First Timothy Finish Lesson 10 and Start Lesson 11

All right, we are finishing up, hopefully, Lesson 10. Miles has Lesson 11. We have two more questions in this. And again, it's just, after going through this and spending so many weeks, it's just realizing how much is involved in these verses, and how much information in there, and just a lot of really, I don't know how to say, cool things that we know through this passage. Well, I always like to do it. It will maybe help here. So the verses we're going through, let me read them again. 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 7.

First of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgiving may be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so they may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in sight of our God, our Savior. who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

So we're going to basically be looking at that last verse, verse six, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. So we're going to go, let me get down to question 10 here. Question 10. Discuss the preposition for, is to prepare, for the sake of, in behalf of, instead of.

So again, for who gave himself as a ransom for all. So this is again, I like this because it's for all. And does that mean it's just for believers? No. No, that's the important thing, is that it's for all. Everyone. The ransom was paid for everyone to get out of the slavery of sin. And so, it's not something that was just reserved for us. It's for every human being born.

They have been paid, the ransom has been paid, but you have to receive it. And you can pay a ransom, but if you don't do anything with it, what good is it? And so God has, through Christ's finished work on the cross, Christ paid for all of our sins, paid the ransom, and it's out there for us to receive. So that's first and foremost. It's for all. So the for is an important one. It's for all of us.

So I want to look at a couple other similar truths that we see in Titus 2.14. who gave himself for us to redeem us from the lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession. So again, it's another for us, for all. He gave himself for us, for all. And what to redeem us, and that's the word we're going to look at, too, is redeem, or we looked at that, the ransom, the redeem, the paid for, every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession.

We can also look in Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse, what? For us, or for all.

Galatians 3.13, same principle. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. So the substitution that was done to pay for our sins, He came and paid for them and substituted the penalty for us. So, I say in these passages, the context clearly indicates that substitution is meant.

And then I think one of the commentators said, Mike had quoted expositors commenting on a ransom for all says, if we were to see any special force in the anti, we may say that expresses the Lutron is equivalent in the value of the thing procured by means of it.

A lot of words. But perhaps Paul's use of the word, if he did not coin it, is due to his desire to reaffirm our Lord are Lord's well-known declaration in a most emphatic way possible. Lutron merely implies an exchange. Antiluton, who pair, implies that the exchange is decidedly a benefit to those on whose behalf it was made. I think that's the money line right there.

Yeah. Who's the one that authorized the curse? God did. Why? Because He's righteous. Yeah, that's right. So, I think sometimes we look at a verse like this and we think, well, you know, who said that we have to do all this? We kind of got into this last week. I still think, you know, God has set this up like this. That is true. But I go to the fact that He's God.

He could have made up a whole different system if He wanted. I don't think he could have, based on his righteousness. No, he could have wiped us out. Oh, could have. But he still wouldn't have been satisfied. No, but, well, he could wipe us out and paid for the sins and wiped us out. Christ paid for him and wiped us out. So think about that. with no Christ, there's no satisfaction. So he could have waited until Christ came and went through the cross and then wiped us all out, and then he'd have been righteous, but he couldn't wipe out Adam at the beginning.

But I go even back further than that. Before we were created, even a thought, he could have changed the whole program. And that's where I think we get the characteristic of love, that God loves us. He wanted us, and he wanted us openly to glorify himself. He wanted the possession for himself to glorify him. And he could have created a different path if he wanted to. before we were ever created, before he ever thought of us, he could have thought of something else.

But this is his plan, which I think demonstrates his love beyond question. We know that for a fact, that he, before we created anything, he knew the plan was to ultimately sacrifice his son. I think that the argument against any plan would be this, that his righteousness is Not variable. He never has a plan B. Plan A always has to be the plan B because it lines up with who he is.

And he couldn't have done it another way. He had to do it this way, and that was the risk that he took by creating a man with free will. I know, but that's what I'm saying. He could have done it with no will and made us robots. He could have done that. That's what I'm saying. There's other ways he could have done it. But he chose this way. And he gave us a free will, so it wasn't a forced love to him. And that's what I'm saying. He could have, like I said, made us robots and no will, and you're going to love me.

