02 Why God Chooses Faithful Over Impressive People (1 Timothy 1:1-4)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Would you pick a 30-something with no big name, a quiet temperament, and a weak stomach to lead a church in crisis? Paul did. Paul left Timothy in charge of the church in one of the most spiritually chaotic cities in the ancient world, and he charged Timothy with confronting false teachers who had impressive credentials that Timothy didn't have. Discover the reason Paul trusted him and why the qualities we usually overlook in a leader might be exactly what God is looking for. This is the second talk in our study on the book of 1 Timothy. Today we will be looking at 1 Timothy 1, verses 1 through 4. Thanks for making Wednesday and the Word a part of your day. We talked about how Paul had once persecuted the followers of Jesus, but after encountering the risen Christ, he became an apostle commissioned to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Timothy was a younger believer from Lystra who joined Paul's missionary work and gradually became one of his closest friends and most trusted allies. Paul asked Timothy to remain in Ephesus while he traveled on. Timothy's task was to confront false teaching and to help guide the community of believers there. And throughout this letter, Paul will emphasize two closely related concerns. First, sound teaching should produce godliness, and second, believers need to learn how to conduct themselves together, both individually and as a household of the living God or a church. We're only going to be looking at the first four verses today. These opening verses give us three things we need to understand for the rest of the letter. First, why Paul's words carry authority, second, why Timothy has been left in Ephesus, and three, what has gone wrong with the teaching there? Let me read the first four verses for us and then we'll get started. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. So this letter is written from the Apostle Paul to Timothy, but even though this letter was written to an individual, Paul still identifies himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. Now I suspect Timothy didn't really need a reminder of Paul's position and authority. Timothy had been working with Paul and traveling with him for about ten years by the time Paul writes this letter. I suspect Paul included this statement of his apostleship because he expected Timothy to share this letter with others. And because it would have a wider readership than one individual, he identifies himself as an apostle. Just in case anyone might think that his advice was just random musings from a rabbi to his disciple, Paul clarifies he is an apostle and his word should be taken in that light. Now, this may be review for most of you, but what does the word apostle mean and what does it mean for Paul to be one? The word apostle means one who is sent out. It comes from a secular concept. A king might send an authorized representative to act on his behalf, to make decisions for him and carry out his will. Think of it like an ambassador. When a U.S. ambassador speaks to a foreign government, no one in the room thinks they're hearing her personal opinions. The ambassador is not there to share her own views on foreign policy. She's there because the president sent her. When she speaks, it's the president's position coming through her mouth. That's the kind of claim Paul is making about himself. He's not just another rabbi offering his own thoughts and interpretations. He is Christ's authorized representative. Jesus Christ has sent him to speak on his behalf. So Jesus is the king or the president, in my analogy, the one who has the authority, and the apostles were sent out as his authorized representatives to proclaim his message and carry out the work he gave them. When Paul calls himself an apostle, he's making a significant claim to authority. He's saying that God and Jesus personally appointed him to represent Jesus during his physical absence. And Paul further emphasizes that he became an apostle by the command of God. He was not elected to the position. Nobody voted for him. He did not lobby for the job. He did not earn it through any achievement or qualify it because of his studies. The other apostles didn't appoint him. Paul didn't simply decide, hey, I think I want to be an apostle. This was all God's doing. God called him and said, I have a job for you. Now, as an apostle, Paul is not merely a preacher, although he is that. He is an authorized representative of Jesus. He can speak for Jesus. When he articulates the gospel, it's as if Jesus himself is speaking, because God called Paul to that role and then equipped him to do it. That's what he means by calling himself an apostle. Now it's interesting that Paul describes God as our savior and Jesus as our hope. I think today we tend to think of Jesus as our savior and God as our hope, but here Paul switches them. The Caesars in the Roman Empire liked to apply this word savior to themselves. They wanted to be seen as the leaders who would rescue and liberate various people, bringing the superior Roman civilization to the countries they conquered. So the picture they had of a savior was a general decked out for war, riding a war horse in victory. And it makes me wonder if Paul is bringing that image to God. God, as our Savior, acts in power and victory to defeat his enemies and rescue his people. We are guilty of sin, we are condemned to destruction until God acts in history to rescue us. He is our savior. How did he rescue us? Well, we know he sent his son Jesus Christ to die the death we deserve and to secure our mercy and forgiveness. That's why Christ is our great hope. He is the reason we can approach God at all. He's the one we look to when we beg for God's mercy and forgiveness. So our great