2nd Timothy 3:10-17

2 Timothy 3, 10-17 here. So this is a shifty passage, okay? And what I mean by that, this passage shifts from Paul's example to Timothy in life and suffering and the Lord's faithfulness, the character of evil men and then the values and purposes of God's Word in providing adequacy and equipping for good and godly work. What we've done in here is at certain points in the passage to put in little brackets additional insights. So let me read it with those insights.

2 Timothy 3, 10 and 11 reads like this. Now you follow my teaching, that's the same word as in 3.16, conduct, purpose, faith, patience with people, love, and this is the agape love, Perseverance, and that word means patience with circumstances. And I don't know, I don't see anything in there that says don't pray for patience, but you know, at least follow Paul's example there in these. Persecutions, that is deliberate difficulties by the intent of other people, and sufferings, the consequences of persecution and difficult circumstances in Paul's life. such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra. These are in Galatia where Timothy was from. Timothy, your hometown, your home turf, that's where I had difficulty here. See? He's referring specifically to that.

So, what persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord rescued me. Okay. So each of the words in the lists in verses 10 and 11 have a definite article. So it doesn't come across in the English, but it would read like this. The teaching, the conduct, the purpose, the faith, the patience, the love, the perseverance. Got the idea? So it's interesting, in the English they've chosen, maybe it's because it's just a little too much definite article, but they've chosen to kind of passed that over, whereas in the original language, Paul was writing emphatically, the ones. You've seen the ones that produce this. So Paul's meaning comes across as the teaching, the conduct, and the purpose. So now, first question.

How is what Paul is referring to in verse 10 different from following a man, as he refers to in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, where he says, you know, you guys say I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter, etc. and you follow somebody and you divide up on that basis. How is what Paul is encouraging Timothy to do different? baffling question apparently Ah Okay And this is this is probably a good thing to take a look at yeah follow my teaching but so is Timothy supposed to deliberately shy away from Paul's teaching and conduct and purpose? Or is he supposed to go ahead and follow it? And how does he do that and not just be following a man in a divisive way?

Do you see the point of the question there? He stressed the content. First of all, Paul says, my teaching, my conduct, etc., etc., etc. And he goes on with that. But the focus is on the content. It's not, I, Paul, am the greatest apostle that ever lived, and you ought to do everything just exactly like I did. Right? Get the point there? So, why does Paul list teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, etc., in verse 10? Why not just say, my life? Why not just summarize it instead of going on with this big list, especially with all the definite articles?

Gene, maybe you need to get the people some coffee here. I'll bet. Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. The fact that, you know, fall is not perfect yet either. Okay. I mean, this is what our goal is. Okay. I haven't arrived yet. All right. Right. These things matter, don't they? Don't they? And you're quite correct. Paul isn't saying because, boy, I'm already perfect and I've already arrived. In other letters, he in fact says exactly that. You're correct.

These are the things that matter. If he just said my life, you wouldn't know exactly, well, what about your life? You know, do I got to make sure I get the same kind of toga as you do? You know, am I supposed to You know, eat Greek salads, or what's the deal? So if he just said, my life, you wouldn't know. But Gene's right. He puts the emphasis on the things that count. It lets you know what's important. And you know, isn't it important to know what's important? Right?

Let me ask you this, you know how the cars in the glove box, if you get a car either, you know, it's fairly new or you somehow hung on to it, you know, the little manual that comes with the car? When you read through those manuals, do you know what's important? Not necessarily, you know, is how you adjust some little knob. on the front as important as, you know, here's the brakes. And, you know, here's the steering wheel, you know.

But it does tell you what's important about maintenance and stuff. Right, it does, it does, it covers some important things, maintenance included, right? It is, I mean, it's helpful to have, it doesn't automatically necessarily convey to you what's, you know, this is more important than this. And one of the things that Paul is doing by specifically listing those things, he's saying, Timothy, don't get hung up on the incidentals. This is what counts. These things matter. And he is listing what's important.

