Fight the Good Fight

During the American Revolution, there was a group of men the British feared nearly as much as the Continental Army. These men never fired a shot, but their words ignited the flame of resistance. They were the pastors of the colonies, known as the Black Robe Regiment.

The name came from the long black preaching gowns they wore in the pulpit. These robes echoed the Puritan and Reformed traditions that shaped much of early America. But these were not soft-spoken preachers offering mild inspiration. They preached with fire. They proclaimed liberty not just from tyranny, but from sin. They stood behind pulpits and declared that Christ was King, and that no earthly throne could claim ultimate authority.

When the call to arms came, men like Jonas Clark and John Peter Muhlenberg reminded their congregations that being a Christian was not a call to comfort, but to courage.

Muhlenberg, on one faithful Sunday, took his congregation through Ecclesiastes 3:1: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” He famously ended his sermon saying: “To everything there is a season… a time to be born, a time to die… a time of war, and a time of peace.” Then, throwing off his black robe, he revealed a military uniform underneath and declared, “There is a time to preach and a time to fight. And now is the time to fight.”

Whether we agree with their political theology or not, they understood something we’ve forgotten: the Christian life is war. Not a war of flesh and blood, but a war of truth and lies, of light and darkness, of holiness and sin.

Paul, speaking to Timothy, commands him like a major general sending his men to battle: “Wage the good warfare” or “Fight the good fight.” Paul understood that the Christian is in the midst of a battle. Timothy, facing the false teaching creeping into the church, needed to prepare himself for war, not only with false teachers, but with the ever-present sin and the devil prowling around like a roaring lion.

AS Paul Charged Timothy, likewise There is a charge for us today:

MP: Fight the good fight by holding firmly to our faith and keeping a good conscience.

The Charge to War (18)

1 Timothy 1:18 “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,”

Paul is urging Timothy with a command that echoes military language. The Greek word parangelia is typically used by someone in authority to issue an order to a subordinate soldier.

Paul’s charge, then, is not casual or optional—it is a serious, authoritative summons. He commissions Timothy to engage in a spiritual war, specifically against false teaching and gospel disruption in the church at Ephesus.

Paul isn’t simply encouraging Timothy to fight—he’s commanding him to. He knows the battle is real, the cost is high, and the danger of drifting is constant. Paul’s grasp of the spiritual war facing every believer is so serious that he offers not just advice, but a solemn reminder: this fight must be faced.

Even in this charge, Paul is urging Timothy to take decisive action—to confront and silence the false teaching and vain speculation that were unsettling the church in Ephesus. As we saw back in 1 Timothy 1:3–7, Paul had already urged Timothy to remain in Ephesus for this very purpose: “so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.”

These teachings were not harmless. They were producing confusion, distraction, and division. They stirred controversy instead of building up the body in love. Paul is not content to let such disruption go unchallenged, and he knows Timothy cannot be passive in the face of it.

But even in the seriousness of his command, Paul speaks with a tender tone. His authority is not cold or distant; it is relational. He appeals to Timothy as “my child” in the faith. Though Timothy is being cast in the role of a soldier, charged to “wage the good warfare,” he is still Paul’s beloved spiritual son.

Paul knows him. He has watched him grow in grace, trained him in ministry, and now sends him into battle with both affection and urgency. Paul is not placing a burden on a stranger; he is entrusting this task to someone he loves.

Paul understands how hard this will be. He knows the toll that ministry can take, especially when it involves correcting error, confronting strong personalities, and preserving gospel clarity in the face of opposition. Paul does not downplay the difficulty. He reinforces the calling.

This is not just a fight for doctrinal precision. It is a fight for the health of the church, for the truth of the gospel, and for Timothy’s own endurance.

Paul also reminds Timothy of the prophetic confirmation that accompanied his calling. Timothy was not stepping into ministry on his own. He had been recognized, affirmed, and set apart by the church.

Paul refers here to the prophecies previously made about Timothy, which likely came during a time of public commissioning and laying on of hands. As Paul writes elsewhere in 2 Timothy 1:6, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”

Timothy had been gifted by God and affirmed by the church for gospel ministry.

This reminder would have brought real comfort to Timothy. He was not a lone wolf or a self-appointed leader. He had been sent—commissioned by the church and confirmed by the Spirit.

As Timothy now steps into a difficult task, confronting false doctrine and correcting misaligned faith, Paul is reminding him that God has already equipped him for the work. The very promises spoken over him were not empty words. They were God's way of preparing him for the trials he now faces.

