First Timothy - lesson 1

Okay, we're going to start First Timothy today. Probably a good place to start. Probably the easiest question we're going to have is who wrote their letter? Who wrote the letter? Timothy's not the right answer. Paul wrote the letter. And he wrote the letter to Timothy.

And in my research, in trying to date it, it's interesting. Schofield says that the date of this epistle turns upon the question of two imprisonments of Paul. If there were two, see Acts 28. then it is clear that the first, that first time it was written during the interval between his first and second imprisonment. If Paul endured but one Roman imprisonment, the epistle was written shortly before the last journey to Jerusalem.

So it's one of the, what is known as a pastorial epistles. You know what that means? We just finished Titus, which was a pastorial epistle, and first and second Timothy, what does it mean? They're really tough questions. And guidance on how to run a local body. You know, that's a good answer, because that's really what it is. Here's how the church ought to function. Here's your role. Here's the role of other people. like we need guidance because if you if you if you outlined first Timothy.

And then applied that outline to a lot of churches today, they wouldn't ask to ask the master. Because they don't run their churches that way, you know. So what do you think the theme is? What's the theme? That's why I'm here. Again, I'm going to refer to Scofield. He says, as the number of churches increased, the questions of church order, of soundness in the faith and discipline became important.

At first, the period made it necessary that a clear revelation should be made. At first, I read two lines in one. At first, the period, no, I did that right. Such a revelation is in 1 Timothy and also in Titus. And there'll be some similarities in Timothy, some repetition of what he talked to Titus about.

The key phrase in the epistle, now this is really interesting. This is the key phrase according to Schofield. that thou may know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God." That doesn't sound very gracious to me. It sounds like discipline. Yeah. Am I supposed to act a certain way or behave myself in the... When he talks about behavior, what do you think he's talking about? I mean, do you have, we've got to stick up on the door when you come in. The behavior in this building is as follows. 39 precepts. McCauley said, why do we always gotta go by the law? So there is an order.

There is an order in the church to keep things in control because even though we're all believers, we walk in the door and carry the sin nature in with us. Whether we recognize it or not, we're self-centered and all we do is put holy water, but we're still self-centered. I think the general is, without any leadership, it's like herding cats. You know, even though we're all believers and all that, if there's not an authority or something, the tendency is to wander and whatever.

And God provided that we have order, elders, deacons, and all those to provide order and authority. So a chain of command, he definitely does that. He designates certain authorities, you know, husband, wife, family, fathers, all those authorities he designates, and one of them is elders in the local assembly. And he's giving guidance to those gentlemen, and what are the qualifications, all the different things that relate to church order.

Otherwise, there's chaos. Isn't that interesting? I can remember when I first got into business and we would have meetings and they would deteriorate into chaos. Some guy walked in the room with a plastic sheet, Robert's Rules of Order. This is how you run a meeting.

Mine was a little different in that in high school, very disciplined in sports, had great coaches. great discipline, great everything. Then when I got to college, it was just club sports without any coach. I hated a coach when he told me to do 20 laps or do whatever and all that, but it was completely different without a coach. graphically saw the difference between leadership, you know, something under leadership and something not under leadership. There's no more brutal sport than a club sport, like basketball in college. I tried lacrosse when I was a teenager. Yeah, yeah. Broke my collarbone on that one.

And so, and God has had order in the human existence since the beginning. Starting with Adam, so he's all about order. He's all about things ought to function in a certain way. Well had it been with the churches if they had neither added to nor taken from the divine order. Now, let's talk about how would you divide the epistle up? The first section is chapter 1, verses 1 through 20, legality and unsound doctrine rebuked. The second section is chapter 2, verses 1 through 15, prayer and the divine order of the sexes enjoined. I don't have any transgenders in here, do I? What did you do? They go in the class over next door. Penguin laughs.

Uh three is the qualification for elders and deacons and uh which is chapter three one through sixteen and we've actually already gone through that in Titus. So, we should be pretty familiar with it or the walk of the good minister the work of the good minister, chapter 5, 1 through 6, and verse 21. So that's basically where we're headed. A couple other notes.