Why did Paul point out the persecutions and sufferings in the very area where Timothy had lived? Was that the only area where Timothy encountered difficulty? Probably not. Why would the sufferings of the area where Timothy was from matter? In this case, why would Paul point to it? I mean, after all, just like he had a list before, he could have come up with the, here's all the cities where I've had difficulty. Why point out Timothy's home turf?

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we look at, oh, this place is where I belong, or this place is home, or I feel okay here. And it may be at times important for us to realize, you know, even where we feel comfortable, even where we're from, even the places we say, oh yeah, I'm familiar with this and familiar with that, may have difficulty. Yeah. Any other reasons you can think of?

He might have pointed out those things. Well, his own parents had fixed signal for him. OK. All right. So Paul's leadership in his life Yeah, a part of it is looking at, you know, when it really comes down to it, What's most important? And what Paul's saying is, here are the things, and Gene's right, these specific things are the things that count and are important. And in fact, you may feel like, this is where I grew up, and there may be a certain comfort level there, but the reality is, is that gonna be the basis for where you're going next? Is that gonna be the basis for what's important? How about the next bullet down?

When Paul wrote, Out of them all the Lord rescued me, did that mean that Paul escaped any actual trials and difficulties and pains? The Lord rescued me and I never had any trouble. All the troubles were just apparent or threatening. The reality is the Lord made everything just smooth as silk.

Is that what he means? Yeah? No. So what does he mean by rescued me? And is that a promise we can take to the heavenly bank? What did he mean by the Lord rescued me? Yeah, and I think that's one thing. It didn't mean that everything had no troubles. It meant that the Lord was faithful and took them through those. Do we have a promise that the Lord's always going to take us through and we're going to come out the other side? We have an internal perspective on that. To be rescued from a shipwreck, you have to actually be in a shipwreck. Yeah, I think it's a question of what do we mean by this rescued if our expectation is the Lord's going to keep us from anything that's uncomfortable or painful or difficult.

I'd say he's not doing a very good job, right? But that's not Paul's point, is it? Paul's point here when he says rescued, doesn't mean that he didn't go through difficulties and trials. I mean, some of those from a human standpoint might have looked terribly threatening. Yeah, and Timothy's home turf, right?

So yeah, stone to death, and you know when you get shipwrecked until you're safe, you don't know you're safe. You don't know how it's going to turn out. Now, the Lord rescued me. Would the Lord always bring him through that unscathed, through everything that's ever going to happen?

No. As a matter of fact, what are we reading? The last letter of Paul, at least, that we have any possession of. Why? Yeah. He lost his life not long after this ink dried. So it isn't an assurance, boy everything is going to come out just peachy, it isn't an assurance that we won't encounter difficulties, but it's an assurance that the Lord will take him through. And why would the Lord take him through? And you're right, through it, not necessarily out of it, right? Why would the Lord take him through it? Because the Lord is not done with him yet, right? And there will come a time when the Lord will take him, and it's not long after the ink dries here.

Okay, let's take a look at the next one, just one verse, 2 Timothy 3.12. Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So I hope you have your persecution insurance paid up. The first bullet there asks the question, does this verse say that if we are not being persecuted, that we are not desiring to live godly in Christ Jesus? Does it say that? Yes? No? Does it mean that when you pulled into the driveway, that there were most certainly at least a half dozen people throwing rocks at your car? as you pulled into the church driveway. Right? Does it mean that?

It's different contexts. Okay. What do you mean by different contexts? Well, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily persecution in a specific place or a specific way. Okay. And the thing is that I found that to be true in my own life where there's times when people are incredibly antagonistic towards Christianity. I've had lengthy conversations, sometimes the persecution happens and I'm like, well fine, and I will turn around and say, let's talk about your, the chin on your shoulder. You know, where you're going to insult all Christians.

Yes. Me, now what? Right. Yeah. It was a socially awkward situation. Yeah. So all of a sudden, they discover that they used a generalization. Right. Which in our culture is still not really, even though there is an anti-Christian attitude that's growing, The idea of offending people is not culturally supposed to be accepted. Okay.

Yeah. Sometimes the allowance for who you offend varies depending on who you're offending about what, right? That person, you know, in degrees is going to be varied because, you know, we don't want them to contest us above what we're able to. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's ask this question because I think you touch on a good point.

