First Timothy lesson 21 quest. 3

All right, we're gonna wrap up question three. I wanted to work on this word fables just a little bit. Let me get, all right. I'm gonna end up in Titus and looking something up. First Timothy four, six, seven. All right, so I'm gonna read six and then I'll read seven and then we'll kind of finish up there. And he says, and pointing out, well, Paul says, and pointing out these things to the brethren, you'll be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished, we talked about that last week, the nourishment, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and the sound doctrine which you have been following, right? That's where we left off last week.

We move on into verse seven, but have nothing to do with worldly fables, fit only for old women. Courtney said he wasn't gonna touch that. He's not gonna touch that, he mumbles under his breath. Okay. On the other hand, so the contrast there is discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. So, we talked about some of the fables, we talked about evolution, astrology, climate change, things like that. What do you think the fables were that Timothy was facing at that time? It wasn't those things.

Jewish laws. Jewish laws? Okay. Gnosticism. Can you define Gnosticism? Because I don't know what it means, and that's a pun. Oh my gosh, were you saving that up? It's just hanging to me right now. It just came to me. What was Gnosticism? Is it present today? What is it?

Mormonism. Mormonism? No, Carl. Why Mormonism? Well, Mormonism has a ladder, so to speak, to holiness or divinity. And you keep moving up the ladder until you become a god. OK. And you get to go to Planet Zadok and produce your own kids. And narcissism was increased piety and knowledge. And the greater knowledge you got, the more godly you got, supposedly. It's spiritual attainment to a new reality.

It's kind of weird, right? What does that mean? We have to be taught. We have to be told what the Lord actually thinks. And I think one of the things about Gnosticism is that it has this idea of secret knowledge. You get a secret knowledge. know certain things. I did a little research here, won't be an expert by any stretch, but the analogy, here's the analogy. Imagine if the world was like a big puzzle and only certain special people knew secret answers, right?

In simple terms, Gnosticism or Gnostics believe that the physical world we live in isn't the real deal. It's not that this world that we live in is not reality. That's what these guys were dealing with. It's not much different than the things that we're told today. It's just in different, it comes in different clothing. Go ahead. Like mysticism. It is mystic. Yeah. It's very mystic.

Um, they thought that inside each person was this divine light, a spark that could just appear and allow you to access this special knowledge. That's what Timothy was dealing with. When Paul says, don't have anything to do with worldly fables, that's what they were dealing with, is these folks that had this special knowledge. They could see and understand things that no one else could see.

I think all the cults are based on that premise. All the cults are based on that premise. That the cult leader has something that nobody else has, or knowledge that nobody else has, you need to follow them to acquire the knowledge. They're the distributor of special revelation.

That's why teaching is so important. That's why God's Word and proper teaching is so important, and I'm agreeing with you. We don't know what divine knowledge is unless we're taught. We don't get it from some billboard or from some person. We get it from the Lord himself and that's the difference.

So there were myths and there were fables and It was this personal spiritual knowledge that was being promoted in the time of Timothy and Paul during the early church age. And there's things like, to be honest, I don't even want to unravel this for myself too much, but Gnosticism had these aeons and these monads and these different levels. I watched an entire YouTube video on Gnosticism and I was like, Man, that is really interesting. You've got these like God, you've got God, you've got demigods, and then other gods, and then like special people, and then you, and those were the myths and the kinds of fables. And what do myths do, ultimately? What do they do to a believer?

As Courtney would say, they bump him off the track. They bump him off the track, what'd you say, Cheryl? I forgot what I said. You're fine. But you got confused. Oh, confused. I just got a mythical notification. They exchanged the truth for a lie. Okay, where do you get that from? Romans. Romans. You gotta mute that. That's what I did for my computer. I just muted it. Yeah, you gotta mute the myths. The myths draw you away from your attention to what?

Christ. Yeah. You get away from a person and you get away, you start falling into secret knowledge and these tiny little sparks that you got, you know, things that, oh, these are unique to me and nobody else really kind of knows them and they don't know them because they haven't had the special experience that I've had. The finished work of the cross. Yeah. Instead of focusing on that, you're focused on little tidbits you get in your brain through the week.

