About this sermon
Paul warns that anyone who teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ is conceited and understands nothing. Such teachers have an unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words, which produce envy, strife, and suspicion, and they suppose godliness is a means of gain. The church is the pillar and support of the truth, the mystery of godliness revealed in Christ. Healthy words come from the Lord himself, and they nourished faithful saints even in prison.
Sermon transcript
Let us hear then God’s word, 1 Timothy 3, 6 through 7. Paul writes, as I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines. nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.
But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
In 117, Paul praises the Lord. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. First Timothy 3 14. I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
And now, to 1 Timothy 6, 3 to 5. If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing But he has a morbid interest in controversy, controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. That ends the reading of God’s holy, inspired, inerrant, spirit-wrought word.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, your word has spoken to us. We ask that it would be a blessing to us. We also ask that it would be a blessing to us as we hear it expounded. We ask that you would find it faithful, and we ask that you would find it a right dividing of the word of truth. For that is the only thing that we can be sanctified with, is your word rightly understood. We ask, O Father, that you would not abandon us, but that you would be present with us in your word, in your spirit. We thank you for your goodness and grace, as we will thank you for your goodness and grace throughout the eons and epochs of eternity. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Would you consider yourself a healthy person? Are you eating healthful food? Are you getting plenty of exercise? Are you taking your vitamins? Are you eating enough green vegetables? Are you a healthy person? Are you checking your blood pressure? And is your cholesterol at a level that it ought to be? We live in a time when you may be asked these sorts of questions. You may ask yourself these sorts of questions regularly.
We live in a time that is often obsessed with the health of our bodies. the Christian writer and social critic, Oz Guinness, tells the story of the time that he spoke at a Christian conference. He was one of the speakers and he was up on the panel and he was answering questions, surely from one of the speeches that he had given and the speeches that other of the speakers had given. And a woman comes to him, a woman, he says, who was attractive, who could have just as well have been at the beach as here at a Southern California conference on Christian theology.
And this woman says, I want to ask you the $64,000 question that I am asking everybody. And everybody listens very closely, and she says to him, she asks him, sir, how is your body? And very quickly, he responds, maybe unthinkingly, he says, madam, I am British. How is your mind? And everyone laughed. This just gives us a picture of the way we have, in the United States, just an obsession with that which is healthful, healthful food, that we might have a healthy body. But more importantly, we must ask ourselves, how is your soul? Sure, how is your body? How is your mind? But how is your soul? You’ll see shortly that this is Paul’s concern as well. How is your soul?
We bring our minds then in this passage back to Ephesus, back to this city that is full of idols, this place that Timothy, the follower of the apostle Paul, has been called to preach, this place that he is ministering, this place that is full of idols.
There were other things that were found in this city as well. It was certainly not the epicenter of philosophy. That would be Athens. But surely any large city had many philosophers. Now I want you to imagine what the ancient philosophers were like. They were not as those who would be found in a university like in our time, but they would be those who would have a number of students around them and they would be somewhat as tutors, tutoring in philosophy. teaching people to the ways to think, ways to follow a certain person’s philosophy. Whether that be the teacher of the teacher or whether that be the teacher himself who has a large group around him and they are teaching how to think. And there would be different schools of philosophy. There would be Epicureans and Stoics and Skeptics. And there would also be Sophists. All of these philosophers.
And you know what they would do? They would spend their time in debating against one another. Because they would both believe that their school of philosophy was correct. And they would go against one another. They would be training at how to best one another in argument. and in debate to show that the others were false.
And then these rhetoricians, these master orators would come along and they were called the sophists. You know what the sophists would do? They would teach you how to win arguments even when you knew you were wrong. They would be able to convince whole crowds that black is white and that white is black. They would be able to do these things.
Imagine that, you have schools of philosophy and teachers and then you have those who are teaching rhetoric, gathering around a student body so that they might teach people how to speak and that they might be effective orators. But then on the religious sphere, we have something analogous to that. We have those who are gathering around themselves, students, so that they can teach God’s word. But, as we read in God’s Word, as we familiarize ourselves with the epistle of 1 Timothy, we see that all is not well with these religious teachers. They seem to be like these philosophical teachers. The difference is, they are using God’s Word, and they are seeking to find ways that they might best one another in argument and in debate, and that they might bring other students along with them. You see, what they are doing is seeking ways so that they can be successful teachers and debaters, so that they can have more students, and that they might have more money as a result of that. But oftentimes, unlike the philosophers who are debating the nature of God or of evil or of those kinds of things, these religious debaters are debating the law of God and they’re missing the point of the law of God.