Is persecution uniform in its expression? No. No, it isn't. Persecution might be as intense as what Paul encountered where, you know, he started having to study rocks up close, you know, and do an intense study of mineralogy. Or it can be something that is simply a verbal encounter, and it sticks with that. A verbal encounter. And something in between.

So persecution isn't a uniform thing. It might come in different kinds and forms. So when we look at this, we say, does this verse say that if we're not being persecuted, we're not desiring to live godly in Christ Jesus? Part of what the answer is, is what do you mean by persecuted? It is apparent that the persecution in general in this country, the resistance, to Christianity, to the gospel, is increasing. Is increasing. Different from what it was a generation ago. But it is increasing.

About the next one there, why did Paul write, In Christ Jesus? What does that mean? To live godly in Christ Jesus. Excellent point. In other words, his point here is just trying to live godly with no further condition or something of that sort, it might even be a bad thing. Well, how about, should I put forth my very best efforts to live godly?

There's a lot of non-believers that are in that situation. That's right. In other words, people say, I am going to try real hard, as hard as I can, with all of my capacity, I'm going to try real hard to be a good Christian, as best I know. Right? And that's not what he's asking for, is it? What does it mean to live godly in Christ Jesus? How is that different from somebody who just says, I want to live godly? Okay. To live his life through you.

And I think you're correct. I think that is a part of what he's included in. Here you have these words, in Christ Jesus, it includes that. What else does it mean? In Christ Jesus. It doesn't include any of your work. Okay. It's in Christ Jesus. It's not, oh, I'm going to try really, really hard. Yeah. It's positional. It's positional truth. And let's ask this.

Do I have to try to live godly by trying to be in Christ Jesus? No. That's right. In other words, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. By God's doing, you're in Christ Jesus. You don't try to get there. Right? You don't try to get there. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Yeah, that's right.

Others who are not in that position in Christ are the ones who are going to be the opposition. Let's ask one other question. To seek to live godly in Christ Jesus, is that a conditional statement or a positional statement? of seeking is conditional. It's conditional.

In other words, is Paul already in Christ Jesus? Yeah. He is already godly in Christ Jesus. So what he's saying is not a positional statement that's already true. It's because he has that position that he can talk about the conditional issue of living in the position that he has. Right? So he's talking about a conditional statement based on the position that he already has.

You say that seeking is really basically law? Seeking could be if it's simply a matter of my pursuing it, but if on the other hand it is a matter of relying upon the position that I have, upon the person who is in me, Cheryl's reference, upon my being in him, then that is exactly what God intends. But if it is all our own effort and we're going to try to do something and we are either deliberately or by negligence ignorant of the fact that we already have the position. We already have a godly position in Christ Jesus and that's what he's referring to. not trying to get into Christ Jesus, not trying to behave as if he were, but it is simply a reliance upon the position that he has. So what might be the range of persecution experienced by the believer who desires to live godly in Christ Jesus? Well, we already talked about Paul's example. And Randy talked about some verbal opposition. Might there be other kinds of things besides a verbal antagonism that's not necessarily something violent? Could you encounter other oppositions? Yeah.

It's like in the science community. People don't review a paper. This is not absolute. There's a general pattern in a lot of science. Professionals will not review a Christian's paper simply because they believe in Which is ridiculous. It doesn't even matter if the subject has anything to do with cosmology or anything else.

If that person expresses, I believe in a creator, then that person could get some opposition. I was fortunate enough in university physics class to have one of my physics professors refer repeatedly to the creator. He would say, the creator made these principles apply in physics.

And he'd prefer, I don't know, probably these days he might get in trouble for that. But yeah, you can have people that are going to, OK, you don't get professional standing because I know you're a Christian and we don't allow that. Yeah. Well, they think it ruins your science as well. Yes. their position, which is not at all the same as yours. If you believe this and you are right, then boy are we going to try to squash you because we need to prevail. So, yeah, Wayne?

Even that kind of thing, can be part of the persecution that you deal with. There are organizations of various kinds that in times past, you could count on being more compatible with Christian belief and ethics. Some of that's changing. Some of it's changing fairly radically. And so yeah, there can be different kinds of opposition, different levels. It can appear as kind of political influence. It can appear as people not allowing you to say what you think.

