1St & 2Nd Timothy Safeguarding the Glorious Gospel Faith Bible Church
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1st & 2nd Timothy Safeguarding The Glorious Gospel Faith Bible Church – Adult Christian Education Summer 2012 – 3 June 2012 - Lesson 1 Purpose This summer I will turn 56 years old. My children have left the region and are busy building lives and careers in other parts of the world. In Spring of 2013, Faith Bible Church will celebrate 20 years as a fellowship complete (D.V.) with the burning of our mortgage! As we look to the future, we must ask ourselves serious questions concerning the days ahead and what will become of the spiritual, eternal, and heavenly investments we have made. Christian leaders in particular are charged with the task of defending the truth against those who would twist it (Acts 20:28-31). As politically incorrect as this might sound to postmodern ears, there are abroad and within the church "many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers . .. They must be silenced" (Titus 1:10-11). Or, in the more picturesque imagery of King James parlance, "[Their] mouths must be stopped." How false teachers are to be silenced is one of those things in Scripture that is crystal-clear. It is not by physical force or auto-da-fé. But they are to be refuted and rebuked by qualified elders in the church who are skilled in the Scriptures, "able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it" (v. 8). The duty assumes that vital truth is clear enough that we can know it with certainty. And in the battle against falsehood, Scripture prescribes a clear strategy involving exhortation, reproof, rebuke, and correction. This is to be done patiently, not pugnaciously: "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil" (2 Timothy 2:24-26). And yet even within those boundaries, the defense of the faith sometimes requires a kind of spiritual militancy (1 Timothy 1:18; Jude 3). The Christian life—especially the duty of the leader—is frequently pictured in Scripture as that of warfare (2 Corinthians 10:3-6; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 2:3-4). So the defense of the faith is no easy task. But it is an indispensable duty for faithful Christians. Again, Scripture is not the least bit vague or equivocal about that. Nevertheless, the defense of the faith is a duty the evangelical movement as a whole has mostly shirked for at least two decades. Since the formal dissolution of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy in September 1987, evangelicalism as a movement has never fully mobilized for the defense of any point of doctrine—even in the wake of seismic challenges to the doctrine of God in the form of Open Theism—and despite recent assaults on the penal, propitiatory, and substitutionary aspects of Christ's atoning work. It is no longer safe to assume that someone who calls himself "evangelical" would even affirm such historic evangelical non- negotiables as the exclusivity of Christ or the necessity of conscious faith in Christ for salvation. Recently, it seems, the evangelical movement's standard response to that kind of doctrinal slippage has looked like nothing more than cynical insouciance. Pyromaniacs Blog – 4 May 2009 - Phil Johnson auto-da-fé – act of faith inquisition – burning heretics in·sou·ci·ance – in sue sea ence - Casual lack of concern; indifference Rob Bell – Nouma Videos and books . a false "Jesus" as "the mechanism" who makes entry for all into heaven "Love Wins" p. 154 - Rob Bell . Hell, as a period of "pruning" in which God is continuing to woo each person who is there until they end up in heaven "Love Wins" p. 91 - Rob Bell What Jesus does is declare that he and he alone is saving everybody. “Love Wins” p. 155 – Rob Bell In a good number of English translations of the Bible, the phrase 'aion of kolazo' gets translated as 'eternal punishment,' which many read to mean 'punishment forever,' as in never going to end. But 'forever' is not really a category the biblical writers used. “Love Wins” pp. 91-92 – Rob Bell How will our study in 1st and 2nd Timothy aid you as a leader in your home, your neighborhood, in your workplace and at FBC? I believe that the truths God gives us through the Apostle Paul will help propel us to greater heights of faithfulness, integrity, purity, watchfulness and joy. As Paul built Timothy up in these letters, God has used these precious truths to shape men and women, to be profitable, useful contributors and stellar leaders through the last two millennia. May He do so to you and I as we link arms and continue to be set apart for His purposes. Who could express this better than our Lord Himself at the end of 1st Timothy? "Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen." I Timothy 6: 12 - 16 This is the beginning of a new adventure, an adventure with the Word of God, an in depth study of rich and profound truth that are going to come to us, first of all, in 1 Timothy. The epistle itself deals with many great subjects, subjects which were needful for Timothy to know in his ministry to the church. It deals with, for example, error in the church and how that error is to be confronted, the proper pattern for church leadership, the importance of sound theology and the centrality of teaching is a major theme, the call for godliness and holiness in living and ministry, the proper attitudes and roles of men and women in the church, how to deal with discipline in the church, how to confront issues in the church, how to deal with a sinning leader in the church, the correction of problems that threaten the church. Introduction This is the first of two inspired letters Paul wrote to his beloved son in the faith. Timothy had a mother (Eunice) and grandmother (Lois), devout Jews who became believers in the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 1:5) and taught Timothy the OT Scriptures from his childhood (2 Tim. 3:15). His father was a Greek (Acts 16:1) who may have died before Timothy met Paul. Timothy was from Lystra (Acts 16:1–3), a city in the Roman province of Galatia Paul led Timothy to Christ (1:2,18; 1 Cor. 4:17; 2 Tim. 1:2), undoubtedly during his ministry in Lystra on his first missionary journey (Acts 14:6–23). When he revisited Lystra on his second missionary journey, Paul chose Timothy to accompany him (Acts 16:1–3). Although Timothy was very young (probably in his late teens or early twenties, since about 15 years later Paul referred to him as a young man, 4:12), he had a reputation for godliness (Acts 16:2). Timothy was to be Paul’s disciple, friend, and co-laborer for the rest of the apostle’s life, ministering with him in • Berea (Acts 17:14), • Athens (Acts 17:15), • Corinth (Acts 18:5; 2 Cor. 1:19), and accompanying him on his trip to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4). He was with Paul in his first Roman imprisonment and went to Philippi (2:19–23) after Paul’s release. In addition, Paul frequently mentions Timothy in his epistles (Rom. 16:21; 2 Cor. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:1; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1; Philem. 1). Paul often sent Timothy to churches as his representative (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10; Phil. 2:19; 1 Thess. 3:2), and 1 Timothy finds him on another assignment, serving as pastor of the church at Ephesus (1:3). According to Heb. 13:23, Timothy was imprisoned somewhere and released. I. Greeting And Warning Against False Teachers (1: 1 – 11) 1 Timothy 1: 1 - Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope, The introduction is a standard format. It begins with the author and his identification and then the recipient and his identification. the author and his identification and then it's always followed by the recipient, Timothy and his identification, true child in the faith. And then comes a greeting or salutation, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. You'll notice in both cases where you have Christ Jesus in the Authorized it says Jesus Christ, the better manuscripts reverse those. The greeting never really varies in Paul's letters. Remember the original context! It is first and foremost a letter from one man to another man. While we look at it as a book of the Bible and its reaching far beyond its original destination in the life of Timothy, we must go back to the realization that it began as a single man's passionate call to another man in ministry that needed to be applied to the situation in existence.