These people are arguing about what can be done on the Sabbath day. These sorts of things. How much can you walk on a Sabbath day before it is too much and it becomes work? And these people are debating with one another, or they would argue about silly things, even more silly than that, even worse.
They would talk about, can you eat a piece of fruit? And if in your mouth you separate the pit from the meat of the fruit, And if you spit it out, are you working? One would say that. And another one would come along and say, yes, you are working, unless you do it at home. privately, then that’s not working.
And you can see the nature of these things, how useless this would be, but they’re seeking to gather students, they’re seeking to have a living, but they’re misunderstanding God’s word, that’s what these people are doing. All these schools of thought, and then in the midst of them, is meek and humble Timothy. And what is he doing? He is preaching a humble and lowly yet powerful and glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, about Christ and His death, about Christ and His glorious resurrection, and He is preaching about God’s salvation of sinners. Timothy is using the Bible for God’s glory, and these men are using it for their own ends.
In our text, Paul tells Timothy about those who preach different doctrines. Different doctrines. In the Greek, it is very interesting, or in our translation, it says a different doctrine, but it says something along the lines of heterodox. They’re teaching heterodoxy, it says in the Greek. Other. Gospels, or other doctrines, other than what? Or different teachings, different than what?
The words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely you can understand that these who are talking about pits. And those who are arguing about the Sabbath day, misunderstanding the nature of the Sabbath day, those who are spending their times on Jewish myths and genealogies as we read in the first chapter, these people are missing the point and they are teaching other doctrines other than the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice that Paul says, the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s talking about the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What are the words of Jesus Christ? Where can we find them? Some might say, and you can understand why they might say it, but we ought to disagree, ultimately, that the words of the Lord Jesus Christ are hidden behind the words of the apostles. Have you ever heard someone talk like that? There’s a group of scholars who got together and they talked about what were the real words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They wrote a book called The Fifth Gospel, where they go through the four gospels and they rank by a vote. Which words in the New Testament are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? And which ones are the filler, the fill-in, the extras that the apostles have given to us? You might read in that book, by the Jesus Seminar, the fifth gospel, even in the Lord’s Prayer. Do you want to know how many verses in the Lord’s Prayer They attribute it to the Lord Jesus, our Father.
They think that’s genuine. They can just get behind the apostles and get to Jesus, get to the nuggets of truth that our Father, that’s what Jesus said. The rest is just filler that the apostles have filled in. That’s what they have given to the world.
What are we to think of this? Are Jesus’ words hidden? Are they embedded in the New Testament so that we need to get rid of all the apostolic debris so that we can get to the real, genuine Jesus? If we were to follow Paul and we want to look after those words, do we have to go through the words of the apostles to get there? Now I have the pure words of Jesus.
Well I hope that you don’t think that way because that would be all wrong for the very nature of what an apostle is. An apostle is one who comes and speaks the word of the one who has sent him. And He speaks the full word of that One who has sent Him. We need not look for the words of Jesus behind the words of the Apostles. We must understand that the words of the Apostles are the words of Jesus Christ. And the words of Jesus Christ are the words of the apostles. Jesus Christ has sent his spirit. He is as a reigning king who sends messengers to give the proclamation of his kingdom and let people know what he has to say. His words are the apostles’ words and there must be no doubt in our minds.
Mark 3, 14 says, He appointed twelve so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach. This happens in Mark 3, at the beginning of that gospel, but surely after Christ’s death and resurrection, He appoints twelve minus one and then plus one because one disciple or apostle is lost. That being Judas, another one is added and he sends these and they preach the word of Jesus Christ. To receive an apostle is to receive the one who sent him. The words of the apostles are the words that we must listen to Because they are the words of Christ, Jesus is both the subject and the author of the words of the apostles.
But as you look in your Bible, you might notice that it says the sound words. The sound words. And this is good to translate it that way. But you may have a margin note, and if so, that’s right. If not, that’s okay. Let me just tell you that when it says the sound words, it also means the healthful words. A word that you would use to talk about food.