There was one fellow recently. It was a teenager who was in a high school German class. And the teacher kept bringing up gender issues and gender preference and that sort of thing in this German class. And the student quietly and calmly remarked to a nearby student, I don't believe that the same-sex orientation is correct.

And he got kicked out of class and kicked out of school for that. And Liberty Council came and kind of set the situation aright However, he had to go through all this process. This would be a kind of persecution, and all he did was express a belief, and he didn't do it in any antagonistic way or anything of that sort.

Okay, 2 Timothy 3.13, but evil, that is evil, and Holly isn't here.

I was wishing she was here because she was asking a question about sin and evil. And it dawned on me after last week's class that there are two different words for evil in the Greek. And the one that we're encountering here is evil and influence. And there is another word, not this one, there's another word in the Greek that refers to evil in character. And so anyway, that was a distinction I would like to have made Holly were here Yes, I'll let her know But so anyway, but evil and influence and this it says men that's Anthropos which is people not just male men I'm not talking about male men like US Postal Service, right? not just adult males.

And impostors literally, and this is interesting, that we're translated impostors literally means a wailing wizard, casting spells, will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. This one verse has a lot of implication. Okay, so you got these people who are evil in their influence, and impostors, this wailing wizard. Now, what's the difference between those who are evil in their influence and this wailing wizard, in other words, someone who is trying with a false spirituality to have a bad influence? And can someone be one or the other, and can someone be both? Okay, that's a complex question. So here's evil that is evil in influence. Then here is the one who is the wailing wizard who has a false spirituality that they are offering.

And then the question is, can someone be one or the other? And is it possible for someone to be both? I'll let you ponder that while I finish the rest of the verse. Will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. There's a lot said there. What's the difference between evil men and impostors, or is there any? Or is there a reason for using both terms in Paul's warning? Okay. They are different and I think you're correct. Why do you say that they're different? Okay.

Causes harm. Okay. pretending to be something or someone they're not. And that's a deception which could be evil. And as a result... And I would add the ingredient on the word imposters implies the use of a false spirituality. In other words, it's that kind of an imposter. It's someone who's claiming to have some valid spirituality, but they in fact don't.

Yes, this is definitely of satanic influence, and in fact Satan can use both. Are there those, not necessarily of a false spirituality, but who are having an evil impact? Morally? Damaging ministry? And not necessarily on the basis of a false spirituality, but they're simply having an evil impact. I think all the educators who are trying to quash any Christian presence in their environment are. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right.

You start to say something, Randy? Well, in the world there are influencers who may not be prominent, which is why I get pressured with the idea that you said earlier that you're a whaling whisperer. That sounds like a prominent or at least a noisy person. Yes. Negative influencers. Are there people of high profile that names that come to mind? Those who are having, they have an evil influence. Yeah, I'm kind of looking at that.

Okay. And in that, I would actually put that under a false spirituality. Because he claims to have a spiritual standing. He actually would fall under the imposter realm because there's a false spirituality there that ultimately is the problem. He says, I'm spiritual. And then you end up saying, but I'll tell you how to get rich. Here's how to have your best life now.

Any pastor in this place your spiritual walk with not eating bacon is outside of the black faith. There's a lot of statements about you should not eat bacon if you're a strong Christian. Well, and that's the doctrines of demons, right? From First Timothy, doctrines of demons is forbidding certain foods, right?

So God was saying, Okay. Here's a man of evil influence. You're right. And Marla? Yes. Yeah. Children's books that expose them to things that are inappropriate for their age and influence them in directions that they ought not to be influenced. Right? Yeah. Yeah, so you can have someone who is an author who falls into this category. Okay, good.

Any other thoughts there? The internet industry is probably just a little bold. It's a little weird, because even more as post-modernism takes over, people are doing things, they're actually really explicit about it, and then you confront them with it. do things like, well, I don't want to force your interpretation of this thing, which is explicit and obvious. And there's really only one way you can take the message of the wiki or the art or whatever it is, and then move on. I don't want to force the interpretation of it. So they won't even own up to their devious or wicked or evil behaviors. It's just simply, now that I have created this message, it has now been so as to allow me to not take responsibility?