Let's see, I think this is, here is a book, he talks about 1 Timothy, this is kind of cool, he said, here is a book which together with its 11 predecessors is unique in the field of biblical interpretation. a book which puts the Greek New Testament on a level where the student of the English Bible can successfully work, and with great benefit, a book which will enable him to uncover a wealth of truth that lies embedded in the goldmine, in the manuscripts, which left the hand of the inspired writers. And so, which he does, he had access, except by means of the original language. in the New Testament was written. It's from Uist now. Uist is a Greek geek, and some of what he has, like when he translates things, sometimes they're very good, and sometimes it's like, what? What did he say?

So in terms of introduction, other than, which we've gone through this before. how the epistle is structured, and I probably don't have to repeat this, because I think every epistle we start, we start with understanding how the salutation goes, different than how we do it. We do it like if I was going to write a letter to Courtney, I would say, Dear Courtney, whole body of the letter, and then at the end, I would say, Sincerely, Mike. But they did, ancient times, they didn't do it that way. They put it all at introduction and the recipient and the writer in the first line so that immediately you knew who it was coming from and who it's for, which I kind of like better, actually, when you think about it.

Because you can get halfway through a letter and think, who wrote this thing? We got a letter from, about a caucus. I got about halfway through it, and I thought, who wrote this garbage? So as an example, a Roman manuscript, Pliny to the Emperor Tarjan, wishes health, et cetera, to which the emperor replied, Tarjan, to Penny, health and happiness.

So what we know as a complementary close is actually in the first line. Let's see. So that's all I have in the introduction. I went back just because I was thinking about the confusion and why you have structure. It was a verse, I was trying to find it, in 1 Corinthians 14, 33. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. So that's why He has structure. He is not one of confusion, or He's of order, not chaos.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting, when we were down in Georgia, Miles and I got to spend a lot of time with Brian White and his family. We stayed at their house a couple nights. And in a talk with Brian, I mentioned, I said, you know, you have four kids.

One's a sophomore in college, one's a junior in high school, and 12 and nine, something like that. I said, they're all doing so well, and they seem happy, and they're smart, and they're polite. I said, what's your secret? He said, if you create a safe environment, they'll prosper. And I got to thinking about that.

A church is a safe environment. Where can you go other than the body of believers that use fellowship with, where else can you go where it's safe? You're accepted. You don't have to dress a certain way, talk a certain way. In a lot of churches, you do. A lot of churches, you do. But I thought that was interesting because the whole idea of the body of Christ is that everybody in it would prosper. would grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus.

And you have to be comfortable and feel safe to do that. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, I'm sorry. I said that they want to come in there because they're scared of you. But you should think it through. Well, you know, the the the the the primary uh function the primary attitude of believers is that we love one another and if we love one another, that creates an environment where you feel safe. You know, um yeah, it's a double-edged sword. It is. It is. You know, it's Yeah, and it's hard learning that double-edged sword. I'll give you an example. My son John, when he first went to Texas, he had a job where his best friend's dad gave him a job in Texas. So he went there, and he had to learn to be a mechanic.

And at 90 days, he had his first review, and the guy that reviewed him just drilled him and really took him to the cleaners. And he called us up, and he was downhearted. And he said, what am I going to do? I said, well, the first thing you're going to do is go in there and thank the guy for telling you the truth. and tell him, okay, I didn't do it right the first 90 days, now I want you to teach me and I'll learn and I'll pay attention.

And that's what he did. And it made all the difference in the world in terms of where he is today. And so I find that interesting that he was The guy had the courage to tell him the truth. He didn't soft-soak it. And John understood that he needed that discipline. He needed somebody to tell him, you aren't cutting it, but I'm willing to learn.

Oh, and that's a good place to be. Oh, it really is. The Word of God is powerful. And I think that, yeah. I agree. I think that the Lord and his love for us doesn't sweep anything under the carpet because he doesn't want to offend us. Now, Courtney doesn't believe that, but he tells us the truth, and he does it because he loves us.