I think Romans 3.26 speaks to this, that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in him. You know, he's just in his dealing with sin, but he's also the justifier of those with their faith. And, you know, that's kind of the amazing thing about it all is that in his justice, he punished sin, he dealt with sin on the cross. but in his love he justifies us who deserves no justification, right? Yeah, I guess the point that's being missed is the fact that he didn't have to do it.

He's still righteous, he's still all of his characteristics, but he could have made us mindless robots that loved him. He could have done that, where we didn't sin. We couldn't sin, because we have no ability to do that. He could have created a system that way, but he didn't.

So in a council between the triune God, they came up with this plan, which ultimately said, Christ, you have to die. You have to be separated, which I think is just another way of showing his love, how much he loved us. He wanted us to love him. A free will, he allowed us to do, ultimately, through salvation by faith, a gracious act. That's what he created. And I think that just demonstrates his love to the utmost. Again, the definition of love is that he sent his son for us. And again, that's an incredible thought, that he did that.

Even before the councils of time, they said, this is the way we're going to do it. In Christ, you're going to go, ultimately, become a man, fully man, fully God, and you're going to die, separated, take all the penalty for this, so I can graciously offer salvation to all human beings. That's the plan. And it satisfies my righteousness. It satisfies everything about me. God's saying that.

You know, it's interesting because I think that even though the one who paid the price for sin was a human being, still he had to have the price of the angels' rebellion paid for at the same time. And he never says that he loves the angels. He never says that. So I think in context of who God is, I think righteousness is first.

But in that righteousness, I agree with you, is this thing he calls love, which it's not emotional washy wash, it's not that. It's just that he has such great desires. We just read his desire for us, his intense desire for us, all men, for all of us. It's this desire of his to have us come and glorify him. And it's not forced. It's not a forced situation. He wants us, by the will he created in us, to come to him. That, to me, is mind-boggling.

Like I said, when I go back, before anything, and you realize he created this planet, this land, it ultimately caused his son to come and die. That, to me, just expresses a love that we can't even imagine. So that's my point is that he created this, and it's a plan that I wouldn't have created if I was a dad. Oh, by the way, you're going to have to die here in a little bit for these idiots over here who've sinned and done everything against me.

But that's the plan he set. So that to me is just ultimate love. Which, you know, we try and parse his attributes, we can't. He's all of those things, you know, omnipresent, omnipotent, loving, all of that. It's all involved in his plan. All right, a little rabbit trail there. Last question, and then it's over to Miles. Discuss in due time. It's kind of different in the NASB.

It says, who gave himself a ransom for all a testimony given at the proper time. The King James Version says, who gave himself a ransom for all, be testified in due time. So in the King James, it is in due time. So what is the testimony, or what is being testified? It says to be testified in due time. First, let's figure out what's being testified. Sorry, go ahead. His righteousness.

Not really in this one. What's it say in this verse? I was just going to say the fact that Jesus Christ is the, as it's termed here, the mediator between God and man, the Savior. It's the gospel message, really. That's what Paul is testifying to. That's what we're going to get into in verse 7 here in a bit. Yeah, so, you know, yes, righteousness, Mike, but in context of this verse, or verse five, really, for there is one God, one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. who gave himself as a ransom for all. That's the testimony, that there's one God, one mediator, and it's Christ, and he paid for all of us, the ransom. That's the testimony given at a proper time. So that's the testimony. The question I said, should we also testify the same thing? Testify the same? To the same? Ask it again. Should we testify this same thing that he's telling Timothy? Yes.

I don't think there's a question. Should we deny that there's one God? Should we deny that there's one mediator? Should we deny that he paid for the ransom for us? These are all, as you said, the gospel message, really. That there's a God, there's a mediator, and then there's somebody who paid for the sins and the price that we had for sin. It's really the gospel message.

Should we deny in due time? Yeah, well, in due time. So what is due time? I'm thinking about you and your internet in due time. Oh, I am, you know, as frustrated as I am, I literally told him, this is an opportunity to trust and depend on him. And I slept, had the best night of sleep last night I've had in a long time. And, you know, I go back to, Lord rockets it in my head all the time.

