An English boy went into a store to get change for a sovereign,
and the clerk asked him if it was good. The boy said, "Certainly it is
good. I saw my father make it just this morning." The clerk, of
course, refused to take it. Money, like truth, has the shadow of
suspicion cast across it when it has been coined only this morning.
Anything that you can really rely on will not be totally new. Even in
the realm of science this is true. New products and new medicine
are not as new as we might think. Nothing just discovered this
morning would on the market. It takes months and even years of
research before things are ready for the market. Even that which is
really recent in discovery is usually based upon older knowledge,
and so it is not totally new, but an extension of what has gone before.
The totally new and novel is seldom of lasting value
A craving for what is strictly new is a sign of degeneration and
superficiality in a culture. This is what was happening to the Greeks
in Paul's day, and has happened time and time again in history.
Acts 17:21 says in the NEB, "The Athenians in general and the
foreigners there had no time for anything but talking or hearing
about the latest novelty." Certainly masses of Americans are
cultural cousins to these Athenians. Novelty is a must in our society.
People feel only a fool believes and acts today the same as people
believed and acted in the past. That which is the in thing must be
something just coined this morning. Someone wrote, "So long as an
artist is on his head, his painting with a flute, or writes with an
etching needle, or conducts an orchestra with a meat axe, all is well,
and plaudits shower along with the roses. But any plain man who
tries to follow the unobtrusive cannons of his art is but a
commonplace figure."
This applies to every realm including the realm of theology. The
men in the limelight today are those who are expounding the novel
and the freshly coined ideas. They capture the minds of millions for
a while, but then they become old hat, and people begin looking for
something new again. This was the problem that Paul wrestled with
in his day, and it is one that he urged Timothy to help him fight. It
was a real battle, and Paul uses military language often. He tells
Timothy to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He starts off in this
first letter by stating that he was not an Apostle by his own choice,
but that he was drafted by the Lord. God commanded him to be His
ambassador to the Gentiles. He was inducted into the royal service
of representing the Risen Redeemer. He loved being a soldier of the
cross, and would have agreed whole heartedly with the poet who
wrote,
Life can never be dull again
When once we've thrown our windows open wide,
And seen the mighty world that lies outside,
And whispered to ourselves this wondrous thing,
We're wanted for the business of the King.
Paul felt one of his important tasks for the Lord was in keeping
the churches on a solid foundation. This was no easy task in a world
as filled with novel nonsense as his was. We often talk as if we were
the only people to ever live in the last days, and that we alone must
bear the burden of so much human folly. We would be ashamed of
our complaints if we knew what others have gone through before us.
Paul spent 3 and one half years in Ephesus going from house to
house and teaching the believers sound Christian doctrine. In spite
of all he did he has to urge Timothy to stay there and charge some to
teach no other doctrine. Here were people who had the best
Christian education experience possible, and yet they were in danger
of falling into heresy and being led into fruitless speculation.
I think it can be said with plenty of evidence to support it that no
group of Christians could long remain Christian in their thinking
without the Bible being constantly read and expounded. If
Churches degenerate to the place where they are no more than
humanistic clubs, they have none to blame but themselves, for God
has provided the means by which we are to stay on the right track.
If men do not avail themselves of the means, they will certainly get
off the main road and onto a side road of trivia. This very church of
Ephesus where Paul and Timothy labored for years was still in
trouble when John wrote Revelation. Christ was threatening to
remove their candlestick if they did not return to their first love.
Anytime a Christian, or any group of Christians, thinks they
have reached a plateau of security where they no longer need to
have constant vigilance and self-examination, they are in grave
danger. Christian truth must be applied to new situations
constantly, and there must be new methods and new means, but in
all of this there is the danger of loosing the old old story.
The message must remain the same however unique and novel the
methods of delivering it. Christian doctrine must be based on the
clear teachings of Scripture however modern the words used to
communicate it.