Certainly, there are lots of self-contradictions in some of these who oppose Christianity. I see, for example, some of the various atheist groups are suing the government to stop some preference or allowance or freedom for Christians. And, of course, their reason for doing so, or justifying that, is well, it's morally wrong to give pastors, you know, the ability to say this, or to give churches the liberty to say that.

Excuse me, if you're an atheist, you believe the world is biochemistry and biophysics. Where do you get morals out of that? Any of it, right? If, matter of fact, if what they're doing is simply the product of biochemistry and biophysics, then are they even free to make a choice? Are they free to oppose Christians having a choice? Or is this all just a biochemical and biophysical process, and their idea of morals is simply a fabrication? It's the very same thing. It's a very important argument. He just went up to him and calmly, quietly asked him that question, and he had no answer. They frankly don't. They just shut him down. Yeah.

So, and, you know, we make reference to atheists, but the reality is there are people of all kinds and sorts who have evil influences. Paul warns about it in this letter. Because they're evil influencers, but they were working in Christian circles. They were targeted. Paul was targeted in Christian circles before the Lord met him on the road to the mountains.

And the reality is, it is possible for all sorts of things to go on in the name of Christianity. To go on with some sort of a Christian approval or justification. As I mentioned, I think, probably in the main service a few weeks ago, I tend to frequent websites that express views that I don't agree with, including atheist websites. One of them that's out there is GayChristian101.

I'll look at that, and they've got justifications why the Bible is completely in support of their lifestyle. It doesn't work, but Nonetheless, they try to make the point. I think one of the things that is most pressing to me from a Christian standpoint in combating that kind of deception and weirdness is that we don't teach Bible interpretation. I lived most of my younger life having no idea how to interpret the Bible. So somebody came to me and said, hey, here's this doctrine. I had no way to know that it's right or wrong, because I was not equipped to discern and to study to find out is this real doctrine or is it a lie? Yeah. How do I discern between one view and the next? Next bullet down, what is the purpose? No D there.

What is the purpose for saying that such people will proceed from bad to worse? Why would he say they proceed from bad to worse? And what value is there in saying that? Where are they starting off? Bad, right? And where are they going to end up? Worse. So there's a process here, and it's a downward one, right? Why tell Timothy that? Is that so that Timothy will just be negative and cynical? Or is there some actually good purpose in letting Timothy know that they have a downward trend? Don't expect too much. He won't be disappointed. Yeah, okay. Yeah, one, don't expect too much, okay.

Don't have any unrealistic ideas about, oh, these guys are going to get better. Or you're going to fix them. Yeah, if someone is going to be changed, God's going to do it, but if God is not involved in their lives at some stage, the natural tendency is for these to go in what direction? From bad to worse, right?

Yeah, that's a good point. The inclination of human beings, the inclination of societies, apart from the preserving influence of the Lord, of the work of the Holy Spirit, of those in the church who are following the Lord, apart from that, the tendency is for things to go downhill. Scripture tells us, as in the days of Noah, it's happened once and he destroyed it. Yeah. And were things hunky-dory on Noah's day? Not so much. The thoughts of men were only evil continually. That's the summary in Genesis 6.

Now we have high technological capacity in order to improve our ability to carry these things out. But let's ask again, Is there value, and you realize Bev you addressed it in part, is there value in telling Timothy it's going to get worse? The tendency is to get worse. I think it is to affect his focus. Okay. So he doesn't wait. Yeah.

Am I going to go around as a Christian saying, you know, I'm going to make it better. One of the ladies was talking some years ago, a neighbor lady who was a Christian, was saying, well, how are we ever going to make things better so Jesus comes back? And Nancy was thinking, boy, if you've got a lot to learn. You know, how are we ever going to make things better so Jesus comes back?

