Brian Lockard, Elder Canyon Bible Verde Valley

 

Introduction

Do you question why people do what they do? Do you ask what they are trying to accomplish or do you assume that you know their motives or end goals? If a situation is familiar, I often supply my own reasons for people’s actions even though I know little to nothing about the people in question. It is only when the activity I am witnessing is outside of my normal experience that I question motives and goals rather than assign convenient ones. For example: If you visit the performing arts building at Northern Arizona University, (where my wife and I spent a number of years) you might see teachers having their students do all kinds of things which you have never witnessed before and might have trouble explaining – such as a student performing a takadimi chant, a professor berating crying students, students squawking loudly with their tongues out. These are very odd things to do if you don’t know what the specific goal is that those teachers are working towards and very reasonable activities if you do know their purpose: rhythmic control, emotional control, independent control of the tongue and larynx. (Abigail had a friend in college who was not an art’s major and thought he had walked into an insane asylum when he strolled through the performing arts building.)

Today we will look at the apostle Paul’s goals for a central activity of most meetings within Protestant churches – an activity that looks odd to those outside the church and might often go unquestioned by those on the inside – teaching and preaching from the Bible. Unchurched people wonder why those in the church would give up a chunk of their weekend to sit and listen to a lecture and might also ask why someone would want to teach from the Bible as a vocation. At the same time, those (like myself) who grew up in the church assume they know the reasons for teaching in the church and accept it without necessarily having thought it through.

We are told in Acts 2:42 that the early church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching (which was Jesus’ teaching), so we in turn devote time to hear teaching from the Word of God every week. This morning I want you to ask (and answer from Paul’s letter to Timothy) a few questions: “Why do I come to hear teaching?” “Why does the teacher come to teach?” “Why do pastors spend years in seminary studying the Bible and practicing preaching skills and why do people support them in their preaching and teaching?” People construct many different reasons for teaching or coming to hear teaching, but often those reasons are not aligned to the ones provided in the Bible. Today we will examine some of the Bible’s own reasons.

Before I dive into our text, I want to make two clarifications. First, God says in Isaiah 55:11 that His word will go forth and accomplish that which He sent it forth to do. There are many ways in which we will not know the benefits of the preaching of His words until we leave this life. It will take an eternity to understand the myriad ramifications of the word going forth, but Paul gives Timothy some straight-forward goals for teaching in the church and it is those that we will examine today.

Second, I am not directly addressing witnessing to unbelievers. Sharing the gospel with unbelievers has a very clear, direct goal of providing the opportunity for people to believe and be saved, but the majority of teaching that happens here and in many other churches is directed at people who are already believers. This is also true of the church that our text refers to today.

With those two caveats – let’s look at what Paul has to say.

Our text is directed to Timothy, who is in leadership at the church in Ephesus. Like all churches, the Ephesian church consisted of people who inevitably need correction. Before giving the goals of good teaching in the church, Paul points out what NOT to teach, because eliminating incorrect teaching is as important as teaching correctly. Often great harm will come to the church from within when teachers add their own doctrine to what is taught in the Bible. Jesus pointed this out in Matthew 7:15 and there are other warnings about watching for false teaching from within the church (Jude vs. 4). Both the teacher and those that are taught need to be aware of some guidelines to keep the church from falling into error.

What not to teach – Anything that doesn’t bear fruit. (1 Timothy 1:6)

You will notice at the end of our text that for both good and bad teaching Paul ends up looking at the results.(I Timothy 1:6) He doesn’t talk about style, skill, length, or any other minor details, but rather takes Christ’s example from Matthew 7:15-20. There is such variety in style of teachers and taste of listeners that Jesus knew we would get tripped up in how to decide on what is good and bad in teaching. He says to look past superficial details and scrutinize the fruit. Paul does that and identifies some things that result in “fruitlessness” or “bad fruit.”