Well, question number four, are we to enter into long debates about the validity of such tales, such myths? Should we debate about them? You got a neighbor who's like, I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think I got an idea. What do you do with that? There's enough rhetoric going around. There is, but what do you do with it?

You tell them the truth and move on. Yeah. The word refuse is mentioned here. How do you refuse somebody that thinks they have special knowledge? You already said it. You have nothing to do with it. This is going back to what Courtney mentioned a few... months ago, you don't have anything to do with that.

So just looking back, you know, we parse this into our chapters and verses and everything, but that's how I was going back to it. In 1st Sympathy 1, he urges them, you know, I urge you upon my departure, in order to pay attention to the message, you know, don't even give an ear to it. Don't give an ear to it. you know you say how do you refute that don't even get any air to it it's hard to do when it's your brother or sister or a relative that you spend time with let me ask you a question do you show empathy and hear them out or do you just say shut up no michael what's the difference You just don't answer. Okay, explain how that might work.

You want to go this way, and so I said, no, let's go back to the Word. And I think that's the key, is you don't pay attention to what as much they're saying as you bring it back to the truth. And again, don't listen to the counterfeit, go back to the real. And you go back to God's Word. You know, that's great about whatever you're talking about to a relative, but this is what God's Word says right here. And let's talk about what God says right here.

Instead of arguing the point in left field. What's wrong with left field? I used to play left field. Okay, right field. You know, I think it's like, you know, I've done expert witness stuff. I mean, I try and lead you into, you know, the attorneys will try and lead you off and into where they want to go.

And so you don't go there. And so it's similar to somebody wants to argue something. Don't even go there. Just go back to the word. And that's the truth. That's counterfeit, what they're talking about. We talk about the truth. And it's not my opinion. It's what God said right here. That's a really good point. Go ahead, Mike. I think there's another element here.

When you're first approached by someone who wants to have a discussion about a fable, you have to listen to the fable. And Courtney's right about going to God's Word, but you don't enter into it, but you have to listen to what they're saying. and then reject it and go to God's word. You have to know, you can't just say, well, that just sounds stupid to me, or no, I won't even entertain it. Some of it is so bad, like if a Mormon came to me and said, you know, well, you know.

But they do, they'll come to your door, they'll knock on it, and what do you do? Yeah. I mean, I think that this pertains, huh? Don't let them in. Well, I made that mistake. Mormonism is easy, but say within the body of Christ, there are fables that go around. How do I say this? About once a year, a book or an idea will come through contemporary Christianity. The best example in my mind is The Chosen.

The children should be totally rejected, because it moves off of what the Scripture says about the Lord Jesus and who He is. I was watching a part of the Ten Commandments last night with Charles and Hessen, right? I thought, I shouldn't be watching this. There's lots of heresy here.

Well, if if I say if I watch The Chosen, here's this guy that claims to be Jesus. So you got a picture of this guy in your mind and you think he's Jesus. So you pray to Jesus. Well. You're looking at this guy from The Chosen and you can make him into an image.

Well, the other thing that happens is sometimes when you're presented with that, there isn't the accept me or I'm walking. The appeal is don't you want to just talk about this and debate it and see if there's any truth in it? No. I think what Paul says to Timothy, shut him off. Don't get in discussions regarding fables. That's what he tells them. Well, what's the opposite of not getting into fables?

Question number five, how would you describe discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness? Verse eight, the body for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. What does godliness mean? What does that verse mean? How do you describe discipline yourself for godliness?

How's that work on Monday morning? Self can't cast out self. Well, that's an interesting statement. I agree with you. You want to explain it a little bit further? A person needs a deeper understanding of what the cross is. And what is the cross? What does it do to self? It's placed inoperative. Crucified, right? I hadn't thought of it that way, but...

I think 2 Timothy 2.15 is probably as good as anything.

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. Accurately handling the word of truth. Accurately handling the word of truth. The New King James says rightly dividing the word of truth. This word discipline, I'm going to build on that. The exercise to train the body or mind. Again, that's the word that we get gymnastics from. I'm not going to try to speak Greek. Okay, I'll try. It's the best I got. To exercise to train the body or mind with a view to godliness.