That’s what Paul is saying, that these words are healthful to your body. And these are that which would make a man healthy. These healthful words of the Lord Jesus Christ slash of the apostles do not make a man physically healthy. They make a man spiritually healthy. They make a woman, they make a child spiritually healthy. And this is what we must pay attention to. If we want to grow in grace, if we want to be strengthened by the word of our God, but first, Paul must take care of those who are speaking unhealthful words. And that is what those are doing.
You may have noticed the first chapter and the sixth chapter in our reading, there seems to be some interplay between them, depending on your translation. First chapter, verse three, he says, certain individuals. And in this passage, chapter six, he says, anyone. He talks about those who are teaching differently, same word, 1-3. He says teaching differently, 6-3. He talks about those who are starting disputes in 1-4. And he talks about those who are starting controversies in 6-4.
And also we see in both chapters, chapters one and chapter six, that being 10 and three respectively, he talks about sound words and healthful words. What Paul is doing is warning Timothy that you must take aim at those novelty teachers. You must take aim at those hair splitters who are doing great damage to the kingdom. What happens in the mind of those who use the scriptures as a subject of debate and as a way to simply win arguments against one another that you might become popular by it.
Paul says that they demonstrate that they are puffed up with conceit. They are arrogant and know nothing. These people have an unhealthy craving for controversy. quarrels about words, and he says that they understand nothing. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
You might read that and you might think, well, it is interesting that he says what he says, because isn’t not the case that Jesus Christ argued about words Did he not argue about the meaning of one particular word? Even on the pages of our Bible, the meaning of a passage could all be swayed by one word, and he expounds it. Does not the Apostle Paul argue about words as well? He says in Galatians The book of Galatians he talks about not as to sons, not as to offsprings, but to a son or to offspring. The interpretation of one, any passage can turn on the meaning of one word. So would Paul speak against himself as he being a hypocrite? Would he speak about the Lord Jesus Christ? who would put the meaning into one word and argue about it, no, he would not.
There is a difference here. There is a difference between those who would quibble about a word for the name of truth and those who would do so so that they might use God’s word for their own ends and so that they might gather a party around them. But look what happens in the mind of those who are fighting about these things and who are arguing about these things. He says, he is conceited and understands nothing but has a morbid interest in controversial questions. Really, he has an unhealthful interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and on and on, and a constant friction between men. What He is giving for us is the anatomy of those who understand that the Word of God is for their own gains and their own gains alone.
He is saying that when they lose an argument, when they lose a debate because of these arguments and these discussions, because they have loved controversy and disputes about words, When they lose, this causes envy, it causes strife, it causes abusive language and evil suspicions from one false teacher against another false teacher.
And what is the result? They have a constant friction with one false teacher against another. Maybe you have seen false teachers, people who teach doctrines other than those which have been handed down from the apostles through this church age. Maybe you have seen the way that one non-believer and another non-believer argue against one another. I’m talking about false religions and sects of false religions, the way that they abuse one another because they are so frustrated because they are seeking to one up one another.
What is the end result? They become as those who annoy each other, a constant friction. Paul uses a word there that seems to talk about rubbing two objects together. for a long, long time, something that causes irritation. We might think, we might consider their end result is two people scratching a chalkboard for the frustration of one another. The end road of using God’s word for your own ends, ends in destruction.
Now, certainly it is not the case that controversy is always out. There are times when we must argue. We must debate with believers. We must argue. and even with non-believers. Paul is not saying, don’t ever argue, don’t ever dispute about words, because he did it, Jesus did it, but we must do so with truth as the goal. Truth must be the focus.
Otherwise, we will not be built up with those healthful words that we might be spiritually healthy. But we will have those unhealthful words, which is what Paul is saying. Unhealthful words that cause us to be spiritually diseased. We must be warned of these things.
But all the more, that must cause us to look more and more and to hunger more and more deeply. for the true words of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hang on to them, to grab on to them and claim them as ours and say, these are the words of my Savior. And though sometimes they may be bitter to me at the outset, they are sweet to me. The words of my Savior are always sweet. Words of the apostles are always healthful words that you must make a regular diet of dining on. You must partake of them in order to grow in grace.
What would the apostles think of someone who wouldn’t listen to their words, who would not be feeding upon them? John tells us in 1 John 4, 6, we are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
How can John say such a thing? If people don’t listen to me, major consequences will be upon them. Why is this? He understands it’s not his words, but his words are the Lord Jesus’s words. He has an unshakable confidence in God’s word and also in what God has given to him, namely the office of apostleship.
