Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

In the definitive words of , Jesus informs us that Satan is a liar.

Wherever God sows truth, His arch-enemy endeavors to sow falsehood and error.

It is not surprise then that one of his most persistent attacks on the Church has been through false doctrine.

False teachers and their demonic doctrine have been at the core of the battle the Church has had to fight throughout her history.

Our Lord reminds us often of the danger of false teachers.

The NT writers echo’s our Lord’s warning.

False teachers are dangerous because, like their master, their appearance is deceiving.

Paul said:

The subtlety, and danger, of false teachers lies in their clever twisting of Scripture for their own ends.

They are hucksters, guilty of “peddling,” and “adulterating” the Word of God (2 Cor.

2:17; 4:2).

Their teaching, which appears to be biblical and spiritual, is far more dangerous than an open attack on the truths of Scripture.

False teachers first confuse, then captivate, and finally damn unwary souls to hell.

Despite its rich history, the church at Ephesus was not spared from the onslaught of false teachers, just as Paul had predicted (Acts 20:29–30).

Paul penned this letter to Timothy to tell him to make every effort to halt the influence of the false teachers and set things right in the church.

The opening charge in 1:3–11 sets the scene for the rest of the epistle.

Paul divulges three ways that we are treat false teachers: We are to Confront Them Determinedly, We are to Confront Them Doctrinally and we are to Confront Them Devotedly.

Notice:

I. We are to Confront them Determinately (vs.

3a)

Now, there is something in the first part of that verse that I want to bring to your attention.

The Apostle begins the body of the letter to Timothy with an urge or plea.

He uses the Greek word “παρακαλέω” to urge or beg Timothy to remain at the Church in Ephesus when he went to Macedonia.

Now, obviously Paul is no longer in Ephesus but has already departed for Macedonia, or he would not have urged Timothy in a letter but would have done it in person.

And Pauls usage of the παρακαλέω in the Aorist, Indicative generally refers to something in past time.

The Apostle is writing to Timothy reminding him of what he had begged him to do before he departed for Macedonia.

It seems quite clear that Paul needed to exhort his “true child in the faith” so that he would remain where he begged him to stay.

But this urging from Paul to Timothy was not a command to do something, but it was a call for help.

Because the word παρακαλέω also can mean “to call for help”.

Paul is urging Timothy and reminding Timothy of what he begged him before he left for Macedonia because Paul knew Timothy and needed Timothy’s help.

He needed Timothy’s help to deal with the false teachers that were in the Church at Ephesus.

Now, the reason why Paul probably needed to do this was because Timothy had two major, I will say, mental flaws going against him.

First, Timothy was not invulnerable to timidity.

Timothy was unsure of himself and; therefore, that could have led to him not being as determined as he needed to be in confronting these false teachers.

This is probably why Paul said this to him:

Paul is making it clear to Timothy that the fear that he feels towards dealing with things that are wrong, is not from God.

God has not given us the spirit to be scared to the point of inaction when it comes to dealing with and making the wrong, right.

Ephesus had some deep, deep trouble and she needed a determined confrontation to make it right.

But Timothy was scared and; perhaps, Paul had gotten word of Timothy’s fear and inevitable evacuation from Ephesus, so he writes him and reminds of what he had asked him to do before he left for Macedonia and reminded Timothy that he needed his help in this.

Second, Timothy was intimidated because there were those who looked down on him because of his youth.

As already noted to you, when Timothy came to Ephesus he was probably in his late teens to very early twenties.

That is young now, but in the first century life expectancy was much higher, Timothy’s age would have been regarded as childish.

Which is no doubt why Paul writes to this young man:

Timothy may have felt inadequate to handle the arguments, questions and maturity of the false teachers.

Paul says, “no, no, no do not let people look down on you because of your age, but you show the power and reality of your belief by how you conduct yourself.

Listen, there is no refuting the testimony of a pure life; no matter how young you are.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon began to pastor when he was 20 years of age.

John Calvin wrote “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” when he was 21 years of age.

David Brainerd entered the minstry around the age of 24.

The point is that allowing his fears and insecurity to dictate his determined confrontation of these false teachers, was not a reason.

Now, of course, Timothy did not know the three men that I just spoke of, I just use them as examples; but they, like Timothy, should not allow their age to determine their effectiveness for Christ.

