2nd Timothy 2:14-26

Alright, so last week we went over 2 Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 8. I'm sorry, 1 through 13. That was pretty tremendous math. 1 through 13, and this week we're going to take a look at 14 through 19. For the sake of the recording, I'm going to go ahead and read 19 through 26. That's how my whole week has gone. So if that's any indicator, that's been the way of things. So let me go ahead and read from 14 through 26 out loud so we can kind of get some context.

Remind them of these things and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some. Nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands having this seal the Lord knows those who are his and Everyone whose names everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels But also vessels of wood and of earth where and some of honor and some of dishonor Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things he will be a vessel of honor sanctified useful to the master prepared for every good work Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.

The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." Alright, so Paul is going to continue on with the message that he'd started the chapter with, and frankly the letter with, he says, remind them of these things.

Who's them? That's not a question on your handout, but hopefully that's okay. His church? Okay. I mean, technically that's not wrong, but I was looking for something slightly more specific. If we look back at verse 2, he's talking about the men that will continue on carrying on the truth of the gospel. Well, the gospel too, but the message that Paul had handed down. So, keeping people who are to be teachers of God's word to pass down through generations, remind them of these things. And solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words. So, why does he say charge these leaders. Why charge these leaders in the presence of God to do anything?

Isn't that legalism or some kind of checklist to-do item? Does that seem like a reasonable thing? The idea of charging someone is to commission them with an explicit set of directions. That's okay, that's not legalism. When you've been charged with certain duties and responsibilities, like when we looked at 1 Timothy 3, the elders were charged with certain character qualities. That wasn't legalism, that was Paul saying, these are requirements so that we have the right people doing the right job. Leaving somebody with a charge is not legalism and it's not creepy or weird or awkward in any way.

But he says, in the presence of God, and I think that's interesting, because it's a reminder. What's it a reminder of? You're accountable to God. When you teach, when I teach up here, it's not about my ego, it's not that, oh, Randy gets to teach. It's not anything other than, this is God's Word and I'm accountable to Him when I teach you. It's not anything else that I should be worried about. If I offend you, I apologize, but if I disobey God's word and I candy-coat it, that's not good either. So, charge these things.

Now then, Paul is revisiting some truths that he wrote in his first letter, and I find it kind of interesting that Paul writes to Timothy the same thing multiple times. It's not a question on here and this is just something to maybe think on. But why would Paul write or feel compelled to write the same thing multiple times to Timothy? Is it something that you think Timothy didn't get? Was he afraid? We can only speculate. I mean really there's not something that's exacting and obvious, but there seems to be this repetition of themes. Timothy traveled with Paul. He should have known most of these things, but Paul is fortifying these concepts. So Paul warns him about the people wrangling about words, not to wrangle about words.

How many of you have ever wrangled about words? I have. I'm sure my dad could testify to the number of times that I, especially in my youth, would argue about words. Go ahead. He's got a story immediately came to mind. This is not a different thing. It's a little bit different. It's sort of a farm analogy. You sit there and wrestle with the pig and wrestle with the pig, but the problem comes when you find that the pig enjoys it. This is fun.

You're reinforcing the bad behavior. I remember my mom at one point in time looking at me with just great exasperation saying, you need to be an attorney when you grow up because you like arguing. The older I got, the less I liked arguing, which is good, but there was a time in my life when I, like, I remember at one point in time, arguing with my, arguing is probably the wrong word, my dad was frustrated because my mom had complained, I have to spend so much money on groceries, and he came to me, and I don't remember exactly where we were in the house, but I remember him saying, you need to finish your beans when you eat a can of beans, and I remember thinking, I don't eat beans. I never eat cans of beans. I didn't understand what he meant, which was part of it, but then he said, no, you have chili, and sometimes there's beans on the bottom of the can.

You've got to scrape it all out. If you're going to eat and waste all that, you can't waste this food because it costs a lot of money. My brother and I could eat a lot of food. We probably still only ate half as much as my dad did when he was a teenager, but he lived on a farm, so that was different.

But I remember just thinking, I probably didn't say it, which was in its own way kind of miraculous. But I remember thinking, but that's not beans. But I didn't argue with him over the words, which is good, but I remember in my head going, wrong. But that's one of those things where the arguing about words when it comes to theology is a real problem.