How do you do that? Does that mean you get out there and you do CrossFit? You do some power lifting? You do a marathon? Or CrossFit? I just said that. Oh, did you? I didn't hear it. But for you, I'm at run a marathon. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what you do? No, I never did. You didn't do a marathon? No. You did run a lot. I did a half, but never ran a full one. I thought they were crazy.

To exercise, to train the body or mind, what is the case here? Is it the body or the mind here? For bodily discipline is only a little profit, but Godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. What kind of exercise are we talking about here?

I think the simplicity of it is read God's word. It has to do with spiritual discipline, right? Yeah. Not mental, for the sake of, like, I can go and read the Cliff Notes for a hundred books and feel like I really grew and learned a lot about, you know, different types of things.

This has to do with God's Word, and Timothy is exhorted to exercise with a view to excelling in godliness. How do you do that? Cheryl, you might be the most fit person here in the room today. You know, and that's just a different way of thinking when you look at these verses because it means that you've been spending time with God and his word and you've been exercising faith with regards to the truth that you've discovered there. That's exercise. That's true exercise.

We've all grown up with different kinds of sports and things that we're interested in, but here we're told that discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Now, what is godliness? What does that mean? Does that mean you become a god? What does it mean?

You're... it's... It's an image. In the image of Christ. Tracking. Does everybody agree with that? Or want to add to it? Subtract from it? Is godliness an image? That's why I don't watch the shows. Because you don't want to have said actor be the person in your brain you think about when you think about the Lord Jesus. Yeah. So what is godliness?

Let's keep working on that one. Yeah, I think exercise gets your body stronger, better, more resilient. Which is a good thing, and I'm not saying that just to melt that. No, I know, and you basically exercise to become The spiritual growth, that you're growing in the word, you're strengthening yourself in the word, you're strengthening yourself, you're renewing of the mind, you're transforming of the mind, you're conforming to the image of Christ. That spiritual growth, that's the, you're growing spiritually, it's exercising your godliness, you're getting stronger in the word, you're stronger in who you are in Christ. If you equate it to an exercise, the exercise you get to better your physical strength, this is now exercising to get your spiritual strength stronger. Yeah, one of the things that I was thinking about, and thank you for that response.

This isn't in my notes, it's just occurred to me, but it's an acquaintance with a person that exercises you as opposed to you focusing on yourself and making yourself stronger. You become strong by acquainting yourself with the Lord Jesus himself. I have in the notes, I have reverence, respect, piety toward God is godliness. Grace is really important.

How so? Because we don't deserve anything. So you can discipline yourself and guide us based on a premise that you don't deserve. A weird way of saying it, but... You've been allowed to discipline yourself in godliness in a way that you don't deserve to actually have because it's by grace. Because you're acquainting yourself with a person who is grace. That seems a little loosey in terms of the language, but I think it's accurate. Yeah, Donna? So do you think Reformed theology is an old wives tale? Do I think Reformed theology is an old wives' tale? Hold on, let me turn off my mic. I think that this is going to be a personal response and I'll allow each of you to critique. I think it has elements that are accurate within it.

But where it misleads the believer, ultimately, is that it continues to put the responsibility back on yourself, therefore making it, it's not truth. So by way of verse seven, I don't know that it's the worldly fable that Timothy was talking about, but I do think it falls into a category of myths. It's not true. There's a systematics concept to it of five premises, right, that construct the scripture in a way that God did not communicate it.

So I was wondering, you know, if that godliness You know, there's, through the identification truths, there's an understanding that we're identified with Christ as a person, and it's a heavenly calling. But you can try to duplicate that by becoming godly, you know, like the monastery. Those were all set up to achieve godliness. From a worldly perspective, yeah. Yeah, we are citizens of heaven.

That's a different perspective altogether. So, yeah, again, I don't think that that was necessary in mind, but in our day and age, I do think that Reformed theology is a fable. I don't think it would, I think it's a, it's not sound doctrine, is what I'll say. I would say maybe it has sound doctrine in terms of justification.

Yeah, and then it gets into sovereignty, and it starts, and then it goes way further. What strikes me about this is that godliness is termed a mystery, which means it's one of those things that hasn't been revealed before. A Jew probably couldn't become godly in the sense that until Christ, there was no way you could have righteousness imputed to you. But godliness is a whole different thing, because one of the things in Romans 1 that God reveals His wrath from Heaven is ungodliness, which tells you that If you want to have a relationship with God, you've got to be like him. You can't be unlike him and have that relationship. So he's revealing his wrath against ungodliness.