And those trials would be real. As Timothy seeks to guard the truth, he will face slander, confrontation, and broken relationships. Ministry in a troubled church is never clean or easy. But Paul wants him to remember this: he has been called for this. What he is doing is not in vain. It is for the good of the church, for the glory of Christ, and for the spread of the gospel to the nations. Timothy may feel the weight of battle, but he can stand firm knowing that God has already spoken, gifted, and sent him for this very purpose.

This charge is not just for Timothy, nor is it only for pastors or people in full-time ministry. It is a charge for all Christians. We are all enlisted in the same spiritual war.

The battle for sound doctrine and orthodox teaching is not only a historical reality but also a daily one. It shows up in what we believe, how we live, and what we pass down to others.

Men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, and other Reformers understood this well. During the Reformation, even after confronting the false teaching of the Catholic Church, there was a renewed passion to return to Scripture as the final authority. They fought to recover the gospel truth that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

Their reform rejected the idea that salvation could be bought with indulgences or earned through religious works. Instead, they emphasized a right relationship with Christ, grounded in the promises of Scripture.

That theological war carried on into the 17th century, when the Puritans sought to bring every part of life under submission to Christ. They aimed to shape not only personal holiness, but the whole culture under biblical truth.

However, like we often do, the pendulum swung too far. In their zeal for purity, many tied holiness to legal structures, using state-run churches to enforce external conformity. This led to regulations about proper dress, singing, and church attendance that confused true piety with outward behavior. In doing so, they disconnected Christian liberty from orthodoxy.

Then, as history moved forward, the pendulum swung again—this time in the opposite direction. In the name of freedom and cultural relevance, many churches began to tolerate unrepentant sin and abandon biblical church discipline.

The war was still being fought, but now the leading philosophy was pragmatism—whatever works, whatever draws a crowd, whatever feels effective. And pragmatism still influences much of the church today.

So what do we do in light of all this? We go back to Scripture. We return to Christ. We anchor our lives in what He has said, what He has promised, and what He has done.

We reject the extremes of dead legalism on one hand and empty pragmatism on the other. We take up the charge to fight the good fight by clinging to faith and keeping a good conscience. We step into the battle not as spectators, but as those called, equipped, and kept by the grace of God.Christ and scripture.

This is the Character of the war that we are to fight. Holding to Faith and a good conscience.

The Character of War (19a)

Timothy must display both perseverance and courage in ministry. Paul views ministry not as a leisurely calling, but as warfare. That is why he tells Timothy to fight the good fight—a call not to passive endurance, but to active engagement.

And how is Timothy to fight? By holding faith and a good conscience. These are not abstract virtues. Faith anchors Timothy in sound doctrine and trust in Christ, while a good conscience keeps his inner life clean before God. Together, they form the moral and spiritual integrity needed to endure the battle.

This language is deeply reminiscent of Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 6:10–17, where he commands believers to put on the whole armor of God. There too, Paul describes the Christian life as a battlefield, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of darkness.

Faith and conscience correspond to the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, and the belt of truth. Paul is consistent: Christians must not only believe rightly, but also live right. Right doctrine and right living are the armor God provides to withstand the enemy’s attacks.

So how do we fight the good fight? How do we wage the good warfare Paul speaks of? It begins with holding faith. Timothy’s success in this spiritual strife will not be found in clever strategies or personal charisma, but in his living trust in Christ.

Paul makes it clear that victory in the war depends on holding on to the faith—clinging to sound doctrine and to the One in whom that doctrine is centered.

The word Paul uses suggests not just possession but firm grasp, the act of making something secure.

To hold faith is to fortify it, to brace it, to keep it fastened when the winds of opposition and doubt try to tear it loose. We do not enter the fight by casually tightening the straps of our armor and assuming it will hold.

We prepare as soldiers who know that the enemy is real, the attacks are fierce, and our only hope is to strengthen our grip on the truth of the gospel.

We fortify our faith by returning again and again to the Word of God, by rooting ourselves in sound doctrine, by walking closely with Christ in prayer, and by staying in fellowship with the body of believers.

The fight is not won by being bold in personality, but by being grounded in belief. For Timothy, and for us, holding faith is both the shield we carry and the strength that holds us up.

Faith is not just belief. Faith is an attitude of the Christian which is determined by trust in God. It is the substance of what is confessed and believed.

Paul is not commanding Timothy to hold on to a vague faith that everything will work out or that life will be easy. He is commanding him to hold on to the faith—the faith that is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is not general optimism; it is a firm grip on the unchanging truth of what God has done in Christ.