How many of you have ever had a good theological discussion with somebody who disagrees with you. By good, I'm being somewhat facetious, but you argue with people and sometimes it gets down to these words and these semantical things where you're kind of dodging one another and you're speaking right past one another.

I, when I was in seminary in particular, was always fascinated to watch these debates between different theological camps because they would just wrangle the words and they'd argue. And one thing that became really clear at one debate was that if you could use PowerPoint really well, you could have a severe advantage with the audience.

It didn't matter what the words were. If you could present it slicker and nicer, the audience would be swayed more readily. But the wrangling of words is an interesting warning because you have these people who are going to argue and they're going to try to take things and deceive people, basically, is what happens. Deception comes.

Now I ask this question on here, why should arguing about words matter and aren't believers supposed to have opinions? That's really just kind of a gratuitous question. I don't really want to technically ask that. We could ask it another way and be a little bit more honest. Why should we not be arguing about the words? Why is it that we're not concerned about opinions? What does arguing about words lead to? I mean, Paul tells us here. Discord. He says it ruins the hearers. How many times have you been listening to people argue, whether it's about theology or anything else, and when you're done, you just leave disgusted?

I mean, when I look at talk radio, like sometimes I've had it on a few occasions to borrow my parents' car, and my mom will have had the talk radio on before. I don't know if she was listening to whatever was on the radio when I got in the car, I don't know.

But it comes on, and almost instantly I just get worked up. And I have to turn it off, because I'm just like, ah! Make it stop! Because immediately, as a hearer, it tends to get you worked up. Is that the state that the Holy Spirit wants to lead us to? Of being worked up? It becomes a problem. It leads to ruin, although I'm not saying that all talk radio always leads to ruin. There's a principle here where the arguing and wrangling of words is troublesome. If the goal is to be right versus the goal being what is true, That's a pretty big difference.

That's one of the things that they teach you if you ever take... Has everybody here taken a debate class or at least been in a persuasive argument sort of a scenario? One of the fundamental rules of debate is not that you're right. It's that you're persuasive. It doesn't matter because truth is usually not the issue in the debate class. It's take a position and argue for it and win the debate. Not that it's true or that it's right. But if truth is your purpose, that's important. And I'm going to ask the next two questions just one after the other.

What was the Hebrew rabbinical tradition when faced with doctrinal controversy, and what was the Greek tradition, a la Acts 17, when it came to ideas and truth? What did the rabbis tend to do. What was the historical? My dad told a joke a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully somebody remembers roughly what... Well, you know, fables and genealogies, but the idea... There was no conclusion. The terse form of the joke my dad told would be something along the lines of whenever there's two rabbis, there's three opinions. or something to that effect.

It's like the tradition is the arguing about what is right and less what is actually right. What's so funny is that God when he gave the law was so specific about the preservation of the accuracy and the holiness and the specificity of the law and yet the Jews spent a tremendous amount of time arguing about things that were more vague. In the Greeks, I mentioned Acts 17 What was the Greek idea of truth and philosophy as a whole? I think truth wasn't as important probably as the ideas. Well the ideal nature of truth, the philosophical quality of truth was way more important than the practical application of truth.

So when you read John he sounds like maybe he's being a little rigid and legalistic because he comes from a Hebrew perspective where if it's true you do it. And then you get to Paul, and Paul has to articulate the nuances of the doing, which is good for me as more of a Western thinker, because then I feel, oh, Paul explains to me how to put the shoes on and tie the laces and go run with this thing. Whereas in John's it's true, so we do it. But the Greeks, if I understand correctly, the Greeks, if it was true, that was great, but it didn't mean you did anything with it.

It fits into our postmodern culture kind of well. You might think that's true for you, but it doesn't have to apply to your life. I've really wrestled with that in exchanges with various people with a postmodern mindset. And it's becoming more and more prevalent with the younger generations. which makes it really hard as a dad with a nine-year-old and almost six-year-old. I want to make sure that they aren't postmodern. I want to make sure that they believe that there is absolute truth and that there's application of that truth.

