Paul's Letters to Timothy - Session 2 - All Religion is not Alike Cont'd

The Church of Divine Guidance (CDG) Sunday morning adult bible study group is studying Paul's pastoral Epistles (Letters) to his protege, Timothy.  These posts are my notes for each session. Please study with us. You can participate by asking your questions or making comments in the comments below. We welcome your thoughts and prayers.

Review 

Last week we started our study of Paul’s letters to Timothy with 1 Timothy. We talked about the fact that Paul had left Timothy, a young man of about 40, to lead the church in Ephesus,  a very important city in the Roman empire and consequently in the Gentile world and very important in the early days of the church.

Timothy was the son of a Gentile father and a Jewish mother. Children of Jewish mothers are considered Jews, but since Timothy had not been circumcised and his father was a Gentile the Jews considered Timothy a Gentile. Paul may have thought that Timothy would be more effective as an evangelist as a full Jew so he did what he thought was most expedient for the gospel and had Timothy circumcised.

Now Paul is writing to Timothy to encourage him in the task of leading that church. He gives Timothy a lot of advice both for the Christians in the church and for himself.

There were some problems with some of the teaching and teachers there and Paul wants Timothy to sort out this problem.

In 1 Timothy, Paul gave Timothy quite a list of subjects to teach, including: exposure of false doctrines, myths and genealogies; law; sound doctrine; the glorious Gospel; mercy; truth; dedication; prayer; harmony; women's dress and appearance; marriage and dietary practices; qualifications for leaders; conduct; sayings, truths of the faith; the practice of religion; relationships with fellow Christians; treatment of widows; ways to select elders; contentment; righteousness; faith; love; endurance; hope in God; and doing good. Timothy’s job was to provide sound teaching to combat the false teachings of some in the church. The results that Paul wanted was the sources of love: a pure heart, a good conscience, and sound doctrine.


1 Timothy 1:4-6 (HCSB) 4 or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith.5 Now the goal of our instruction is love ⌊that comes⌋ from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.6 Some have deviated from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion.

Paul said that these folk wanted to be teachers of the law, meaning that you had to obey the law and all the trappings that go along with it including the genealogies and then the myths that they dreamed up.

1 Timothy 1:7-9 (HCSB)7 They want to be teachers of the law, although they don’t understand what they are saying or what they are insisting on.8 But we know that the law is good, provided one uses it legitimately.9 We know that the law is not meant for a righteous person, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverent, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers

Paul reminds Timothy that the law is not laid down for good men  It would seem the false teachers were using it with the wrong group. They were pushing some kind of legalism on believers who were basically obedient already.

Paul' Testimony 

1 Timothy 1:12-17 (HCSB)12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—13 one who was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief.14 And the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst ⌊of them⌋, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 

1. This is now Paul’s testimony. In what way was Paul himself like the false teachers before his conversion?

He says that he use to be just like those false teachers. He a devout Pharisee and very religious.  

Philippians 3:4-11 (NKJV) ⁴  though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: ⁵  circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; ⁶  concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. ⁷  But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸  Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹  and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; ¹⁰  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹  if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 

Much like the false teachers, Paul, prior to his conversion, misused the law. He lacked grace, faith and love. But God had mercy on him, and he became a new man. Paul is showing, in this context, that God redeems false teachers. In the process, he describes what a relationship with God is really based on: the mercy, grace, faith and love "that are in Christ Jesus".

Paul is looking back to his experience on the road to Damascus city (Acts 9). He was on his way to attack the Christians there. Up to that time, Paul denied that Jesus could be either Messiah or the Lord. But the Lord Jesus Christ met him and so Paul believed in him. From that time, the Lord Jesus trusted Paul and sent him to declare the gospel. Paul was astonished at this and he was so grateful to the Lord for it.
Much like these false teachers he did not know that what he was doing was wrong. He thought that it was his duty to oppose Jesus. He did not believe that Jesus was the Lord and the Christ. But when Jesus met him, Paul was convinced. Then the Lord Jesus Christ showed mercy to him. And he forgave Paul for all that he had done.  Using the example to Timothy he was illustrating that these false teachers like him, could be redeemed.  Remember what he told Timothy as we said last week that what Paul wanted to see and encouraged Timothy to teach was he sources of love: a pure heart, a good conscience, and sound doctrine.

It was more than grace that Paul received from God. He received faith to believe and trust in the Lord Jesus. He received the love of God into his life, so he was able to love the Lord and because of that the Christians he once hated he now loved.

Paul felt that of all sinners he was the worst. Because he had attacked the Christians with such cruelty. The Lord forgave Paul for all his sins. But Paul still says that he is a sinner. He is a sinner whom God, in his grace, has saved. God has saved him because of his trust in Christ.

Paul was not the first to believe in Christ but his was the most astonishing change. All who believe in Christ have a new kind of life. They change as Paul did. Paul’s life was now a powerful example of the grace of God. He sees his own experience as the pattern of what Christ can do. He does it in the lives of all who believe in him. They will be what God wants them to be. And so they will be truly alive.  - How to be a Leader in the Church An EasyEnglish Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on Paul’s First Letter to Timothy www.easyenglish.info Ian Mackervoy


 2. Now let’s read and compare 1 Timothy 1:14 and 1:5 How would this help Timothy keep a clear perspective for his own mission?

