting." He says, I'm the example of the worst of the worst still being salvageable. How do you want to put that word, right? To be delivered, not because I was righteous and kept the law, but because of how great and long-suffering God is that He could save even me, right? And so when Paul talked about being the chief of sinners, that was not a humble back pat. Oh, I'm just the worst. I'm the chief of all sinners. I mean, not much debate. He had a lot of problems. And there's probably a lot of folks who had a real hard time that first time he came into church. In fact, he wanted to preach at Jerusalem and they're like, he's probably a spy. Barnabas had to kind of vouch for him for him to be even admitted in to their gathering. And you know, that fact is just so amazing. You ever wondered why in verse 17 it says, Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Like it doesn't go with any of the rest of the sentences. Where does that come from? It's because Paul has just declared, I was a terrible sinner and God loved me anyway. I've got to stop and just praise Him. I'm in the middle of a letter and I have got to praise Him. Okay? You think y'all ever need to stop in your day and just praise Him? Yeah, you do. Okay. All right. So this charge I give thee son Timothy according to prophecies that went before on thee right prophecies at that time Often it was literal prophecies right Paul's, you know, you know, they're laying hands on Timothy They're anointing him to be an elder and they're saying here's some things that they're gonna happen Here's some things you can do and so he had some information about what was coming He says by those things we told you you need to war a good warfare. I Does that mean being a preacher is easy? No, right? It says hold faith and good conscience. All right, faith, the doctrine, good conscience, how you live it out. the practice. He says, you've got to have both, Bubba. You've got to have the truth and you've got to live it out. Good conscience, alright? Bad conscience is where I'm teaching you this and then over here on secret, I'm doing this. You've got to have both, alright? He said, there are some who've already departed from the faith. And you've got Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I've delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. Now I want you to think about this, that you as young Timothy, I'm going to jump around a little bit, have got to go to another elder who is teaching other doctrine and fables and genealogies. Wouldn't you like to have this letter with you when you go? Brother so-and-so? And I'm just jumping ahead. When it gets to chapter five, that's what Paul is telling Timothy. How do you go about doing that? When it talks about rebuke not an elder, this is talking about when you're approaching someone who is older than you and in error, you do it the same way that you would entreat your father. He says, you're not going to go up there and be a little hot-headed, bringing down the hammer. with patience and with grace and with tact. You still speak the truth, but you do it respectfully. When it's someone your own age, you treat them like a brother. When it's a sister that's older than you, you treat them like a mother. It's another sister. The idea is that you're not there to be a sledgehammer, but everything you do has to be with grace and speaking the truth in love. That's a letter to the Ephesians that Paul wrote. The first charge is really concerning the doctrine. Chapter 1, concern about Jesus plus model. He said, that is problematic. Is that going to lead a church astray? Do we live in a time when most Christian denominations subscribe to some version of the Jesus plus model? So it's just as problematic then as it is now. All right. Chapter two leads into this wonderful encouragement that you need to pray for all men. And we just think of that, well, that's wonderful. Yes. Pray for all men. What city are we in? Ephesus. What had happened in the history of Ephesus? Are they real fans of Christians in Ephesus? No! It says pray for your leaders. Pray for your king. Pray for Caesar, right? When Jesus said, do good to those who despitefully use you and bless those who persecute you, right? Love your enemies. It wasn't a hypothetical, right? This is a time when the church had genuine destructive forces that are trying to squish it. And the charge to them is to do good to them, pray for them, bless them. And if you read down to chapter two where it gets to Verse 8, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So what is the negative? Because this one starts with the positive. This is the positive thing I want you to do. Praying for all men, especially those who are in authority, that you may live quiet and peaceable lives. All of our men, all of our brothers, be praying everywhere without wrath and doubting. So what's the negative? That he's concerned that the church will get wrapped up in a bad practice? Wrath and doubting. Are we at a time when wrath permeates our interaction towards the authority in our government? If it's not my guy, I'm livid. I'm angry. I'm using that term generally. I try not to be. But the idea is that at this point in our culture, Christian rage and outrage is the popular thing. Okay? Winning at all costs. Okay? The prayer is praying for all those in authority so that you and I may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. That's our goal. That's the good practice so that we can live quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty. Does that mean that those in authority are going to agree with you? No. Does that mean they're going to like you? No. Right. And so regardless of those external circumstances, as good or as bad as they may appear, this charge stands firm. I guarantee you it was worse for the church at Ephesus in connection between how their civil authorities treated them and how ours do. And yet they're charged with praying for all men. All those are in authority and not living lives full of