Next question on here is how could wrangling about words ruin hearers? How could the wrangling actually cause the ruination? Okay, so there's that debate principle coming out where you win by headcount. It's a democracy of truth rather than an actual... We don't see that today at all. That's not relevant. I think they get tired of the play. They just don't want to hear this.

Well, in one... Yeah, Stan, you started to raise your hand, right? It definitely impacts your confidence. I would definitely agree with that. My dad used the illustration, like a train on the tracks, it's faith in the facts. And feelings are the caboose, if I recall, that's the way it was phrased. But if your faith is in fiction, you're in trouble. If it's in the uncertainty, then you've got nothing. It's not really faith at all, then it's mysticism or any number of other things.

It's worthwhile if only one of the wheels is on a track. Yeah, well it's funny because as a kid I remember my grandma, my dad's mom would take us to the skunk train on rare occasion. It was a steam engine train and I remember getting on it and it would take it a while to get up to speed. You know, you get in a car, you turn on the engine, you step on the gas and you go. I mean, some of them go 0-60 and it takes a while, but you can get going 0-60 in a relatively reasonable amount of time.

But a train, when they're hauling a lot and they've got all the things, it takes them a while to get going. You need all the wheels on the track. If you could for some reason only have one wheel on the track, you would really not have an effective mode of transportation. So your spiritual growth would definitely be limited if you didn't have that, if you only had but one wheel on the track.

So the next question here, now that I read it out loud, is a little broad. I think I was more focused in my mind. But it says, what can be done within the body of the local church to remove this problem? And the problem I was referring to is the wrangling of words. What do we do so that we don't worry about that? We don't spend a lot of time arguing. I mean, at Holly Hills, we generally don't spend a lot of time arguing anyways. But what are principles that should be operating in the body to prevent that?

One thing, Berman and I were talking about that just this morning. It's about the elders meeting and making sure that they are of the same words. So the leadership has a unified position doctrinally. Stan? I was going to say for the individual, I think it's the Burian principle.

And that is that you listen to what's being said, then you go home and you study your Bible and you find out what it says in context. And then once you have the facts straightened, then maybe privately discuss it with somebody. Sure. So proper studying practices to make sure that you've reaffirmed that which is true and you can discern that which is false. That's important within the body.

The arguing over words is in part based on a philosophical presupposition that truth is relative. And so we approach God's Word at Holly Hills and hopefully many other churches. I was at Fort Collins Bible Church yesterday and I can say they do the same. We approach God's Word as though it is true and it contains a true message from God through authors that meant to communicate something and we can understand it.

That's a bit of a long answer. But the idea is that there is truth and we can know it. There may be difficult passages that take a little bit more time to go through, but we're not arguing about it because it's relative. And you can have an opinion and I can have an opinion. The last question we already answered, so we'll just keep moving about church leadership saying the same thing.

So Paul keeps writing to Timothy. He says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. accurately handling the word of truth. Why does Paul tell Timothy to be diligent? Isn't Timothy supposed to rest? Aren't we supposed to rest and not be diligent? Why would Paul say that?

Is he contradicting himself? I think we all know that he's not contradicting himself. So how do we understand that? He's going to be taking a little pause and he's going to be presenting the doctrine of the gospel. He wants to make sure that it's correct. So it's more than wrestling.

I think he's going to be an active spreader of the gospel. Timothy's reputation within the church community there in Ephesus is going to be important. I always find reputation a difficult thing because it's not easy to build always. And once you've destroyed it, it's really, really hard to rebuild. And so Paul is saying, hey, here's this thing. This reputation issue is really important.

Make sure that you are diligent to present yourself approved to God. He's not presenting himself to God to get God's approval, right? That's not what Paul means by this. Who does he want to view him as approved to God, as a workman? Who's supposed to see him that way?

The people he's teaching. If I came to the elders, for example, and I'm certainly not picking on our elders here at Holly Hills, but if I came to the elders and they didn't have a knowledge of God's Word, that would be troublesome. Instead, when I go to the elders, I find that if I've got a question, I can ask any one of the three elders, and almost always they have the answer, or if they don't, they're able to quickly retrieve it and communicate it to me in a really timely fashion. They're diligent about it, and it's really cool to be on the receiving end of that. I always enjoy that.