And then you begin to find out that godliness is really, in terms of man, is manifested in one man, and that's the Lord Jesus. And so the idea of godliness really is is the Spirit of God making intimacy with Christ the most important thing to you. And that's where the discipline is. Say that one more time. The Spirit of God makes the Lord Jesus the most important thing or person to you. And so, you begin to respond to that by disciplining taking the time, adjusting your agenda and your everyday to spend more and better time with Him as much as you can. And at the same time, the Spirit of God who has indwelt us, His main job is to reveal Christ to us.

So we have the tools, and it's not Like you said, it's not to focus on me becoming a great Christian. The focus is, I just want to know Him. Because He is the Godly One. Well, the Gospel is a nutshell. I think someone has said, death, burial, resurrection. Those are all elements that go into it, but I think that the most important thing is this personal intimacy between the glorified Christ and the believer.

And that, according to 2 Corinthians 3.18, through the Word of God and the work of the Spirit, this transformation process goes on. I'm being conformed to his image more and more. Well, that doesn't mean that I'm becoming a more astute theologian. It means that I'm becoming, I'm just coming to know him. Acquainted. Yeah. More and more acquainted with the Lord Jesus himself. And it has a residual effect on how I live. That's why J.B. Stoney is so... Yeah, J.B. Stoney had this Mystery of godliness, Doc. He had that deep personal relationship. Yes, he did. And he was able to share it to others.

2 Peter 3, 11. Somebody want to grab that for me? Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people are we to be in holy conduct and holiness? all in conduct and godliness. Praise God. What's that? Praise God. Well how do you do that? Worship? You just raise your hands up? You look at the next verse. What does it say? Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because which the within Chanteen, and you just got to keep breathing. Yeah, you do, because if you stop there, we don't want to stop there, because there's a better end of the story. But he's speaking of the new heaven and the new earth.

Yes. Yeah. So, I think going back to what Mike said, and we'll kind of start to close down with question number five here. I did have this one last thought. It says, well, it's your notes, Mike. Christ's likeness by transformation produced by the Holy Spirit while beholding Him in the Word. What verse is that?

Our favorite one, 2 Corinthians 3.18.

That's godliness. You are transformed by beholding him through his word while the Holy Spirit works it out in your life. That's godliness. Somebody asks you, how do I become godly? Well, You need the gospel, number one. You need to believe it. And then, number two, you need to take that same type of faith and move it forward into God's word throughout its entirety for sound doctrine. That's how you become godly, from faith to faith, right?

It's getting all your ducks in a row, right? Yeah, it's getting your ducks in a row. As we behold him, the Holy Spirit works his word into our lives and we become godly in nature. We're all at different places in terms of godliness. But that's what conforming and transforming is all about. Isn't that an amazing word, godliness? It is.

And the fact that it could even fall into a reality of my own, that I could obtain godliness by beholding Him? Go ahead, Mike. I would say, too, that the Philippians verse that says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works into you both to do will and do of His good pleasure.

Positionally, with the resurrection of Christ, I am godly. You are. That's a really good point. Did you guys hear that? I'm in Christ. I'm complete in Him. The problem is, is the everyday walking around in a dying body, full of sin and sin everywhere, for that life to be manifested out rather than the old Adam life. That's what this mystery of godliness is really all about, I think. I think so, too. Yeah.

Let's pray. Father Howie, thank you that you are working in each of us in your own timing, in your own way, as a sovereign God, as a loving God, as a gracious God. You are patient with us and as we behold you through your word, We become conditionally more godly in the sense that we just trust you and we depend upon you. We become more acquainted with you. We're so thankful that you're loving us in that way, that your word is both available to us, and Your Spirit is convicting and convincing us of those truths so that godliness is possible. Positionally, it's perfected. Conditionally, we just continue to praise You and lead and guide us into those truths that would really have us just fall more in love with You. And so we pray in that end, we pray for Mike in the next lesson and just pray for Roger as he delivers the next lesson, just that we would be able to behold you even more through your word. And it's your name we pray. Amen. Amen.