That's right. That's what Paul's giving the warning for. And you're right. Where should I put my efforts? Should I put my efforts forth and should I have a hope that we're going to make things better until Jesus comes back? Yeah, he's speaking realistically. He's not trying to give Timothy the cynical negative slant, but just to talk about where should your efforts be. Don't be shocked. Don't be surprised. It shouldn't be, oh, I had no idea. Well, you should have. You shouldn't be shocked. We should not have an expectation that we're going to make everything so good that Jesus just has to come back. The pearls will go swine. And also, especially as a shepherd, you need to be alert. Because those are the people that are going to be either attacking or trying to destroy the flock. Spreading the parasites and that shit. A few years ago, I sat down with an Orthodox rabbi and had a conversation for a couple hours. It was real interesting.

He said something similar to what the Pharisees taught in New Testament times, and that is the goal of the Orthodox Jews, Orthodox rabbis, and the goal of the Pharisees in Jesus' time was, we're going to get all the Jews to follow the law. And that meant that everybody was doing good things, right? And when all the Jews follow the law, that's when the Messiah will come. Yeah, that was his hope. So he was going around. This was a rabbi over at DU. So he was going around trying to get the Jews that are on campus to all follow the law and go in step and all be observant.

And with the idea that we're going to make things better and the Messiah will come because we get everybody to follow the law. And here is a guy trained under Gamaliel telling Timothy the have to. You're not going to make these guys better. And that's not the reason the Messiah is going to come.

I can tell you're thinking intensely. This is rabbinical tradition. I was going to say that doesn't sound familiar, but I don't have any minor prophets memorized. And Peter, even Peter writes, you know, in the last days, coffers will come. Say, you know, where is this coming? The chance the rabbis had of getting all the Jews on the planet to obey the law would come right after the Holocaust, because that's the least number of Jews there's been on the planet.

Yeah. Yeah, for a while. And just even statistically speaking, that's like, I've seen those charts where they're like, if we share the gospel, then we'll reach all the world by some date in the future. They just keep bumping the data up every year because that happened. But it's one of those things where it's like the statistical nature of those things. If it's not explicitly prophesied in Scripture, it's ridiculous. But that's the hope. And that's what the rabbi said in Jesus' day, and that's what the rabbi told me just a few years ago. He says, that's their hope.

They get everybody to follow the law, all the Jews. And he was kind enough to spend some time with me, but he says, frankly, I'm not interested in you. I'm interested in getting the Jews to follow the law. That's a good effort, man. Yeah, that's right. Well, if we all follow the law, that'll fix it, right? Yeah, and plus there's some things it's real hard to follow.

The whole sacrificial system, how are you going to do that? All right? And then plus you've got other Jews on campus that may need some rocks thrown at them, right? And how are you going to do that? I think these days the police would intervene, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. How about the last one there?

Why did Paul say that such people are both deceiving and being deceived? In other words, they are actively deceiving others and they themselves are being deceived. Both of those. Why would he say that? They believe a lie, and do they sit there and think, you know, I know what the truth is, but I'm going to get these people to buy a lie? Is that what they're thinking?

No, they believe that they themselves have been sold on the lie, and they're the perpetrators of the lie to others. You're right, Norris. It's both they're receiving the lie and buying into it, and they're selling others on it. The source of the deception. The deceiver. The deceiver is the one who ultimately is responsible for the deceiving.

Next slide there, page 2. 2 Timothy 3.14 and 15.

You, however, continue in the things you have, and I put in these additional descriptive terms, you have actively learned And by the way, every time I look it up, I keep coming to that. Learning is not described in the New Testament as passive. Actively learned already as a disciple and become convinced of, brought to a point of confident belief, knowing, and that's perfect tense, it's completed action there, completed past action, ongoing results into the present, into the future, from whom you have actively learned them already as a disciple. And that from childhood, actually infancy, the way that word comes off there, from infancy you have known the sacred writings, that is the Old Testament, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. So is Paul reminding Timothy or giving him something new and fresh in these verses? Why would Timothy need to be reminded? Do we ever need to be reminded? There's a whole lot of reminding going on.

And why is that? Here we are, we're Christians. We're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Why does reminding still makes sense. Distracted, that's one thing. Is that the only hazard that's out there? Bitterness. In other words, it's possible for something to creep in and we need the reminder to kind of bring us, oh, this is where things need to be. Whether it's dealing with something here or dealing with something out there.