But Timothy, Paul warns him to be diligent. And the next question here is, how does anyone, including Timothy, accurately handle the Word of God or the Word of Truth? How do you accurately handle the Word of Truth? Okay, you have to know it. But the knowing it is so that you can then handle it. But how do we handle it?

And this is kind of looking at something we said earlier from a different angle. There's going to be a living aspect. There's going to be the ability to communicate it and restate it to the people who follow it, and you're going to be able to describe the observation, the interpretation, and the application, the hermeneutical principles.

And you're going to show consistency, so that when somebody comes, they're not going, I don't know what he said. I don't know that he understood the text. And there's been times when I've not understood the text, and that's when I go to the elders. help. I don't get it.

Those qualities are there, but we have a consistent method to interpret God's Word, and that's really important. Consistency in the handling of God's Word is good. How many of you have heard teachers teach two competing ideas from the same pulpit? It's the same teacher, he's trying to teach through one passage, and later on they get to another passage And they say something that is entirely contradicting. I've heard that on a few occasions.

And it's really troublesome. Because then, which is true? And it's from the same teacher. It's not even the wrangling parties. It's one person doing it. So the diligency with accurately handling the word of truth is important. So Paul continues on there. The funny thing is that I really didn't cover the principle of the workman. So let's step back here before we jump through the next set of questions.

Approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. What is it about a workman that does not need to be ashamed that is so important in today's daily business life? Paul's using an illustration, so let's make sure we understand the illustration. Have you ever found a workman who is ashamed in your life? A workman doesn't have to be somebody who's making something out of wood. It could be, or a tent. What does that look like? Have you ever seen a waiter or waitress break down in tears at a restaurant because a tray of dishes collapsed? Have you seen disaster happen in the workplace? I mean, the answer is yes to that.

But Paul says, be diligent in your walk with the Lord and your handling of the Word so that it does not appear as though you've got this problem. Who wants to learn from the person with the problem? I mean, I have problems, so if you're learning anything from me, we can discuss that. But there's a general principle of really having a lot of chaos here that shouldn't be part of this work. So accurately handling the word. But avoid worldly and empty chatter.

And Paul had written that to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6.20 as well. He said, watch out for this empty chatter. What's worldly and empty chatter? Stan? Gossip. Okay, gossip is definitely part of it. Gossiping, it's the how's the weather and superficial conversation is part of it as well.

Let's talk about all of the things that are of earthly value, but you're not edified by. How many of you have had Christian conversations with believers? You know they're believers, but the depth of your conversation is shallow through and through, over and over again. And you don't ever cover spiritual things.

And that breaks my heart so bad. We have friends that we get together with on occasion, some of them that Jessica and I have talked about from Texas, where you get together and the truth of God's word is just sprinkled through everything you're talking about, without exception. And that was an awkward way to present things, because it makes it sound like the conversations that I might have with you don't have that. That's not what I'm trying to say.

But then we were comparing that with some other relationships that we've had with other people. That person's a believer, but you don't get any depth. Are the babes in Christ? Do they not care about spiritual things? What are the things that are there?

But Timothy needs to make sure that, as the leader teaching these men, that he's not perpetuating that problem. He's not leading people down the road. Is it wrong to talk about movies? Is it wrong to talk about politics? Is it wrong to talk about earthly things? They're not inherently sinful, but they should not dominate every part of every conversation. When you get to heaven, how much time are you going to care about the latest remake. Hollywood seems to be just churning out a bunch of remakes of movies. Who cares?

We're not going to be sitting debating the 1969 version of that movie was so much better than the 84 version and let's not even talk about the 98 version of that movie. You're not going to have that conversation. We're going to be talking about heavenly things. We're going to be growing still in the knowledge of God's grace, and we'll be constantly in awe of the things that God is still revealing to us and teaching us, we're not going to care about the movies. So the worldly chatter, the garbage, the rumor mongering, all of that, the gossip, not worth it.