wrath and doubting, right? You ever use the expression, well, I just don't know how my children are going to grow up in this country. What are you doing? You're doubting God's ability to take care of your children. Right? Without wrath and I am just so mad. You can be angry at sin, you can be disappointed. But really, we're apart from all that, OK? Our charge is to lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. We should be kind of the model citizens, not up in arms, but trying to do what we know is right here and now and praying that we'll be able to continue to do that. All right? Now, part of that is not writing off people. What do you mean by that? As a bad practice, we tend to write off other. However you define other. They don't look like me. They don't come from the same town or country. They have the wrong letter beside their political affiliation. Other. And when you have an other, then they can just become, well, they're just enemies. And enemies, the natural says to hate them. Is any of that consistent with what Christ taught? No. Your instruction is to love your neighbor. Who's your neighbor? Who are you supposed to show mercy on? Everybody. Right? And so part of this is there in town, in the city of Ephesus, when you're praying for all men, because that's how you get to understanding, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, praying for all men, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth, is that all manner of men, even ones who look terrible to you right now, God can still deliver. His children He will deliver. You don't know who they are, and you don't know what they look like, and you certainly can't tell by their current actions whether they are His child. He says, look at Paul. Look at my example. Don't write off people in your life. Well, you're just hopeless. I'm not going to waste my time with you. Now, you've got a discretion there when you're talking about sharing the good news. The counter of that is casting your pearls before swine. When somebody is vehemently opposed to that conversation, you don't have to beat them over the head. You're not going to be able to get through at that point. But the idea is don't take swaths of society and say, well, they're just hopeless. There's groups today who will have you believe that People in authority are just agents of Satan, and that's all they are. Well, that would imply some things about those people, like they are beyond God's reach. If they're His, they're His. So, praying for all, men everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So men, we have a danger of allowing anger, and fear and doubt to creep into our practice. The contrast to that, the anecdote to that, the positive thing that we're doing instead is spending our time in prayer with supplication prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks. Four different buckets of a type of prayer. There's no way I'm going to finish this whole book today. I still want you to have the big picture. Alright, so you've got a doctrinal issue in chapter 1. You have a real practical issue that's focused on the men in the church. And then it shifts to the sisters in the church. It says, in this manner also. Alright, so men, here's something that you tend to struggle with. Wrath and doubt, here's the positive thing. Sisters, what's something that you tend to struggle with? Caring too much about how you look. Okay? Putting an over-emphasis on the outward self. Alright? Why is there a whole beauty industry devoted to women? And I know there is some for men too, but the proportion is much smaller, right? Because those are things that you naturally are drawn to, right? This is true, we agree, okay? He says, well, the same way that men don't need to be wrapped up in wrath and doubting and they need to be praying instead, he says, you need to redefine as a Christian, as a follower of Christ, what is beauty? The world says it's the outwardness, and if I don't like this, I can just do some changes, and then I can be beauty. He said, no. Beauty is adorning yourself. That means putting on things, right? Modest apparel with shamefacedness, sobriety, not with embroidered hairs and golden pearls or costly array, but that which becometh women professing godliness with good works, okay? The idea is that it's not the external that you put on as a follower of God that's full of beauty. It is, how can I follow God from the heart out? That's the real definition of beauty. I'm trying to teach my sons that when they're looking for a wife, I want them to be seeking a godly wife, one who loves the Lord and wants to serve from the heart outward. If you're choosing someone based on how they look at 19 years old, guess what? In 40 years, they won't look like they're 19 years old. but a servant of God, right? A lover of God, a woman who's caring more about what God thinks than the external, right? Now this is not, now be careful with this, because folks will, you know, take that idea of adding things, right? Laws, or you've got to keep, you can't have this food, you can't, right? They'll take this passage here and they'll say, well, sisters, You cannot braid your hair, you cannot wear gold, you cannot wear pearls, you gotta wear blue jean skirts or whatever, right? Some guy or somebody makes a decree that says this is what the standard is and you have to keep it, right? The standard is modesty, okay? And it's not a law that defines that. This is a conviction that comes from within of how do I live that out? And then you make that best decision and guess what? What you think about it at 20 may be different than what you think at 30 or 40 or 50, right? And sisters encouraging each other and trying to come up well may not be on base. This book is beyond any specific time, all right? He didn't say, all right, sisters, you must dress like you're from the 1700s. He doesn't, right? This is an internal conviction, but it's important, all right? Alright. Not only that, we're still talking practices. He says, while