Be anxious for nothing. Except in this case. Be anxious for nothing. And by all prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God. And he will guard your heart. And it's the peace. I'm fully resting in the fact that He's in control of all this. And as I said, by all prayer and supplication, I'll bring it to Him. And yeah, Lord, what are you doing? I'd love to have this answer, if it's your will. I'd love to have it today, if it's your will. But you know what's going on, and I trust you. Well, he's the one that dwells in eternity. Yeah, well, he's the one who controls all.

Especially, you know, I think about that. And the inanimate objects and things. I mean, we as humans still have a will and can run around and, you know, he can guide and shape us by circumstances and things. But inanimate objects and different things like that, i.e. computers, internet, Mike, your internet gone, all of these things, he has a control. Instantly, and change it if he wanted. So I rest in the fact that he knows what's going on, and he'll fix it or figure out something for me. I already got a new Gmail account. He's figured a bypass a little bit.

Every week, we look for a little saying to put in the bulletin that Miles Stanford put together, a paper called Quotes for Growth. And I found one yesterday that I didn't quote the whole thing because it was too long, but what in essence it said was every human being goes through the same internet problems and that kind of thing, and that's not what is spiritually applicable to a believer.

It's the things of God that matter. And when those are the issues, that's when faith is built. And I think, yeah, that's probably pretty accurate because they're going to fix the internet. And my faith has nothing to do with really, I mean, I'm calm about it because he's a sovereign God. But when I struggle with, I read something in God's Word, and I see it, and I think, oh, I'm supposed to just rest and believe that, and I can't. I'm not doing it. I think it's both.

I think it's both because I think through the trials, it's meant to, you know, we can go through the process, you know, it's to perfect us, basically. So the trials are meant to, you know, the trial of every day. It's not specifically of a biblical truth, which we struggle with.

But I think through the trials, it teaches me to relax in him, you know, and trust him. It's come to this, you know, I have to trust him. Yeah, so that's I think the the through the trials, you know, how did I react? You know, first day? But, you know, the Lord has worked on my heart that I got to rest him as I when it happens. It's an opportunity to address it. That's an opportunity. I wasn't saying that this morning. I think angry in the test. That's what when it happened. I said, that's it. I was still a little anxious, a little anxious for a few days. So I'm still frustrated, but At any rate, so the King James may be a better translation of in due time. This is translated in the Greek into two words, kairos and idios. Matt, you need to get my Greek better, Miles. So, the karyos means season, opportune, time.

It's not merely a succession of minutes, which is chronos, but a period of opportunity through not necessity. There is really no English equivalent for the word, which is kind of interesting. It's not like minutes, like in due time, in five years, 10 years, whatever. It's more a season or a period of time. But there's no English equivalent to it, which was kind of interesting.

And then also, it says in Zodiac, appointed time, set time, certain season, equivalent to a fixed or definite time or season. And then the latter word, idios, means private, unique, only of its kind. So, the due time would mean that unique particular season for the proclamation of the gospel based on the historic work of Christ on the cross. So, it's this unique time where the gospel message is brought out directly.

As opposed to, when you look at Galatians 3, 23, I think it is, that the law was a tutor pointing to Christ. But now, and then 24, all the law-based people always forget verse 24, I believe it is, that says, now that the tutor is here, that there's no, or no, now that Christ is here, there's no need for the tutor, which was the law. So again, a lot of things pointed to this time, and a lot of the Old Testament pointed to Christ, but now the gospel message is being revealed through Paul, basically, and the church, what the church is, and the manifestation of Christ through the church.

So this is the unique time in due time, or this unique season. So I said, yeah, the gospel is preached all through Old Testament times, but this was upon the basis of prophetic work of salvation, which was yet to be worked out on the cross. So again, it's in due time. Well, Christ came, the work was finished, and now the message of the church and gospel message is now clearly defined. So that's the in due time, this particular time. It wasn't before Christ. It was pointed to it, but now that Christ had come and finished work on the cross, it's due time or the particular unique time in history.

All right, any other questions? Otherwise, we'll turn it over to Miles. And did you guys get question 11? OK. It's yours, Miles. I'll click that. All right, sounds good. Is it possible to spin the camera around so I can see the question? That's exactly what I was going to do. OK. We have a few here, Mike and Ron, and everybody are at home. Yeah, everybody's online. Here we go. Hey, everyone. Go ahead. Yeah. Is that good? Yeah. All right.