Strange doctrines (1 Timothy 1:3)

First, he mentions strange doctrines. The word “strange” here simply means “different”. Now, you might hear teaching that doesn’t sound strange because you have become accustomed to it through tradition, but it might still be “different” from what is found in the Bible. We constantly need to act like the Bereans (Acts 17:11) and search the Scriptures to test what is taught. Any teacher of the church should be willing to accept questions from those being taught about how his teaching fits with what is written in the Bible. This particular example was the Apostle Paul that was being scrutinized by the Bereans in light of Scripture. One who had seen Jesus still had to be checked against God’s word! Any teacher who does not have a congregation who is concerned about ensuring that what they are taught comes directly from the Bible is in danger of falling into error. Support your teacher and protect yourselves at the same time by checking his words against Scripture.

Mere Speculation (1 Timothy 1:4)

Paul warns against teaching that might not be contrary to sound doctrine, but distracts from it. Because we cannot fully comprehend God with our finite minds, it is possible for us to pull any number of items out of the Bible and chew on them for our entire lives, but it is necessary again to look at the fruit. Since the text here uses “administration” which is also translated as “stewardship”, I like to connect it to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. Think of the one who hid his talent. He spent all that time speculating in fear about how his master might react negatively, and it paralyzed him. He never took action to produce fruit with his talent; therefore he was called a wicked, lazy steward. If teachers use the church body’s time for mere speculation about uncertain things, they hinder the congregation from taking action. On the flip side, speculation could also make the church take negative action, like James and John in Mark 10:35. After spending time talking about what positions they might have in glory (they came to Jesus together so you know they had discussed the matter) they made a bold request about something that Jesus did not feel necessary to reveal. Thinking about the future kingdom of God is not contrary to sound doctrine, in fact, looking forward to it is a part of sound doctrine, but spending time speculating about the parts of it that have not been revealed and cannot be deduced from what has been revealed, is distracting from what Jesus thought necessary to teach His disciples. A teacher or preacher in the church certainly never wants to distract from Jesus’ teaching. He is not stewarding the church if he is always following rabbit trails. We can all get sidetracked and do that easily enough on our own, just like James and John.

The goals of good teaching (1 Timothy 1:5)

Having pointed out a couple of items that Timothy should confront in bad teaching, Paul now gives the goals of good teaching. Of course, all three goals are derived directly from the teachings of Jesus.

Love from a pure heart

Paul starts with a goal based on the two greatest commandments. (Matthew 22:36-40) If you are loving God with all you heart and your neighbor as yourself, there is no longer any room for impurity in your heart. All of your energy is already being used and you have no love for the world. (James 4:4 and I John 2:15) If you have love from impure motives, it is because you have tainted that love with love for something else. Obviously we cannot attain to this pure love in the flesh, because our hearts are wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and cannot not love purely. Therefore, Paul is pointing out that Timothy is not to teach the church to show love as a means of grace (works based faith), but rather that they show love as a result of the grace that has already made it possible for their heart to be pure. The loving actions flow from the right motive of demonstrating God’s love for us. (I John 4:19)

It is very possible to teach a group of people to perform some “loving” acts out of self-interest rather than from the pure motive of God’s love, and even thereby establish quite a large “church” community. In Mark Dever’s book, “The Compelling Community”, he describes a so-called “church” that grew quite large and performed many helpful acts for the poor in Washington DC. They were recognized in the papers for their good deeds and the people performing those works developed some strong relationships that seemed similar to a body of Christ. However, the teacher of that church, who organized those works, denied the atonement of Christ for our sins in his teaching and saw work with the poor as humanitarian aid rather than an outpouring love as a result of God’s love. The help for the poor became work that was intended to make people in the congregation feel better about themselves. This was love from an impure, fleshly heart that did not bring glory to God, but rather took credit from God. (At least this was the case for the leader of that group. There, of course, could have been members of that group that did serve with love from a pure heart, but it is not likely since the leader was not teaching such ideas to his congregation. Also, I am not saying that all humanitarian aid is negative, but it is not necessarily expressing love from a pure heart.)