we're talking about the sisters, Well, the Apostle Paul just hates women. I never heard that? I sure have. Like they want to write off something that Paul's written because he just hates women. No. Right? This is still scripture. How do you do it? What does it have to do with? It has to do with practice. OK? Whose church is this? God's? Jesus's? True answers? Does he get to design it how he will? Yeah. And so he set up roles within it. He gave two offices, one of bishop, an overseer, we also call that a pastor, and one of a deacon. And for both of those roles, he chose to put those in responsibility of men. That's his right. Do you know any men who have given birth to a child? You know why? That's how God designed it. It's his creation. He's allowed to. And he gives two reasons for them to learn with all subjection. How about that? Sisters have the right to learn. Is that common in every culture? There are things where little girls aren't allowed to go to school. So it's important to learn, but the role within the church as God designed it is that sisters are not to be the leaders and teachers. Why? Well, he gives two reasons here. Adam was first formed, then Eve. God made man in his own image. He said, it's not good for this guy to be alone. I'm going to create a helpmate for him. And then, when you've got the deception with the serpent, Eve was deceived in that. And as part of her consequence, her husband was put in rule over her. Her desire should be to her husband. The different roles we have, gender roles, these are not societal constructs. This is how God has set it up. You have the man and the husband who is supposed to be the figurehead who points to Jesus in the relationship between church and Jesus. Man, you're supposed to occupy that role, loving your wives as Jesus loves his church. And that is a huge responsibility, full of self-sacrificial love. And sisters, you're supposed to respect your husbands and love them. The same way that the church respects and loves Jesus. You complete that picture by doing that. It is not saying sisters are not as valuable as men. Don't take that away. Because you know what happens in heaven? Those gender roles go away. There is no marriage anymore, right? This kind of way we've got this separation is a product of here and now and part of it is a consequence of sin. But within heaven there is no difference. All one, all on equal plane, all servants of God. But how he's designed his church to operate here, we defer to how he sets it up. He's got that right. So why do you think Paul took the time to warn Timothy about this? Because it was likely to happen, right? You could have priestesses of the goddess of Diana in different roles and things. And so, he's saying this is the way that God set up his church. You need to be on guard and you need to affirmatively teach this. We'll get into that further later. Now, as if that statement wasn't sufficient, how does he follow it up with the next two chapters? The two sections which are all in chapter 3. These are not qualified sisters to be the leaders within the church. nor are all men qualified. What is a danger of bad practice within the church? Putting unqualified persons into a church leadership position. Whether it's pastor or deacon, you want to get down a wrong road, you put someone who does not have both the truth and the faith in practice, both in doctrine or in practice. He said, well, these are the qualifications that you need to find in men And notice it says that, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he must be the husband of one wife, right? It's specific, right? And then it lists off all these qualifications that they need to hold before you put them in that office, right? And almost all of them are about this character. about the living it out, about the practice, right? One of the major aspects of my job is trying to live out so you can see in flesh and blood what I'm trying to teach. Will I do that perfectly? No. But when a preacher falls, does it make a big crater? Yeah. Because he has failed that example. So, you want to avoid a lot of errors and issues within the church, both in doctrine and practice. You put up qualified individuals. And he gives a pretty good list. And it's very similar to the list that when he sent another letter to another individual, Titus, he was left behind on an island, Crete. And he says, you've got to go ordain elders in every city. Here's what you're looking for. Later in this letter, he'd say, lay hand on no man suddenly, because can you just look at somebody Oh, well, you can meet all these qualifications. No, it takes a little bit of time, right? It takes some careful study. And as we go through this later, you as a church need to know what these qualifications are. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and you've got to find a replacement pastor, you need to know what makes a qualified pastor, okay? And then it goes to the same thing with deacons. And again, I know I'm going way too fast and too deep in parts and too shallow at others. Forgive me. We'll probably spend like another seven or eight weeks on this book. But I wanted you to have this, okay, doctrine in chapter one, Jesus plus model, writing people off in chapter two, instead of praying for all and getting wrapped up in the distractions of the world with wrath and doubting, or chasing the things of this world in our appearance, right, with the sisters, or having unqualified persons being put into the leadership of the church, whether it's sisters themselves, if they're not they're not completing that picture, that model, or whether it's unqualified individuals whose character and practice don't match the standard. He says, I'm telling you all these things. I hope to come to you and talk to you soon. But in case I'm delayed, I want you to know this, verse 15 of chapter 3, that thou knowest how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. He says, this is important. This place is important. The gathering together