You're right. Anything else? Okay. A deception. Is it possible we begin to be influenced by the deception? Yeah. Wait a minute. Here's the truth. Here's the reminder. Here's the truth. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Round numbers, about 30,000 denominations that are within Christendom. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really distracting, isn't it? Yeah, several years ago, they had a conference of denominations that were derived from the Westley's Methodism. And there was 99 represented there. And that didn't include others that weren't represented. So yeah, lots of denominations.

So yeah, we do need to be reminded. We can kind of lose sight of, here's the fresh and clear truth. We can begin to kind of absorb by default an idea that's not necessarily true. We need to be refocused on what's true. So reminding is appropriate. Has Timothy been given the understanding that he needs to carry out the ministry to which he's been assigned? How and from whom did he get that? Has Timothy been given the understanding of the needs to carry out the ministry to which he's been assigned? How and from whom did he get that?

Uh huh. Okay. It's the prior chapter. The things you receive from me, you need to carry those out. So it's possible, here's Timothy, and he's at some other location, been there a while, gets this letter. Oh, yeah, that's right. I do need to stay on course here, not get distracted.

Is Timothy's discipleship by Paul exactly the same as Christ's discipleship of the original apostles? It should be close. Close. What would you say is the same and what is different between Christ's discipleship of the apostles and Timothy's discipleship?

The message of the gospel of the kingdom or the gospel of the grace of God. Think about it. Here are the apostles and for the first Actually, for the whole length of time, all the way up to the time that Christ was crucified, did they understand the gospel of substitution?

No, they didn't. It wasn't actually until after Christ had resurrected and had spoken to them, and you could even say even after Christ had ascended, that they actually began to go, oh, that's what's going on. So for one thing, Timothy understood Christ died in my place. The disciples, at least until later, didn't get that. It seems like Timothy got that message early and seems to have understood it.

It's a more modern, complete version, I think, of his discipleship by Christ. The New Apostles, because he had already been crucified, and so on. And he probably got a little bit different materials. It may have been more appropriate, even though he was God the Holy Spirit.

What was the reigning principle under which Christ's disciples were discipled? Law. And that included a mixture of law and grace, actually. But Timothy, though he was brought up under the Old Testament, was he carrying out a ministry and was he trained for a ministry that was a ministry of law? Not really. He had a background. In a matter of fact, what's the value of us learning about the law?

Isn't it possible we just say, well, I don't live under the law, so just forget about that. I just don't need it. I'll take the first part of this and just kind of pull it out and run it through the shredder. Is that what I need to do? What's the value in studying? The necessity of Christ? It still points to the necessity of Christ. It is a tutor, right? You just started to say something. The law is such a rich revelation of God's wisdom and insight in a culture that had no truth. And it also teaches us about the concept of sanctification, even if they had no idea of the application of sanctification.

And what were the Jews supposed to come up to the priests and have them do in the temple? Make a sacrifice, right? And the sacrifices did what? They covered for the time pointing to God's ultimate sacrifice in Christ the Lamb, right? So the law did that. What else did the law do? It set Israel aside as a nation, which let the world know that God had a special relationship with mankind and wanted a special relationship. And are we set aside? Yes. So there are some points of comparison and there are points of contrast, and we can learn from both of those, can't we? The law spells out very clearly that God is a God of morality.

All the pagan nations around did not have that. All the pagan nations around didn't have a sense of morality. There was, in fact, very little connection between spiritual belief and morality. Some of the pagan temples would have people come in praying, teach me, Lord, how to, or teach me, whatever the God's name was, how to steal better and how to lie better.

And I'd really like to have that guy die so that I could get his wife. That kind of stuff. Or I'd like to have his wife whether he dies or not. So there was no connection, whereas the law spelled out God is fundamentally a God who is moral. He is a moral being. Well, we've run out of time, but we're not running out of noses up against the glass, so let's break. Lord, we thank you for the time of study. We thank you for your word. We thank you that as we look at these things, we get insight to grow in the grace and knowledge of you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.