Good to see you guys so yeah, okay, so we're moving into into lesson 11 here and we're gonna be focusing on verses 7 and 8 and it's Verse 7 as Courtney's been reading it in context here. It's really attached to verses 1 through 6 so I won't reread that whole section again, but Let's just read verse 7 And that's where our first question is going to come out of. He says, for this, and that points back to what we were just talking about, for this, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I am not lying as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. So, um, the first thing we're going to do is define what a preacher is.

Um, and, uh, Let me quickly flip over to 2 Timothy 1.11. I just wanted to note that he repeats this in his second letter to Timothy.

And here, and this is why I knew the answer to Courtney's question about the testimony, because here in 2 Timothy 1.10, he's referring to the gospel, and then in verse 11 he says, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. So he uses the same phrase there. except in that context he uses the words the gospel. And that is the thing for which he was appointed a preacher. So here in 1 Timothy he doesn't use the word gospel but he describes the gospel in terms of the fact that Jesus Christ came and gave himself as a ransom for many. So let's talk about what a preacher is. Go for it. You guys had this for 11 minutes before class started, so I know you haven't had, but what is a preacher?

A Zodiatist says it's a herald. A herald? I knew a herald. There was a speaker that used to come to camp. His name was Uncle Harold. Wait. Did you know a prior? No, that's really good, Donna. That's great. Anyone else? Nobody wants to go for the guy with the collar and the clergy bumper sticker? That preacher? That's a Catholic. That's a Catholic? OK. I thought the Catholics had priests. Are priests preachers? Anyway. They're supposed to be a mediator between man and God. Well, that's not going to work, because Jesus is the mediator. I know.

So the word for preacher is keroux, which is interesting, because it actually is only used three times in the New Testament. Here, the one we just looked at, the parallel in 2 Timothy 1, and the other one, anyone guess what it is? Second Peter 2.5, where Noah is a preacher of righteousness. So those are the only three uses of this noun, preacher. But the verb form is actually used quite a bit. But Donna's right.

The simple definition is herald, which is also not a term that we use much anymore. So it's the guy in the, you know, medieval-type movies that says, here ye, here ye, right? And actually, our local town here has a town crier. A good contemporary is the press secretary of the United States. She's a herald. There we go. She's supposed to go out and tell us what's going on, which she never does, but that's what she's supposed to do. Yeah, that's a good example.

From Zodiotes, he says, in classical Greek, a public servant of supreme power, both in peace and in war, one who summoned the ecclesia, the town gathering. A Keroux messenger was the public crier and reader of state messages such as the conveyor of a declaration of war. So, obviously, that term predates internet and television. And, you know, you had to send a guy out to declare your messages. I mean, if you wanted to declare war, you didn't make radio bulletin you you sent out a K Rooks on your behalf and I found a phrase there of supreme power really interesting what gives us what gives a Herald or a K Rooks supreme power what gives him the supreme power yeah why does he have supreme power why would that be the or the definition Can I cheat and use Zodiacs?

Yeah, go for it. The authority of the herald or preacher lies in the message he has to bring. So, you know, it's God's message that he's bringing. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Um, yeah, it has everything to do with on whose behalf he is coming, right? Who's who's sending him? And, you know, when your press secretary speaks, I assume they speak on behalf of the President are supposed to, right? Um, so, um, So that's actually interesting, and something Mike had shared in the question notes here.

It said, the imperial herald would enter a town on behalf of the emperor, so like you said, Courtney, and make a public proclamation, which his sovereign ordered him to give, doing so with such formality, gravity, and authority as must be heeded He gave the people exactly what the emperor ordered him to give. Nothing more, nothing less. Because he also had a supreme responsibility. He may have come with supreme authority, but I often use this example.