Now Paul says it'll spread like gangrene, and that right there is It's a pretty graphic illustration. Every time I've seen pictures of gangrene, I've decided I don't want to see another picture of gangrene. Once was enough, and then you see it again, and you're like, okay, twice was enough. And you see it again, and you're like, okay, can we stop with the gangrene pictures? That's what I always hate about the internet, is if you search for something, there's usually a picture of it. I'm like, oh no. I didn't search for gangrene this time just to have a fresh image in my mind, but it's gross.

It kind of implants itself there. But the gangrene spreading as a principle is important. Why will it spread like gangrene? Stan? The picture I have instead of gangrene, I wrote in the document when he says that a lie gets halfway around the world before truth gets its shoes tied. Well, and that can be part of it.

It's funny because I work for a large multinational corporation and it is amazing how rumors get started about that large multinational corporation and it affects their stock prices. I mean sometimes I've watched it jump by dollars based on a rumor. It's not real. It's not factual. And people will lose hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars based on a rumor. And it spreads dangerously.

But what's worse is that you get weird rumors that start and suddenly you have division in the church. That's the gangrene Paul's worried about. Hey Timothy, you've got to watch your reputation. You've got to make sure that you're teaching godly things. And don't get involved with the idle chatter and the gossip, because you're going to have this trouble, and then it'll spread like gangrene, and then suddenly, Timothy, you're not going to have a church. Eventually, the kind of garbage that Paul's worried about cultivating is the kind of garbage that, sadly, still took place at the church there in Ephesus, so that we can't go to the church in Ephesus and visit it other than a historical monument.

But Paul's warning Timothy, hey, don't let it start in your generation. You're the first founding generation of the church in Ephesus. Don't let it start. And pass this on to the next generation. You're the second generation. Don't let it start. It's important. Don't let the green green spread.

Paul mentions Hymenaeus and Philetus. Hymenaeus he mentioned in 1 Timothy 1.20, and Philetus appears to be one of his disciples. And they were getting even more attention, and Paul did not want Timothy to back down from the heresy and lies. They were getting people riled up about the resurrection already happening. Now, what would be a problem with the resurrection already happening at the time of this writing?

Well, yeah, there's a couple interpretations of how the resurrection was, and I had a chance to talk to my dad about it. But one of the interpretations of the resurrection was that it was kind of like the identification that you died with Christ and were buried with Christ, and then resurrected with Christ. And that was one view on the resurrection, but the other side of that is that there's a rapture already took place and you missed it. So there's been a couple different positions that I found on there, but either one of those is not awesome. If the resurrection already took place and the rapture already took place when you were identified with Christ, that doesn't make sense. That's heresy. If the rapture already took place and you missed it, that's terrible.

Yesterday I mentioned, after teaching in Fort Collins Bible Church, I said something about, well, I wish the Lord would return. It's been a rough week. It feels kind of like a scapegoat, cheap way out right now, and I said that out loud, and it's on a recording.

But the woman that I had said it to turned and said, well, I sort of want the rapture, but I sort of don't, because I have grandkids that don't know the Lord yet, and I really want them to come to know the Lord first. I can understand that. I could understand the desire for just a delay, just a little bit longer, Lord. Please let him come to know you. But it would obviously cause heartache and pain for those who are being deceived with this heresy if they thought, oh no, we've missed this chance. Last three questions in that section.

What is important about God knowing his own? Because Paul, he leaves them with this seal, or this foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his, and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. What is important about God knowing his own?

This is not a light question. You should have an answer to this one. It's important. What's important about God knowing his own? That's eternal security. If you're a believer here today, that's really important. I'm glad that if I screw up really, really bad, I'm still his. He knows me. I'm also glad Because Him knowing me means I have an intimate relationship with Him. So that's cool too. So Him knowing us is really important. That is a really important and fundamental doctrine. Why is it important for the believers to abstain from wickedness? That was the second part of this foundation. Is it so they can earn brownie points? It has to do with that fellowship.

He knows you, now be intimate with Him. And then why would these two concepts be described as a seal of God's foundation? Or a seal on God's foundation? Because he's using an architectural illustration here. Your cornerstone would often be marked. How many of you have ever seen, even in older buildings here in Denver and other places, we've got seals that are on the buildings that describe their... And it's there. It says when the building was created, But it also says usually there's some other element of historical or some detail that carries with it. It's going to be there for a while, right? When you walk by a building and there's a sign that's been screwed in, someone can unscrew that sign and take it off and walk away with it.