The Jews lost all practical relationship to the Old Testament
revelation by using so many fables, myths and spiritual
interpretations to communicate it, that they forgot the message of
God and got all wrapped in their own stories and methods of
communicating. This was the very danger the early church faced,
and the danger, which eventually won out over a large portion of the
church when they made tradition the authority. We see then the
danger of believing something because it is old for that reason alone.
This is as foolish and dangerous as the craze for novelty. There is
only one test by which we can be sure of the truth of any doctrine,
and that is its conformity to the Word of God. Paul having given
this revelation to the Ephesians charges Timothy to prevent the
teaching of any other doctrine.
The problem appears to have been from leaders and teachers
who were Christians within the church, but who were more
interested in their own thinking and clever ingenuity than the
revelation of God. Had they been outsiders Timothy would have no
authority over them, and they could not have cared less what he
said. He could only, in that case, warn believers not to listen to
them. But these were in the church, and so they were subject to his
authority. You need to see this truth that the greatest problems of
the church have always been caused by Christians and not
unbelievers. Heresy and false teaching, and controversies of all
kinds that have hindered the work of Christ have come about by
God's own people, and not by the slander of the unsaved.
The darkest blots on the history of the church are those by the
acts and attitudes of born again believers. If Christians could only
rid themselves of the sinful pride that makes them think they are
infallible, they would cease to point fingers anywhere but at
themselves when they seek to find the cause for their lack of power.
Any deficiency in our personal lives, or in our local church, have
their origin right here in our own hearts. We can blast the sinner
and cry out that they will not listen. We can knock the liberal and
say they have perverted the Gospel. But when all is said and done
we have not answered the question we should be asking, and that is,
what am I doing for Christ? Even if the whole world is wrong, the
question is still, what am I doing that glorifies Jesus Christ?
The world was filled with error in Timothy's day, but his
responsibility was to do his best in Ephesus. God does not hold us
responsible for what is beyond our influence, but He does hold us
responsible for an effective witness to those we can influence. If
Ephesus could keep Paul, Timothy and the Apostle John busy, and
still be far from what it should be, I have a hunch all of us could find
enough need for improvement in our lives and church to keep us
busy for the rest of our lives.
Paul was opposed to that which was impractical, and this is
made clear in verse 4 where he says that we are not to give heed to
fables. This is a distinct problem separate from other doctrine. It
was not only the false and dangerous things that Paul feared, but the
foolish and trivial things. He wrote to Titus in 1:14 and urged him
also not to give heed to Jewish fables. The Jews wasted millions of
man hours and mental potential in developing fables. They were not
false doctrine but just worthless and a waste of time. Some feel that
Greek mythology was also in Paul's mind. The Christian is not to
get wrapped up in man made speculations, for they only steal time
that could be given to learning and spreading the truth.
Paul also mentions endless genealogies. The whole ancient
world had a passion for genealogies. Alexander the Great had an
artificial pedigree made up tracing his lineage back to Achilles on
one side and Hercules on the other. Philo had all kinds of allegorical
interpretations based on the Old Testament genealogies. Jewish
scholars use to take each name in the genealogies and build up a
whole story around it. It was all fiction and they were free to
speculate as they chose and make each man whatever they wished.
It was endless, of course, for there is no limit to what can be
developed when there is no basis for any of it.
Christians are warned not to waste their time on such nonsense.
Human nature has a tendency to drift into the speculative and
unknown, and develop controversy around the unprofitable. This
prevents the Christian from facing issues that really matter.
Controversy is often the method by which Christians avoid doing
the practical will of God. They fool themselves into believing they
are defending the faith when they are really doing nothing to
demonstrate the faith. Paul says that what promotes questions and
speculation is not good. It is what trains us in the faith that is good.
That which has no practical value should not become a time
consuming discussion among believers. If we cannot become more
Christ like and built up in the faith by what we are discussing, we
are wasting our time. The revelation that God has given us cannot
be exhausted and so we are to be continuously reminded not to
waste our time elsewhere, but to focus on it, for revelation is
sufficient.