A Good Conscience

A good conscience requires an understanding of sin and the payment for it, along with disciplines for continuing to fight sin in our lives. Understanding the nature of sin, repenting and accepting Christ’s sacrifice as payment for your sins, and then continually training oneself with the help of the Holy Spirit to resist sin results in a good conscience that does not feel guilty (modern individual) or shameful (first century community). Good teaching does not allow sin to stay in people’s lives and wreck their or their church’s witness. It moves them to act (make changes) and root out sin in their lives so that they stand with a good conscience as a testament to God’s grace, not living defeated lives with their conscience(and others) constantly condemning them. (I Peter 3:16)

When I teach my piano students, it is easy for me to discuss very interesting things about the lives of the composers or the physics of music or different trends in musical interpretation. However, if I don’t send the students home with instructions on how to connect those ideas to what they mentally and physically need to do, the lesson is fruitless and the student will likely return the next week and need to work on the same material from the previous lesson. Also, if the student is putting forth effort and doesn’t make progress, he becomes disheartened and quits practicing altogether. This will definitely happen if I were not to prepare a student adequately and then put him in a performance situation where he fails. He will start thinking that he is not talented or intelligent enough when it really is my fault that I did not communicate clearly what he should do.

Unfortunately, teachers in the church sometimes dodge their responsibility to help people conquer sin by excusing sin so that people won’t feel bad about themselves. I have found numerous pastors online (and have known one personally) who plays down the struggle with sin in a believer’s life. They want to explain it away as cultural differences, misunderstandings, or a million other things so that their congregation won’t feel bad about their actions. In the example with my piano student, I could excuse all his mistakes, but that doesn’t help him overcome anything. At some future point he will realize that he is still unable to handle musical problems and all I will have accomplished is to make him feel better for one lesson and possibly turn him off to learning to play the piano. Any good teacher in the church hands people the tools from Scripture to deal with sin rather than excusing their sins or avoid talking about sin. They can then have a good conscience rather than become disheartened by floundering with a guilty conscience. (Matthew 10:16)

Remember that we are talking about people who are already believers. I don’t want to imply that a good conscience can come merely by working through some process without faith

A Sincere Faith – not feigned – Good teaching does not allow people to fake their faith, rather it confronts false faith. Good teaching does not allow people to feel comfortable if they are not sincerely living out their faith. If someone has been part of a church their entire lives, they might almost unconsciously act and talk so that those in their church will think they are Christians and they might even have emotional experiences during church meetings, but good teaching will reveal their motives. In Mark 10:17-22 Christ asked a very difficult thing of this rich man. Good teaching that seeks a sincere faith will ask difficult things of its hearers. It might even drive someone away from the church that has rejected Christ in his heart while holding on to an outward form of Christianity. This kind of teaching is part of protecting the church from worldly or fleshly influences disguised as godly ones. At the same time, good teaching affirms the faith of believers and moves them to act on that faith.

Conclusion – Teaching in the church should be about discipleship (Matthew 28:19-20)

Let us end with the beginning of all church teachings the Great Commission. Jesus’ simple directions to his disciples right before He left this earth lead to the goals of teaching that Paul outlined. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Jesus sent out his disciples to make more disciples. His final direction was to teach others all that He had taught them. If a church’s teaching does not spring from this same well, it is difficult to call that body of people a church. If what is said in front of the assembly makes people feel better about themselves without making them more like Christ we have failed. If what is taught creates excitement and emotional responses, but allows people to live in sin rather than drive sinners to Christ, we have failed. If we have intellectually stimulating presentations that keep us coming back for more, but don’t change any of our actions when we leave, we have failed. If we miss the point that what happens up front on Sunday is about making disciples of Jesus Christ, we are teaching “strange” doctrines and merely speculating. We can then hardly call our message “Christian”.

Life Application – Expect teaching from God’s Word to change you.

When you listen to Christian teaching, look for ways that it leads you to love from a pure heart (changes motives), a good conscience (deals with sin) and sincere faith (not going through the motions). Does it produce those fruits in your life or is it merely interesting, entertaining, or emotionally moving? Does what you are listening to challenge your flesh and affirm your faith in God or does it merely tickle your ears?(2 Timothy 4:3) Do you come to Biblical teaching expecting that it will change you? Do you then leave that teaching and make changes to how you live? Realize that it is possible for you to listen to good teaching and still draw wrong conclusions if you come to it with wrong expectations.

Expect to hear from God’s word and have it make you more like Christ.