I was thinking about what William R. Newell said, until mercy is understood, grace can't be fully appreciated. Yeah, that's a great line. It goes even deeper than that, and that is, we all seek mercy, but grace is for the guilty. That's where total depravity comes in. Do you think as believers in a body that you should be open to people to say, you probably shouldn't have done it that way, or you offended me? Is that all right?

Yeah. I think it is. Yeah. Even though Courtney thinks I choose to be offended. Well, and I may have. Oh, just wait till you open your mouth. Yeah. Well, what I find, what I find, my offense, if I'm offended about something, it's usually my old man that's offended. And you choose. Well, sure, I choose, and I choose to live in that offended old man. I get to choose that.

I don't understand, you know, you have to be really skilled to go up to someone and say, look, I've got a problem with what you're doing, and say it in such a way that they understand that the reason you're there is because you love them. You know, is that a hard thing? I don't know. Yeah. So are there offensive things that people do positively and negatively all the time? Okay.

So there are offenses. Yeah, however. whether it be a positive offense, meaning I may be offending your character for the good of your growth, which is what had to be done in the church, right? These pastoral epistles are all about that correction. So there is an offense to our character, and yeah, oftentimes you have to consider whether or not it's the sin nature Or maybe it has to do with your walk, and it is corrective. And it may come across offensively, and then there's that choice. But that being said, we do have that choice to be offended by the offense given to us. So the decision is, am I going to receive this? and grow from that and trust that the Lord is offending a character attribute that is not in line or is the offense incorrect and I have to make a decision on how to handle that without being what we say is offended, right?

Where we walk away mad and we're frustrated and we don't like that person anymore. What do we do with negative offenses in our life? The number one issue is anything or whatever I'm doing in my life offensive to God. That's a good point. One of the last verses we're going to talk about today, that those that are in the flesh cannot please God.

So if I am approaching him anywhere out of the flesh, I'm not pleasing him. Conversely, I'm offending him. You see, I can't, if I'm, what was he? If I gave a million dollars to, I don't know, Dallas Seminary, out of the flesh, would God be pleased with that? Not in the least, because I did it out of the flesh. So, when somebody comes to me and offends me, I think the first decision I have to think about is, one, are they right? Am I acting out of the flesh and I need to be corrected? Or two, are they being offensive towards my Lord? And if they are, what can I say about that?

You know? As an ambassador, we have I think you brought up two really good points right there. So one of them is, ultimately, is what I'm hearing also what God is thinking about me? Right. And is the person doing it a believer and would understand if I responded from a biblical standpoint, or they're a non-believer, And they have no, you know, they know about two natures. They don't know anything about that. So... Well, it goes back to that. How does the Lord see me about this? There you go.

Because people are offensive. Oh. And it's easy to get offended. Well, and if they find out you're a Christian, and Christians are targets. But I think you just hit on a really critical part, is that As offended as we are about things in the world and people that criticize our faith or our God or our life or our family or yourself, the question is how do you stand before the Lord?

That's right. That's where the growth happens. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Oh yeah. Certainly it hurts. We're going to talk about that a bit later. I've had this friend for about 40 years that played in the National Hockey League, Mike Crombie, He called me last week. I haven't talked to him in 20 years. He says he recognized my voice. I said, well, I kind of do, but I can't put a name on it.

So he's the guy that said to me when he was playing for the St. Louis Blues when he became a Christian and he was an enforcer. I said, well, how do you handle that being a Christian? He said, well, if I know we're going to fight, he said, I hug him. I take them down to the ice, and I say to them, I'm praying for you, brother. I said, oh, that makes them happy.

One of the things I'm going to talk a lot about this morning is God's will in teaching us the difference between my old man and a new life in Christ, and how long that takes, and how severe that is. Because I got to thinking this week that we go through Romans 7, and then we jump right into Romans 8, like, well, that's the way my Christian life is supposed to be. Oh, wretched man, and I am. And then I get to Romans 8, everything's cool, and I move on. No, no, it doesn't work that way.