That's vandalism, but it can be done. If it's sealed or it is carved into the stone, carries with it a lot more permanence. So Paul is saying, hey, these are fundamental. These are really important. So we have a few more verses left here. Let's keep going. Paul is going to use another illustration. If Timothy hasn't gotten this message yet, he still has a few more chances.

So he says, now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work.

So what does the illustration of the various vessels mean? Why does he give us this illustration of the various vessels? Stan? Because the Christian is a vessel. Okay, the Christian is a vessel for him. Paul, in one of his letters to the Corinthians, talks about us being jars of clay or earthen vessels. I think it's also interesting how it's very similar to the passages on the Bema judgment about what he ate. Yeah, there's qualities of the vessels' works.

And we've kind of already asked this question, but I'll ask it again just for reinforcement. What would a teaching believer want, I'm sorry, why would a teaching believer want to be an honorable vessel in this illustration? Why is that important? Stan, go for it. I think it relates back to the wickedness passage up above. It relates to oneself. And I was going to ask you, do you have a list I do, I do. I keep it in my back pocket just in case for situations just as this.

What happens to the dishonorable vessel? That's not something that Paul covers. He says don't worry about it. Well, because the believer is the vessel. Yeah. And as they burn, there's nothing left. You've got your gold or silver vessel. If they get burned, they may melt. But you still got the metal. The gold or the silver. The value remains.

Paul uses the illustration. It's a loose illustration. It's not like we should read into it. You can start getting too deep into some illustrations and you get to these awkward situations where people have to ask, how hot is the fire? What's it going to do? Will it evaporate the gold? We're not going into that. But we have qualities of these illustrations.

The dishonorable vessel is what Paul is saying, Timothy, don't be that way. And the call for us is the same, that even if we're not necessarily starting churches in foreign cities, that we would still have an attitude that we're serving the Master, which is what he said is the ultimate goal, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. That's a pretty cool opportunity. If I'm not setting my mind on things above, and I'm not abiding, that makes me the dirtier, the less useful vessel.

He's not going to, in most cases, use me, although there's ways God does miraculous things sometimes to get our attention. He intervenes. He disciplines us, like Hebrews says. I'm always afraid someday that He's going to discipline me in some way, and I'm going to just be crushed, and it's like, oh no. That's what he says. He does this because he loves us. And that has to be okay. But hopefully we're not being the dishonorable vessel.

Then Paul keeps going on, therefore if anyone... I'm sorry, verse 22. Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. What is significant about the word flee here? Obviously he's not talking about pests. Take off and run. You're not like Watts' wife.

There are some things you shouldn't stand around and think about. Well, if you look at different Old Testament stories, this is where I think of Joseph. Remember, Joseph was in that situation where the king's The honored official's wife decides she wants to be intimate with Joseph. What does Joseph do?

He flees. Unfortunately, he leaves his tunic. That kind of came back to bite him a little bit. But the idea is don't stick around thinking about it. Paul writes in other places, take every thought captive. I think this is one of those cases where if my brain is going through its day and it's crunching through various thought elements, as soon as something that shows up that's sinful shows up, you're not sitting and just daydreaming about it. You're like, whoa, let's flee from that thought. Let's go away from it.

I remember being a lustful youth, and I hate to say that out loud, right? Because I'm sure you all imagine I was perfect up until I said that. But the idea of fleeing youthful lusts was one of those things that was really not culturally popular. In fact, if you read Romans 1, the latter half of that chapter, what does it say people do instead of fleeing the youthful lusts?

They indulge them and they encourage other people, come do it with me, hey, I've got this magazine, come check it out. Hey, let's go do this thing together. There's all kinds of qualities to that sin in group sin thinking. It becomes like a bonfire and everybody just pitches in and it gets worse and worse.