Actually, I usually use this when I'm defining apostle because it's a similar word, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. You know, when I send one of my kids to the others on my behalf, I say, hey, so-and-so, go get the kids, you know, whatever, you know, I need you to tell them this on my behalf. Well, if they misconvey that message, as I take that very seriously with them, you know, they're going to be disciplined if they if they purposefully or intentionally miscommunicate what I what I sent them to tell the other kids because they're speaking on my on my behalf with my authority, which is something that they shouldn't take lightly and abuse, right. So So that's kind of the idea here is that a K-ROOPS is a messenger speaking with the authority of the sender, giving a specific message to which they need to be true to that message. Myles? Now, if we look at the word Jerusalem. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I just can't stop thinking about Hark!

The Herald Angels Sing, of course. I was looking at that. You know, the Bible doesn't actually say herald, but says Luke 2, 13, suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests. So, um, You know, first of all, the angels didn't sing, but they had to say it so it rhymes with king. But I guess, yeah, I guess we can't put too much actual theology in the verse of the words of Christmas carols.

You're a poet. What's that? Yeah, the poet. I'm a poet? Not really. But that was just another example of where I've been heralded. Yeah, it's actually a really interesting thought to bring up that angels are often God's heralds, you know, especially in the fullness of time when Christ came, they were the ones sent to proclaim that good news that he was coming. So, cool.

Don't you think that Paul starts every epistle kind of with a to lay out his authority for writing it, and to encourage the people he's writing to, to listen to him, because the message he has comes directly from the Lord. So I think you could say, like I was just looking at Romans 1 and then 1 Corinthians, and he says in Romans 1, he starts writing, he says, called an apostle, set apart the gospel of God, which was promised beforehand through the prophets of holy scriptures concerning a son and he goes on and he says who declared to be the son of god and he lays out all this information and then later on he says i'm not ashamed of the gospel of god because it's powerful you know yeah so it's the difference between a preacher and a teacher ah that's a good question Yeah, we won't get there until next week. He talks about a teacher of the Gentiles, but it's interesting because he pairs those three words together here and in 2 Timothy in a parallel verse. He says a preacher, apostle, and teacher.

He kind of clumps them all together, right? So I think there's, he's using them in some sense synonymously, but then, um, when you choose, you know, a group of words to put together, you're using them. So you kind of play off one another and sort of clarify and build off of each other. So there's, there's some, uh, there's nuances to each of these words.

It's going to kind of build our understanding of what, what Paul was, was to do as a preacher and an apostle. But, um, yeah, no, that's really good. I think we're pretty close to time here. So I think what we'll do is next week we'll, start off looking at the verb form of Kiru. So since there's only three uses of this word in the New Testament, but there's I think 61 uses of the verb, we're going to We're going to look at that next time and see what is preached.

A preacher preaches. So what are the preachers preaching in the New Testament? We find out that actually there are a lot of preachers throughout the New Testament. And though they're just not referred to by that noun, but we often hear that, you know, so John the Baptist preached a message, Jesus preached, you know, all of his disciples were sent out to preach, and then so forth.

So we're going to find out a little bit more about what that message is that they were preaching, and then specifically what Paul is preaching, and then we'll move on from there. Any other thoughts or questions on this today? We could talk about the words there, for I was appointed a preacher, because we don't really have a specific question on that. But that's what we were kind of talking about indirectly here, is the fact that a preacher and an apostle are those who were sent. So it implies, the words themselves imply, that there's an appointing or ascending.

And so I just thought it'd be important to, like Mike said already, but touch on the fact that Paul, who was Paul appointed by? And he makes that really clear in his letter to the Galatians where he says, Paul, an apostle, his typical thing with the meeting includes these exhorts, not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Christ Jesus and God the Father. So Paul's apostleship, his commission as a preacher, was directly from Jesus Christ, so the highest authority. Okay, cool. Well, let's Let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for the richness of it, just the detail with which you have communicated to us the wonders of your grace. Lord, we We just thank you that we've had this opportunity today to talk a little bit about your son, Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, not just for us, not just for a subset of mankind, but for every single man, woman, and child on this planet today. And Lord, we know that there are billions of people right now who are on their way to eternal separation from you. And Lord, so we pray that you would burden us for those for whom Christ died. And Lord, that we would also be those who preach Christ, who proclaim Him and His death on behalf of all men and His resurrection to new life. So Lord, we thank You for this time and we pray that You would continue to teach us throughout this morning and that we would keep our eyes fixed on You in the days to come. In Jesus' name, Amen.