1 Timothy 1.6-Because Some Deviated From Practicing Love From A Pure Heart, A Good Conscience And A Sincere Faith, They Turned Aside To Pointless Talk
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday January 26, 2011
1 Timothy: 1 Timothy 1:6-Because Some Pastors In Ephesus Deviated From Practicing Love From A Pure Heart, A Good Conscience And A Sincere Faith, They Turned Aside To Pointless Talk
Lesson # 14
Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 1:1.
This evening we will study 1 Timothy 1:6.
1 Timothy 1:1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope, 2 to Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines 4 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. 5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, 7 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. (NASU)
In 1 Timothy 1:6, Paul is presenting the reason why these unidentified apostate teachers were turning aside to fruitless discussion.
They turned aside to fruitless discussion, i.e. pointless arguments (verse 4) because they themselves strayed from loving their fellow Christians from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Consequently, they did not teach the church at Ephesus to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
“Some men” refers to certain unidentified Christian pastor-teachers who taught false doctrines in fulfillment of Paul’s prophesy recorded in Acts 20:28.
In the plural form it means that there was more than one pastor in Ephesus who was teaching false doctrines.
However, it does not mean that all the pastors were doing so.
This interpretation is supported by the fact that this dative masculine plural form of this word appears in verse 3.
“Straying from these things” is composed of the nominative masculine plural aorist active participle form of the verb astocheo (ἀστοχέω) (ah-stowe-yeh-oh), “for straying from” and the genitive feminine plural form of the relative pronoun hos (ὅς) (oce), “these things.”
The verb astocheo means “to deviate” from loving one’s fellow Christian from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith and refers to unbelief in the Word of God.
Therefore, these pastors did not operate in God’s love and administrate God’s household in Ephesus by teaching the command to love one another because they were not thinking right and they were not thinking right because of a lack of faith in the Word of God.
The verb functions as a causal participle meaning that it is indicating the reason or the basis for the action of the verb ektrepo, “have turned aside.”
Therefore, this indicates that “because” these unidentified pastors in Ephesus deviated from obeying the command to love one another, which stems from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith, they turned aside to fruitless discussion, which in verse 4, Paul describes as “pointless arguments.”
The genitive feminine plural form of the relative pronoun hos (ὅς) (oce), “these things” refers to obeying the command to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
It functions as an ablative of separation indicating that these unidentified pastors in Ephesus deviated “away from” loving one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
In other words, they deviated away from the teaching of the Spirit in the Word of God.
They did this through a lack of faith.
“Have turned aside to fruitless discussion” is composed of the third person plural aorist passive indicative form of the verb ektrepo (ἐκτρέπω) (ek-trep-oh), “have turned aside” and the preposition eis (εἰς) (eece), “to” and the accusative feminine singular form of the noun mataiologia (ματαιολογία) (mah-tay-ya-owe-lee-ah), “fruitless discussion.”
The verb ektrepo means “to turn away” from obeying the command to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith and instead being occupied with pointless discussion or conversation.
So the verb means that these unidentified pastors in Ephesus “turned to” being occupied with pointless conversation rather than exercising love for their fellow Christians that stems from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
It denotes that at one time they were following the right path in the sense of learning the Word of God and exercising faith in it, which results in obedience but then “turned away to” being occupied with Jewish myths and useless genealogies that resulted in their teaching false doctrine.
In 1 Timothy 1:6, the word in means “pointless discussion” or “meaningless talk” and is synonymous with the noun ekzetesis in verse 4, which we noted means “pointless arguments.”
The latter denotes the divisiveness that results among believers because these unidentified pastors are not walking by faith and teaching false doctrine in the form of being occupied with Jewish myths and useless genealogies.
The former, mataiologia speaks of conversation or discussion but from the perspective of it being “meaningless” or “pointless.”
This word denotes that the teaching of these unidentified pastors is pointless or having no purpose in contrast to Paul and Timothy’s teaching, which has a purpose, namely love for God and each other.
1 Timothy 1:6, Certain individuals, because they have deviated away from these things, turned aside to pointless talk. (My translation)
To summarize our findings from our study of this verse, we noted that these “certain individuals” referred to certain unidentified pastors in Ephesus.
The causal clause “because they have deviated away from these things, turned aside to pointless talk” means that the reason why these pastors turned aside to pointless talk was because they deviated from practicing God’s love in the power of the Spirit from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Therefore, the reason why these unidentified pastors in Ephesus were teaching false doctrine and were occupied with Jewish myths and genealogies was that they themselves were not obeying the command to love one another.
The reason why they were failing to administrate the household of God by teaching the church to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith is that they themselves were not doing so.
They were out of fellowship with God themselves and as a result they were not fulfilling their responsibilities to teach the Christians in Ephesus to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
The fact that they did not obey the Lord’s command to love one another is reflected by the fact that they were not fulfilling their responsibilities to teach the church in Ephesus to love one another from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Furthermore, they were out of fellowship and not exercising love towards their fellow Christians.
Thus, they were not fulfilling their responsibilities to the Lord to administrate the church at Ephesus by teaching the command to love one another because they were no longer operating in faith.
Faith in the Word of God produces obedience to the Word of God and its teaching can be summarized by the command to love one another.
Faith in the Word of God will result in the believer obeying the command to love one another.
Unbelief produces disobedience to the command to love one another.
Thus, Paul in verse 19 says that because these unidentified pastors in Ephesus have not held firmly to the Christian faith and a good conscience, which they do so by exercising faith in the Word of God, they have suffered shipwreck with regards to their faith.
Therefore, these unidentified pastors in Ephesus were not exercising faith in the Word of God, which manifested itself through false teaching, being occupied with Jewish myths and genealogies resulting in pointless arguments.
This lack of faith manifested itself by not fulfilling their responsibilities to administrate the household of God, which is accomplished by teaching the command to love one another.