is important. There's truth that should be displayed, both as a foundation and up on a post so it can be seen. What do we do on a billboard? You put it on a post high up so it can be seen. That's what the truth should be declared by the church. Will it be a good reflection of it if you've got someone who's teaching it who's not living it out? No. Now chapter 4 gets into additional doctrinal deviations. He says, the Spirit says expressly, these are some things that are going to come in the future. People are going to give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Man, doesn't that sound scary? Yeah, it does. What this is saying is that there will be those who come up with a new and exciting idea and they're coming to present it, and the inspiration was given to them by Satan or one of his subordinates. Elsewhere, I think it's James who talks about trying every spirit. The idea is listening and then checking it against reality. He says there are going to come times when teachers are going to come and they're going to have motivation that's just wrong. They're teaching lies and hypocrisy, knowing it's lies. And they're going to tell you things like, well, you shouldn't marry, or you have to abstain from eating certain meats. This is kind of going back to that Jesus Plus model. Well, in the genealogy, Israel stayed within Israel, right? They married within themselves and they didn't marry outsiders, right? Is that the model in the New Testament church? No! But there are those who will come in and try and say that, right? Well, you can't marry outside of the faith. You can't interact with those outside. Now, listen. If you're not married, marry someone who's already a believer. You will have many hardships if you don't. That's the definition of being unequally yoked. The idea is you put an ox over here and a double yoke and a donkey over here, they ain't going to pull well together. You want to have two believers together. But the idea is that you are not restricted from saying, well, you cannot marry those people over there because they look differently or they come from a different culture or whatever. We're not putting up barriers because of physical appearance, or culture, or any of those things. That's forbidding to marry. They're trying to take aspects of the Old Testament interaction with Israel and layer it on top of the church. That doesn't have a place for it. Another example of forbidding to marry is to say, well, you can't be a pastor or a priest unless you refuse to get married. We see that today. There's no command for that. Paul said it would be great if people were celibate, if that's what they're called to. But if they're not, they need to marry, right, lest they get themselves in trouble. All right. So there's additional things that are coming down the road, additional doctrinal deviations you need to be on guard about. And he tells them you need to be warning the brethren, put them in remembrance of this so that when they come, they're ready for it. They won't be deceived. Verse 7 kind of repeats, "...refusing profane and wise fables, exercising thyself unto godliness rather than bodily exercise." Part of what they'll do in these false teachings is saying that if you control this part, the external, what you eat, what you do, you can have this righteousness versus true righteousness, which is where you are striving to be godly from the heart outwards. And so, Timothy has a hard job. That's what chapter five is all about, is that you are going to have a hard time, but you need to do this, and you need to do it right, until I come, right? And study, and give application to all the reading, the exhortation, right? It will be good for you, and for those that you are leading, right? Brother Jonathan, you're just covering way too much today. Yeah, I probably am. Probably a bit off more than I can chew, but I don't know. Sometimes there is an element that we talk about things and we only interact with things that kind of have a kind of a neat 45 minute to an hour package and that's all there is and you have a good emotional experience and you go home, right? Well, part of this is I want you to think, okay? You're to love your God with your whole heart, yes, and your whole body, and your whole mind! So engage your mind into thinking through, you know, the words of Scripture, not just, alright, I've read my one chapter today and I'm checking out, but where does this whole letter fit together in the grand scheme of Scripture, and then where does this fit in here within this one letter, and then how does it fit in for this moment, and then if I've got all that, now, What do I need to take and run with it? Chapter 5, just real briefly. He is going to warn them against a practice where the church is trying to do too much. Okay? Societal good. Well, if you just take care of all the widows, well, that would be a good thing. Well, that's a good idea. Listen, not every good idea is a good idea. Believe that? Okay? And so he is going to go through the example using the church caring for the daily needs of all these widows and saying, well, yeah, that's nice in theory, but look, here's some practical realities of why it's not actually a good thing. You've got sisters who are under 60 years old, and they get tired of spending their life in prayer and supplication, and that's their day-to-day. They're marrying to Christ, basically, saying, I'm going to spend the rest of my life only in His service, and the church is caring for all their needs. He says, well, some are going to get tired of that, and they're going to go remarry, and then that's walking away from Christ. If you're talking about 60 years old, That's old back then, alright? The average age in Roman times was like 34, life expectancy. If you lived past 10, you may live to 45. There's high infant mortality, high sisters passing away during birth. But even if you go to the period of Psalms, right? It says if we've reached, you know, 70 years, that's life. And if you make 