But Paul doesn't stop there just to say, flee the youthful lust. What passions should we replace youthful lustfulness with and why? What does he tell us we should do instead? Pursue what? With those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So instead of the Romans chapter 1 group thinking of sin and the collective building up and inventing new sins and new wickedness, he says, instead pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So these are not the teachers that are teaching bad things, gathering together and leading people astray.

He's building up and he's continuing on. Hey, Timothy, be righteous. Stan? Oh yeah, well it's similar to the fruits of the Spirit and there's a couple places throughout scripture where Paul repeats things. And that repetition is often encouraging and a reminder so that no matter where you go in the New Testament you're going to get this. Yesterday in Fort Collins I taught on sanctification and as I was preparing for the sanctification topical lesson I realized that really to do it justice you have to start probably in Acts and go all the way through Revelation just to cover all of the apostolic Holy Spirit inspired writings about sanctification. I had to cut out most of the New Testament because I only had two hours.

It's one of those things that's there. But one of these elements that are in here is you have this repetition of thoughts that are there. So it didn't matter which book I chose, I was still going to cover some topics almost unavoidably, grace being one of them. It wasn't supposed to be a topical lesson just on grace, but you could not talk about sanctification without also talking about grace. It's in there. And the repetition of these qualities are there. He's going to talk in the next verse with verse 24, the Lord's bond servants must not be quarrelsome, but be kind.

He's going to repeat very similar elements that he wrote in 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7. So that's going to carry on. Continuing down to the questions, why is it important to refuse foolish and ignorant speculations? Will this lead to the arguing about words and empty chatter? That seems, again, like a gratuitous question, but Paul is repeating these statements. Why is he repeating them? We all do. But if Timothy had any questions in his mind about any nuance of any of these things, Paul has pretty much covered all the bases.

He's got it broadly covered and it's important that Timothy recognize that these things are super critical. Now let's talk about foolish and ignorant speculations real briefly. What are those? What is a foolish or ignorant speculation? That would certainly be one of them.

I was going to say, don't you think this relates partially to a cultural aspect back then which would be Gnosticism and a lot of the genealogies and stuff that Jewish people were trying to bring back into the church? There's a tremendous number of outside influences that are coming in.

One thing that also happens is that there are lots of things that the scripture doesn't tell us about. God didn't reveal certain things. And so what Christians often do is they start to extrapolate. And they start imagining, well, let's try to connect the dots. And so what you get is you get interesting systematic theology that is based on a scaffolding of speculation.

My dad and I have had lengthy conversations over the several decades that we've talked about theology where we just keep discussing about these man-made systems that people are just beholden to. This is orthodoxy because John Calvin said so. Even though not always John Calvin said it, but it's extrapolated. And we have this whole thing, this is orthodoxy because this person taught it.

But it's extrapolated. It's not what Paul taught. It's not the things that Paul told Timothy to teach and to carry on. So the foolish things and the ignorant speculations are things that really do lead to not only the arguing words and empty chatter, but also to dangerous divisions in the Church. Instead of intimacy...

See, one of the things we talked about yesterday in the sanctification class was that Paul tells us that we have to have intimacy within the body for our spiritual growth. If there's idle chatter, if there's disagreements and arguments and the gangrene of yuckiness, how much intimacy will there be? And the answer to that is not very much, if any. Well, there's an issue of whether you can depend on each other or not. the things that matter, and if you're just off on these little personal things, you don't build the foundation of how these things occur.

The consequences are literally devastating to the body of Christ. If we allow these things in, and they become normative to the daily and weekly participation in the body, How much is new and exciting theology important to the church? That's one of the things that I found to be interesting as a phenomenon in seminary, was that a lot of people tried to find something that they could make their own niche. Everybody's already done eschatology, they've already done soteriology, so I'm going to find something that is like my special niche, and I'm going to emphasize the theology of that. so that I can be extra specialist in this one thing. And that goes along with, I follow Paul, I follow Peter, whatever, and people want to make a name for themselves instead of glorifying the Lord's name.

Yeah. And it is pretty disastrous. The New and Exciting Theology I'm going to carefully, carefully say that there might be some areas of theology that believers are not exposed to yet that the Lord will bring into their lives and it will be new and exciting at that point in time, but that's not the same thing as new doctrines that have been extrapolated. But new and exciting theology can be really dangerous.