The idea here is that do not allow your age, your intellect or your status to undermine what should clearly be done to right the wrong.

Paul urges Timothy not to give up, not to stop fighting, Confront them Determinately.

II.

We are to Confront them Doctrinally (vs.

3b-4; 6-11)

False teachers are not to be taken lightly; as if they will just one day go away.

The false will never go away because unregenerate man loves teaching that elevates the creature over the creator.

Peter, also writing concerning false teachers says this:

Because of false teachers and their plethora of disciples, truth becomes difficult to find.

Paul tells Timothy, in our text, to “instruct”.

It is the Greek “παραγγέλλω” and it does not mean to teach, it means “to command”.

Timothy is to command that these “certain people” stop teaching strange doctrine.

Paul usage of the word “certain” probably indicates that these false teachers were in few in number but they had a wide influence.

Not only in Ephesus but also the regions around.

They were not outsiders, as in Corinth and Galatia, but most likely they were elders in the Ephesian Church.

So, this young , relatively new, Pastor of between 19-20 are to command that certain elders of the Church are to stop teaching strange doctrine.

Just as a side note; there are four reasons why these certain people were elders of the Church in Ephesus;

First, they presumed to be teachers (1:7), a role reserved for elders (3:2; 5:17).

Second, Paul, not the Church, excommunicated Hymenaeus and Alexander (1:20); implying that they were in positions of power and the congregation wouldn’t deal with them.

Third, the qualifications of an elder are given in great detail in chapter 3; implying that unqualified men were serving in that office and Timothy needed to see them replaced.

Finally, Paul stresses, (5:19-22), that sinning elders are to be publicly disciplined.

Timothy was to command these erring elders not to teach strange doctrines.

The phrase “to teach no other Doctrine” is the Greek word “ἑτεροδιδασκαλέω” it is a compound word “ἕτερος” which different and “διδασκαλία” which means to teach.

ἕτερος

Timothy is to command that these elders are not to teach a different doctrine.

διδασκαλία;

We have seen this before:

They were to be commanded not to teach a different Doctrine then what was taught by the Apostles, because the Apostles’ teaching was the standard by which all other teaching was judged.

After describing these false teachers, Paul describes their error.

Their error consisted of myths and endless genealogies.

The Apostle is speaking here about man-made supplements to the law of God, mere myths and fables, old wives’ tales, that were definitely Jewish in character.

When these things were measured by the standard of truth, what these errorists taught deserved the name myths whose material were largely fictitious.

We feel at once that here we have been introduced into the realm of typically Jewish lore.

It is a known fact that from early times the rabbis would “spin their yarns”—and endless yarns they were!—on the basis of what they considered some “hint” supplied by the Old Testament.

They would take a name from a list of pedigrees (for example, From Genesis, I Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah), and expand it into a nice story.

Such interminable embroideries on the inspired record were part of the regular bill of fare in the synagogue, and were subsequently deposited in written form in that portion of The Talmud which is known as Haggadah.

The Book of Jubilees (also called The Little Genesis) offers another striking example of what Paul had in mind.

It is a kind of haggadic commentary on the canonical Genesis; that is, it is an exposition interspersed with an abundant supply of illustrative anecdotes.

The book was probably written toward the close of the second or at the beginning of the first century B.C.

It covers the entire era from the creation until the entrance into Canaan.

This long stretch is divided into fifty jubilee-periods of forty-nine (7 × 7) years each.

In fact, the entire chronology is based on the number 7, and heavenly authority is claimed for this arrangement.

Thus not only does the week have 7 days, the month 4 × 7 days, but even the year has 52 × 7 = 364 days, the year-week has 7 years, and the jubilee has 7 × 7 = 49 years.

The separate events regarding the patriarchs, etc., are pin-pointed in accordance with this scheme.

The sacred narrative of our canonical book of Genesis is embellished, at times almost beyond recognition.

Thus, we now learn that the sabbath was observed already by the arch-angels, that the angels also practised circumcision, that Jacob never tricked anybody, etc.

In every age, there are people who love to indulge in such a mixture of truth and error.

They even treat these adulterations as being an all-important things.

They carry on lengthy debates about dates and definitions, they discover fine distinctions and engage in hairsplitting disputes.

They pile myth upon myth, fable upon fable, and the end is never in sight.

The law of God is made void by human tradition and picture drawn in the sacred original is grossly distorted.