Just a few verses earlier, Paul reminded Timothy of the gospel that saved him. Paul confessed that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent. He did not deserve grace or mercy, yet Christ, being rich in both, reached down and saved him. This is the gospel Timothy is called to guard and proclaim: that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, came into the world to save sinners.

He obeyed where we could not. He went to the cross and died the death we deserved. He rose again in victory, and now offers salvation to all who trust in Him. As Paul says in verse 15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Those who repent of their sins and trust in Christ—believing that He took their place, bore their punishment, and rose from the dead—are saved. Christ the righteous One died for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. That is the faith Timothy must hold. That is the faith we must hold.

And because this gospel is the treasure of the church, it must be guarded. We must love it, cherish it, know it, and remind ourselves of it. The gospel is not just a one-time message we believe and then move on from. It is the very heart of our faith. It is the fuel for endurance, the anchor in suffering, and the source of courage in the fight.

Paul pairs faith with a good conscience. The truth of the gospel demands ethical standards. Jesus reminds us of this in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

” So what is this conscience? When we think through what it is, we might picture little angels popping up on each shoulder—one telling you to do good, the other telling you to do bad. Or we might think of what Disney popularized through Jiminy Cricket, a wise grasshopper who tells you what to do.

We want to take our understanding of the conscience from Scripture itself, not from pop culture or tradition. Paul explains this in Romans 2:14–15: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

In other words, God has written a moral law—a basic understanding of right and wrong—on the hearts of all people. Even those who never received the written law still have an internal sense of justice and morality. That inner faculty is the conscience. It bears witness to our actions and either defends us or accuses us based on how we live.

However, because of original sin, the conscience is not a perfect guide. Sin has distorted it, dulled it, and made it prone to error. The conscience, by definition, is our inner self-awareness that judges whether a thought, word, or action lines up with the moral standards we hold. But apart from Christ, those standards are often corrupted.

Now, if our conscience is marred by sin, then it is not an infallible guide. However, it is still a guide—one that needs instruction through the revealed will of God.

The conscience helps us judge between right and wrong, but that judgment is only reliable when it is aligned with the standard given in Scripture.

As we are being transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit and as our minds are renewed through the Word, we are forming a good conscience—one that increasingly understands what is good and acceptable and perfect according to the will of God.

Paul is forming Timothy for the battle at hand and the ongoing spiritual war that remains. He reminds him that he must have faith in Christ Jesus, and that this faith must shape and strengthen his conscience.

There are different ways that we as Christian can grow our conscience. It depends on what we are ingesting into our minds and allowing to form our conscince. Paul writes in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

What we must do is seek to transformed by renewing our mind.

We renew our mind based in prayer, scripture, meditating on the word, talking with brothers and sisters in Christ about Jesus.

Often we renew our mind with otherthings. News outlets, books, social media. Further, in our workplaces and friend groups our minds are being formed through conversations and the relationships. While these things can be useful and good, they can also be used to distort the truth and.

Within the Christian community, there are various levels of spiritual maturity, but Paul is calling Timothy to grow into a good conscience—one that is informed by truth and guided by grace.

At the same time, Paul points to those who have failed in this very area. He names Hymenaeus and Alexander as examples of men who have rejected both faith and a good conscience. They did not simply struggle—they disregarded the moral compass that should have guided them. And as a result, Paul says they have shipwrecked their faith. They collapsed in the war, not because the battle was too hard, but because they let go of the very things that could have kept them standing.

The Collapse in War (19b-20)

The collapse in the war comes through a denial of the gospel and its power to transform a person. This is what happened with Hymenaeus and Alexander. Their shipwreck of faith seems to have come suddenly, not by drifting harmlessly but by ignoring warning signs until it was too late. When navigating a ship, a captain does not usually steer directly into disaster. Instead, wreckage comes unexpectedly—through neglected attention, small miscalculations, or failure to correct course. In the same way, the Christian must continually examine themselves in light of the lordship of Christ, turning from sin, confessing sin, and walking in repentance. This is how we hold the faith and cultivate a good conscience.

But Paul names two men here who failed to do just that. Hymenaeus and Alexander destroyed their faith. We are not told everything about what led to their collapse, but we are given a glimpse. In 2 Timothy 2:18, Hymenaeus was teaching that the resurrection had already happened—overthrowing the faith of some. Alexander may be the same man described in 2 Timothy 4:14, the coppersmith who did Paul great harm and opposed the gospel message. Whatever their exact actions, Paul presents them as sobering examples of what happens when someone refuses to hold fast to the truth and lets their conscience become defiled.