And these words are for our good. because they build us up. Peter tells us in his epistle, like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up to salvation. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. What Peter is saying is that God’s word is healthful. It is like milk. That wonderful substance that God in His providence has given to a mother to give to a child. And it is healing. It is what is best for a child.
And you must see the Word of God that way. You must drink from it. You must eat from it heavily with great strength. If we want to grow in the Lord Jesus Christ, As we seek to come more and more in love with him and more in love with his life and his death and his glorious ascension and his intercession for us, we must drink and we must eat. And that will be the healthful words that we need.
You might be reminded of Bruce Hunt, We studied Bruce Hunt, who was a prisoner, who was a missionary. We did that a couple of quarters ago. And here was this man who was in jail for being a preacher of the gospel and for not leaving the country. This was during the Civil War, excuse me, the World War II era.
There’s a chapter in that book, you may remember it, where He’s able to have a Bible. Finally, he has a Bible. He was not eating well. He’s losing weight. His body is getting more and more frail. But by grace, he was able to have a Bible and a Greek Bible. so that he can drink deeply and that he can partake of God’s Word. It is a joy to just read of his excitement as he is able to spend hours in it. He has nothing else to do. He is sitting starving in a prison. But he understood that he is being strengthened. Even while his body is wasting away, he is being strengthened by the Word of Truth because it is the Word of his Savior.
Surely Bruce Hunt knew what the Apostle Paul spoke about. The Apostle Paul also in prison says, I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances. I know also how to live with abundance in every circumstance and in all things. I have learned the secret of being well-fed and going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. How is it that the Apostle Paul was able to endure hardship and to be without, because he had the healthful words of his Savior that were growing him in grace, causing him to love his Savior more, and more and more conforming him to that age to come, and helping him to shed this body, looking forward to his resurrection.
That is how Paul is able to endure these things, because God’s word is truth. and it is right for us to drink deeply from it. The Lord Jesus Christ was approached by His apostles, and they asked Him about food, and He tells them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. Brothers and sisters, I hope that you have food that the world does not know about. And I hope that you partake of it in sermon and every other way that you can partake of it because it strengthens our soul. And what are the words of Christ?
What do we need to hear? What do we need to know that we might be built up today We need to know that we have a king eternal. We have a king immortal and invisible, the only God. And you need to take part in his glory and his honor and give him praise and honor forever.
You must also understand the paradox of the incarnation. That although our King was all these things eternal, immortal, and invisible, the Lord Jesus Christ took on finitude. He took on a temporal body. He took on mortality. He took upon Himself visibility, so that He might be your Savior. so that you might be built up, so that He might give glory and honor to His Father. And also, we must continually meditate upon His great works. There are those who would meditate, and would meditate upon their own sins. Well, that may have some value and some worth. We certainly are sinners. How much greater to meditate upon the Lord Jesus Christ. To meditate upon He who was manifested in the flesh. The Eternal One came on and put on flesh. The Word became flesh.
He was vindicated. He was justified, or raised by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit came upon Him and caused Him to be raised unto newness of life, to represent the age to come, and to give us the age to come already. This one was seen by angels. and He was proclaimed among the nations. We can read about that in the book of Acts. The way that Jesus Christ starts His ministry with the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem and in Samaria and out to the ends of the earth so that we can say with the Apostle Paul that He was proclaimed among the nations. And He continues to be proclaimed among the nations, even to our day. And we have the guarantee that Jesus will be proclaimed among the nations until He comes back. that He was believed upon in the world. That you were made to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
These are healthful words. Preaching, we would hope, is healthful words that would not cause division, but would build up the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ was taken up in glory. What is the end result of the healthful words They make us healthy. But healthy, we would say, eschatologically.
Because they will make us healthy because we will be healed fully at the day of resurrection and we will give praise to our God because of that. Trusting in these words of healing, your body will be healed. As Isaiah saw, by His stripes we are healed. We can also say, by His resurrection we are healed and we will be healed. May we partake of His healthful words and be eternally healthy in bodies that will not pass away, being found like the Lord Jesus Christ. May we hope for that today. May we partake of a peace of heaven, partaking of Jesus Christ. Let us pray.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.