The next question ties in with that. Do we need a new 40 days of dot dot dot book to make churches have life? a couple years ago I would pass by churches and it was like this church was doing 40 days of prayer, and this church was doing 40 days of fasting, and this church was like 40 days of Joel Osteen, which is really terrible. But, you know, there's all these 40 days of whatever, or, no, you need to read The Purpose Driven Life, or you need to read, and it's a faddish book.

Do we need that? Does the church need that? Does Paul seem to be concerned that the church needs that? Well, yeah, it'll bring in numbers or it'll make people feel like church has meaning, but the church does not have meaning based on extra biblical resources.

We have the Bible. And the other thing is that here is one really important concept in the text of Scripture, is if there is not intimacy within the body, And the shepherds are not shepherding the sheep. The shepherds don't know where the sheep need to grow. Right? So that would be a problem. But that growth doesn't happen, and so you get this stagnant church. So what do you do to rejuvenate the church? Stan? Do you realize how close that border is on legalism? What does? The book.

Because basically what you have is man designing a program for other people to better understand, not God. Where you have Pharisees developing all these laws for man. There have been some useful tools like major Bible themes where you go through a lot of doctrines and you get to go through them in a relatively efficient way. But those books don't draw you to themselves and their little niche on theological awesomeness or specialness or foolishness, but they draw you to the scriptures.

In any of the suppositions in the book, they refer you to the scriptures for you to confirm it. And sometimes, as if you listen to the recordings downstairs, Holly Hills has a slightly different position, and the teachers will take you through the text of the scriptures to say, this is why this says this. Double check me.

And I'm okay with that. I think that's great. But it draws us to the text of the scripture. We're running out of time here, or we're out of time technically. I think I was a little optimistic with this next one. Discuss the qualities Paul describes as being part of the bondservant's character. It's a list. We could discuss each one of those qualities probably at length. So we will not do that as a whole. But I would say that these are the qualities of an elder restated in slightly different ways. And they're critical for us in understanding righteous behavior as sheep. How do I know how I'm supposed to behave?

Not only because God's Word tells me, but I've seen it lived out in someone that I know. Not that I read about it from some guy who is with the Lord already. But there's intimacy that takes place. We know it, we read it, we hear it, we see it, and we experience it.

And Paul closes here that they may these bond servants or these teachers are doing this and they're confronting people who have erroneous doctrine, perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth. I think that's important. We stand up for truth and we don't just lock ourselves in and never engage somebody who's erroneous. We're careful not to waste time in endless debates. But we recognize that God can use us on occasion to turn somebody's doctrinal position around to that which is true. But how does it come?

Are these argumentative, jerky bond servants? It says they're not quarrelsome. They're kind. They're able to teach. They're patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. That's really an important concept. I'm not always gentle. The Lord has shown me that. It's an area where I need to grow.

I need to submit myself to the Lord and abide in Him, and that's going to impact the way that I respond to difficulties. And then Paul warns them, as we close here, that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. What is the snare of the devil? What does Satan use over and over again throughout the scriptures?

Lies. Doubt. Temptation. Did God really say that? And he has tweaked, did God really say that over and over and over and over again. That's the arguing of, you know, wrangling of words. Did Paul really mean that we're identified with him? Did he really mean that we're justified? Because I'm still sinning, so I don't know that that means I'm justified. Or I'm not glorified yet because I can still see this. Let's discuss this. Huh? Actually, you use peanut butter. Peanut butter, huh? That's how you bait traps. Oh, bait traps. So they've been held captive by him to do his will.

And I ask the question, does Paul mean demon possession in this context? And I think we can say no. But held captive by him means we're distracted. We're not setting our minds on things above. We're not contemplating the truth that's there. We're distracted by him. When we're embracing and practicing bad theology, we're certainly not serving the Lord in that. So that's part of it. All right, we're out of time. The second bell has rung and I don't want to get us too late. But let's go before the Lord and we'll close.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this time that we have together and we've had to study your word. We just pray that you'd give us a good time of focus on you as we go into the main service and we just thank you for your grace and your mercy and having given us good teachers. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.