Their denial of the truth, along with Paul’s response, provides the church with a serious example of how to handle those within the congregation who misunderstand God’s calling or persist in unrepentant sin. Paul does not remain passive. He takes action to protect the body and preserve the gospel. His resolution is clear: he seeks to purge the congregation from false teaching. This isn’t an act of harshness but of pastoral responsibility. False doctrine and unrepentant sin are not small matters—they spread, confuse, and eventually destroy. Paul’s example reminds us that faithful leadership involves both teaching truth and confronting error for the good of the whole church.

This comes through a number of different ways but are found in the word Discipline.

Informal discipline refers to the regular, relational correction that happens among believers who are walking together in truth and love. This can include private conversations when a brother or sister is walking in sin or straying from sound doctrine, as Jesus instructs in Matthew 18:15. It also involves exhortation in community settings, such as small groups or discipleship gatherings, where a person is gently warned or encouraged to realign with Scripture. Pastoral correction offered one-on-one can call someone to repentance or help them think biblically about their life and choices. This kind of discipline flourishes best in a healthy, gospel-shaped church culture where truth and love are practiced together. It is often quiet, relational, and restorative.

Formal discipline, on the other hand, occurs when sin is persistent, public, or damaging—and when the person involved refuses to repent. Formal discipline follows a more structured process, including multiple private and then public warnings as outlined in Matthew 18:15–17. It can involve rebuke before the church, especially if the person is in leadership or their actions have affected others (1 Timothy 5:20). In cases of unrepentant sin, formal discipline may lead to suspension from the Lord’s Table or removal from church membership (1 Corinthians 5:1–13; Titus 3:10–11). It can also involve marking and avoiding divisive or false teachers to protect the flock (Romans 16:17; 2 Thessalonians 3:14). Both informal and formal discipline are acts of love intended not to shame but to save, not to punish but to protect. The goal is always repentance, restoration, and reverence for Christ.

The preaching of the Word is a vital form of formative discipline within the church. It is not merely instruction but a powerful means of shaping and forming believers in holiness and truth. Faithful, consistent exposition of Scripture aligns the church with God's revealed will, guarding the conscience and strengthening faith. Alongside preaching, other formative practices include corporate worship, the Lord’s Supper, baptism, one-another ministry, and family discipleship. These regular, grace-filled means build a culture of truth and repentance, helping prevent sin and doctrinal error before they arise, thus making corrective discipline less necessary. Paul’s desire for the two men is that they be handed over to Satan. This is not an act of final condemnation, but a disciplinary measure intended to bring them to repentance. The purpose is that they might be taught not to blaspheme and that, through experiencing the consequences of their sin—even under Satan’s wrath—they would be purged and restored. Paul expands on this in 2 Timothy 2:25–26, where he writes about correcting opponents with gentleness, so that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. He hopes they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s snare, having been captured by him to do his will.

Church discipline, then, is meant for those in unrepentant sin and false teaching—not to condemn, but to bring them to know Christ and be restored to the truth.

As believers, we are all engaged in a spiritual battle—not distant or abstract, but real and urgent. Paul’s charge to Timothy reminds us that this fight requires holding fast to the gospel faith and nurturing a good conscience shaped by Scripture and the Spirit.

This is not a call to passive belief but to active, courageous perseverance in truth. Even in the church, the battle is still being fought, and even in the church there will be those who are in need of discipline. It may hurt, well it will hurt. However, God’s church will prevail and his desire is to see holiness for he is holy. Brothers and sisters, the example of Hymenaeus and Alexander should stir us to take sin seriously and to be active in repentance. Their downfall is a warning: the result of stubborn disobedience is a seared conscience and a turning away from the truth of the gospel. This isn’t just about personal failure—it threatens the health of the whole church.

We must not stay silent in the face of heresy, nor should we compromise with it. The church is called to contend earnestly for the faith. When we see a brother or sister walking in sin, we are not being unloving by addressing it—we are being faithful. We go to them with gentleness and compassion, not out of pride but out of a shared commitment to Christ. They may not like it. They may leave. They may even get angry. But love does not ignore what leads to ruin. Love speaks. Love warns. Love restores.

This war we are in is not fought offensively, but defensively. Why? Because Christ has already won. He has gone before us, defeating sin, death, and the enemy. He fought the good fight perfectly—never wavering, never losing control, never falling into temptation. And because of what He has done, we fight from victory, not for it.

We stand not in our own strength, and we do not fight for our own glory. We live and fight in Christ, the One who has gone before us and the One who walks with us even now. He has promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So let us be a people who love the truth, hold fast to the faith, and maintain a good conscience—for the glory of Christ and the good of His church.