And we started listening to some of those Miles tapes this week out of the green letters entitled Self. Oh man, I'd forgotten totally about how God works and how long it takes so that you abide in the new life, which is not offensive to God. Yeah, I don't want to brush over what Donna was talking about there. I think that's a really big subject, and we may be getting into the offensive side of the conversation too deeply, but I think it's really interesting that choosing to be or not choosing to be offended completely has to do with what man you are trusting. Yeah. And where your dependence is, because if you're in the flesh, you have no choice but to. You haven't. You don't. About anything and everything.

So when we say that there is a choice, that choice is by faith, and it's on the resurrection side of the cross. It is, and I'll save it for later. The first thing I wanted to talk about in your notes with the first lesson is, what does the name Paul mean?

Ask, or ask of. Ask? Yeah, ask, A-S-K. When I looked it up, because I was kind of curious, I never figured, I never looked it up. Saul or Paul mean to ask, or ask of God, by inference. Ask of God. Look what I found. The name Paul is a transcript of the Latin Paulus or Paulouis, meaning little. What's that? Yeah.

It was a favorite name among the Cilicians and the nearest approach in sound of Hebrew, Saul. According to some, both names are born by him in his childhood. Paulus being the one by which he is known among the Gentiles. which was a subsequent assumed to be the conclusion of the other, exclusion of the other, in order to indicate his position as a friend, a teacher of the Gentiles. The practice of adopting Gentile names may be traced through all the periods of Hebrew history. I think that's true when you start reading the Septuagint in terms of the Old Testament. adopted the Greek name that meant the same thing. So you had to know the meaning.

So I don't know if I think the word Saul is small, and you, Courtney, what did you say? Yeah. That's a great start. I was surprised, you know, in our neighborhood we have the Hasidic Jews and my buddy Zev across the street when he was living there, I think he had three kids while he was living there, right? Or four and five years, something.

And one time I said to him, I said, well, what's the name of the baby? He said, well, I don't know. I said, well, when do you find out? He said, when we take them up to the synagogue or whatever they do, with circumcision, that's when, I don't think the parents decide who the name is, the rabbi does. And I said, well, how do you come up with the names? He said, well, sometimes they're Old Testament patriarchs, he said, but a lot of times, their contemporary or the last two centuries of Jewish scholars that they admire. So they would name them after that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So anyway. Let's see, there is a hint in this name that the apostle was of diminutive nature, that's what you were saying, Cheryl. Expression in 2 Corinthians 10, one who in presence and base among you, the word base among Greeks meant that which was groveling, slavish, mean-spirited. Interesting. And another in the 10th verse, his bodily presence is weak, speaks of Paul's physique as being in the estimation of the athletically minded Greeks, infirm, feeble, lacking manliness and dignity. But as in the case of other servants of God, there was a great heart and a frail body.

Well, having read that, and then this morning I was reading about Caleb, Joshua and Caleb. This is an article that Courtney, you could probably stand and read. I'll get it for you. It's from Word of Truth, their monthly magazine. Do you get that? Anyway, the whole thing was about aging today. That's what got my attention. And they talked about Caleb.

When the Jews got to Kadesh Barnea and should have gone into the promised land, he was 40 years old and a real, you know, rugged guy. And 40 years later, when they came back and he was 80 years old, he was just as strong at 80 as he was at 40. And the writer attributed that to his faith, and that he always trusted God in every circumstance. And when God said, let's go, he said, let's go. He and Joshua were the two guys. And the point of the article is that if you walk with the Lord and trust him, it isn't that you're going to live longer, but you're going to be with it right to the end.

And I really agree with that. The guys that I've known, like Miles Stanford, he was with it the day he died. Because I talked to him that day, and then he died that night of a heart attack. But he was working on a project. And Malloy was like that, although he wasn't that old of a guy. But you find that some of these people People that we like to refer to and look up and learn from, they're pretty old. And they lived a long time. And they didn't suffer from dementia, so to speak. Their minds were, they might have forgot where they put their glasses, but their mind was sharp.

Do I need to let you music people go? Yeah, I do. Okay, so we'll start next week with question two, get into the meat of what we're going to do. Let's close. Thank you. Father, how we thank you. Thank you for your Word. We thank you for the freedom to discuss it. We thank you for your Spirit that teaches us and keeps us focused in on you. causing us to realize who we really are in your Son, the Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.