80, that's by strength of years, right? And so 60 years old, we're not talking about the church caring for them for another 30 years, right? It's just kind of these last few years, your husband has died and you're destitute. You don't have any children or nephews or anybody to support you. He says, yeah, in that situation, they've demonstrated their character and their service within church. Yes, that's wonderful. But this broader pool, there's practical reasons of why that's a bad idea. One, them walking away. And two, you're creating an opportunity where they don't have to work. If you're 30 years old, and yes, your husband passed away, and you're having all your needs met, well, you're idle, busybody, tattler. He's like, these are all the practical reasons of why you have to think through these decisions about what are you going to do. All right. I really just have more than I can cover. So if chapter 5 deals with the practical issue with the widows trying to do too much, it says narrow it down. Here's some practical reasons for why it's a good thing, and here's some negatives if you continue this broad practice. Also it talks about elders. Earlier in chapter 5 it was talking about elders in the sense of older than you, Timothy. Verse 17 talks about elders as in leaders in the church. He says, count them worthy of double honor, right? Honoring widows, caring for their needs. Pastors, count them worthy of double honor, especially they that labor in word and in doctrine, right? And he talks about caring for them. And then also, how do you deal practically when somebody accuses them, right? So a preacher's accused of something. If you just have one person making that accusation, he says, don't even entertain it, right? Just like under the law, you need to have two or three witnesses. Verse 20, but those that sin, if you've got a pastor or an elder who's sinned, you've got two or three witnesses, he says, that's when you rebuke before all. That's a public rebuking. Why? Because they've publicly fallen. They've been put in this position of leadership, of living out the example, and that when they fail, they have to be publicly rebuked for the benefit of the church. That's what he's talking about. not laying hands on any man suddenly or being a partaker of other men's sins. And we'll just end up with 23. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often firmities. That's interesting. Now y'all know that as a practice, I don't drink. It's easy to have that bright line rule for me not to be given to wine. I just don't drink. Is it a sin if I were to stop being a teetotaler, like Timothy was here, because that drinking no water means he is only a water drinker, right? He had some conviction about he just needed to only drink water, but apparently he had some physical infirmities, and that if you have water with a little bit of wine mixed in, it helped. So the idea of this is don't let your kind of dogmatic position get so ingrained that you're not willing to do something that's practically beneficial. You will be more effective in your job if you feel better, if you're not having the stomach aches and all these infirmities. And so that's what I was talking about in 23, and just giving him sound practical advice and wisdom of not caring so much about, well, I'm doing this so no one thinks badly of me. That's what the next two verses talk about. It says, some men's sins are open to judgment. Others are hidden, and they're only going to be revealed that last day. Same thing is true about the good works, right? Are we publishing our good works in advance? Some ends are known, others are hidden, but they'll all be revealed at the end. So it's caring less about the appearance and doing the right thing because it's right. Real briefly, chapter 6. There's a warning against false teachers coming and making church and its members focused on money and the pursuit of money. It starts with servants serving their masters. This is a positive thing. The negative is that when those come in and saying that if you just love Jesus, you will have money, you will have wealth, and wealth is a sign of your godliness. Well, if you're a servant hearing that, what does that mean? God doesn't love me. I've got to get out of this." And you've got the idea of revolting and overthrowing, you've got strife and you've got envy, which is the exact opposite of what you and I need to do of being content, right? And often the pursuit of wealth causes a lot more heartache and hardship and temptation when that's what you love, right? Money is not the root of all evil. It's the love of money. Money's just a tool, all right? And if the Lord gives you a lot of tools, use them in His service. Be ready. That's how the chapter ends, to charge them not to trust in those tools, but to use them in His service and be ready for good works. But if He doesn't, Okay, it doesn't let him love you any less, but learning contentment and learning godliness in whatever role you're in, that's where the greater value is. And so being on guard against those false teachers, what do we call that type of false teacher today? We call it the prosperity gospel, right? And these teachers have mega million dollar mansions and they are just a symbol to their congregation of, look, if you're just faithful, just have enough faith, you'll have all this too, right? Timothy knew, or Paul knew, Joel Osteen was going to exist. Or whoever else. I mean, it's not a new concept, right? Fleecing the Lord's flock has been going on since the church was created, but they are to be on guard about it, and teaching the affirmative thing that you are allowed to do. Serve. serve well, be obedient to the authority that are over us, and learn contentment, because we have a greater God than anything that you can achieve here. What is reserved for you in heaven is far, far, far better. I'm sorry I bit off more than I can chew, and I hope you got something out of this, but if nothing else, read your Bibles, because it's good for you.