1 Timothy 1:14 (HCSB) And the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 1:5 (HCSB) Now the goal of our instruction is love ⌊that comes⌋ from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Found on simplysharingandserving.weebly.com

Paul is talking about love in both these verses. In verse 14 he is finishing up what he started in verse 12 saying that the grace with which Jesus gave to Paul although he was like those people that he was warning Timothy about, came through the faith and love that are in Christ and these false teachers if taught could be changed as well. That is the same love that in verse 5 that he said was the goal of their instruction of those in the church. Love that were the source of a pure heart, a good conscience, and sound doctrine

The goal is to cause love to grow. This is why the false teachers had to stop. What they were doing caused confusion rather than love. The command in this verse means more than to stop the false teachers. The command is the truth that Timothy has to teach. This should lead to an increase in love among those who believe. They should love God and each other more.

The source of this love is a clean heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.

In the Bible, the heart is the centre of our being. It is from the heart that we have good or bad thoughts. These cause us to perform good or bad actions. The heart must be clean for love to flow from it. It has to be pure with good thoughts and actions. Only God can make the heart clean and put real love in it. He will take away all that is wrong in our hearts. He will do this as we confess our sins.

Conscience is the knowledge of what is right or wrong in our actions and attitudes. The consciences of some people can be hard and damaged. Their consciences can be dead as if burnt with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2 (NKJV) ²  speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,). For these, the knowledge of good or evil is not sure. A good conscience is one that accepts the truth as its standard. It informs the mind as to what is false or evil. We need to keep our consciences good. We do this as we accept the truth of God’s word. And we ask theLord to take away all that is wrong. To have a good conscience is to know that God accepts us as clean from all *sin.

Faith has to be sincere. That means that it must be real and genuine. We can fool people into thinking that we have *faith but we cannot fool God. As we trust God, he puts his love in us. And then we can love him. - How to be a Leader in the Church An EasyEnglish Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on Paul’s First Letter to Timothy www.easyenglish.info Ian Mackervoy

Faith and conscience must go together. 

3. Why would finding so-called secret teachings of the Old Testament be more interesting to some people than the message of Christ?


Sometimes Christians are drawn into situations or even groups about which they feel uneasy, but cannot quite pin down why. Similarly, the believers in Ephesus were not turning to real heresy, just "meaningless talk." Clever teachers can give plausible reasons, but the conscience is not convinced.

Does anybody here have some issue on their consciences but are in a healthy Christian setting. It is a universal human tendency to avoid confronting things we feel guilty about. At times we even use our Christian faith to hide from these issues.
1 Timothy 1:19 (HCSB) having faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and have suffered the shipwreck of their faith.

4. When we speculate and theorize instead of dealing with our own issues of sin, what happens to conscience?

If true doctrine is not obeyed, it is in effect denied and becomes a "dead faith," and men make shipwreck. Reshaping their doctrine to fit their sinful course, they proceed to teach a false doctrine. Hence the words: "There is danger lest faith be sunk by a bad conscience, as by a whirlpool in a stormy sea" (Calvin). - The Wycliffe Bible Commentary.

5. Why do faith and a good conscience go together?

Faith and conscience go together in true spirituality. We are in trouble when they don't. Psychologists observe that guilt impairs many functions, with one notable exception: the ability to intellectualize.   In other words if we do not have faith our conscience can rationalize and intellectualize our beliefs, even our Christian beliefs to avoid the real problem.  We can start doing with the false teachers in Ephesus were doing by using the law and their "superior knowledge" to avoid their real problem which was not believing the God would lower Himself to come as an evil human.  

If we aren't careful we can easily fall into that same trap.  Later on in his letter, when Paul is giving the qualifications of deacons in the church:

1 Timothy 3:9 (HCSB)  holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

Here again is the union of the doctrinal and practical aspects of Christianity: the faith is to be held in an obedient conscience, not defiled by disobedience. The expression mystery of the faith does not mean that there is some esoteric secret known only to the initiated. Paul's usage starts with the appearance of Christ in the flesh. The mystery is not a secret to be kept, but a message to be proclaimed. - The Wycliffe Bible Commentary.


6. How can the kind of faith Paul shows in 1 Tim. 1:15 help you face your own issues of conscience?

Here’s what Paul said:

1 Timothy 1:15-16 (HCSB)15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst ⌊of them⌋, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

7.  Now how can that help us when we struggle with things that we have done in the past of things that cross or mind from time to time?

8. As in Paul's day, Christians can wander into groups that make unusual claims and demands. They may have impressive features, but engage in certain practices and pressures which make members feel uneasy. A lot of energy goes into keeping faith and conscience apart in these groups. Are you involved with some "spiritual" activities which bother your own conscience? (Be as honest as possible.)


If we have had or are struggling now with issues of conscience then verses 16 and 17 should be our prayer.

1 Timothy 1:16-17 (HCSB)16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst ⌊of them⌋, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life.17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

We have access to the forgiveness and love of God so now we can focus on the goal.

1 Timothy 1:5 (HCSB) Now the goal of our instruction is love ⌊that comes⌋ from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Next week Chapter 2

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Resources for studying 1 Timothy