hope is not in keeping the law or being good enough or hoping that our good side of the scale outweighs our bad side of the scale. None of that. Our great hope is in the blood of Jesus. Okay, then Paul identifies the recipient to Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, peace, and mercy from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. We talked about who Timothy is in the last podcast. Timothy is a child in the faith because Timothy believed the gospel and has spent many years learning from Paul. Calling him my child is not a derogatory term. I think it points to the bond that's been created between Paul and Timothy over the course of many years traveling and working together. Paul couldn't be in two places at once, so he would send Timothy to do something on his behalf or leave him behind to accomplish a task. Over time, that working relationship probably turned into a deep trust, love, and respect for each other. Then he says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations, rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. So Paul gives us a little bit of the occasion for this letter. He says, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, so what's he talking about? We don't know for sure, but he's probably referring to an event that's recorded in Acts 20. Paul was on his way to Jerusalem. He asked the leaders of the church in Ephesus to meet him in Melitas, and he basically said goodbye to them. He was traveling to Jerusalem where he suspects he will be arrested, and he wants to talk to them before he goes. He says goodbye to them, and as he does, actually gives us a lot of information about his time in Ephesus, and then he says this, this is Acts 20, verses 29 and 30. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own cells will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. So before leaving the Ephesian elders, Paul warns them that false teachers or wolves, as he calls them, are going to come among them, even from their own number. And as we'll see in the letter, these false teachers have arisen, and Paul is talking to Timothy about them. Paul predicted this would happen before he left for Jerusalem, and now he's urging Timothy to remain at Ephesus to help battle against these false teachers. Ephesus was one of the most important cities in the Roman province of Asia. It was religiously diverse, but it was also strongly associated with the temple for Artemis and with magic. Ephesus was home to the Temple of Artemis. She was the city's patron goddess. It was famous for this structure and for the religious and commercial activity that surrounded the temple. Ephesus also had a large center of Jewish magic and religious syncretism. Syncretism just means when you combine biblical teaching with superstition or astrology or other pagan beliefs. We see an example of that in Acts 19, when some Jewish exorcists tried to cast out a demon by invoking the name of Jesus along with their usual spells. That took place in Ephesus. That kind of mixing of Jewish tradition with magical practices would have made the city especially fertile ground for the kind of speculative false teaching that's now troubling the church. Let's think about this phrase in verse 4, which promotes speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. This Greek word translated stewardship, in its most basic sense, it means household management or the administration of a household. As this letter progresses, Paul's going to contrast two very different ways of handling truth, the way the false leaders were handling it, and the way Paul wants Timothy to handle it. The false teachers were promoting speculations, myths, and endless genealogies. What God actually wants is stewardship, the proper ordering, the proper management of his household. Now I don't think Paul is using stewardship in the sense of being responsible for money or finances. He's using it in the original household sense. God has a household, the church or the community of believers in a specific city, and he wants that household to be managed well. Paul will keep returning to the image of the church as God's household throughout this letter. In 315, he explicitly calls the church the household of God. And in chapters 2 and 3, he gives instructions for how that household should be ordered. And in chapter 5, he returns to the same imagery when he tells Timothy how to manage the household of God. So when Paul says the false teachers are not promoting the stewardship from God that is by faith, he's pointing ahead in a sense to the rest of the letter. Now, in this context, I think we could think of stewardship as the faithful ordering of God's household according to the gospel. But I'm going to argue as we get into the letter that Paul is not primarily concerned with the church as an organization or a governing body or an institution. So he's not out to say, this is how I want you to create an established church bureaucracy or institution. He's primarily concerned that we preserve the truth of the gospel, handed down from Jesus and the apostles, and that we live like it's true. As a community, he wants us to promote truth and godliness. And then whatever structures we put in place, whatever bureaucracy or institution we create, it should support that goal of promoting truth and godliness. So in contrast to the stewardship Paul's going to talk about in the letter, what are the false teachers doing? What does he mean by myths and endless genealogies? Well, he doesn't spell it out. Paul doesn't tell us exactly what these myths and genealogies were, and over the centuries, many ideas have been proposed. The explanation that I find most persuasive is that Paul is referring to a form of rabbinic interpretation that was very common in the day. The rabbis liked to defend their understanding by tracing it through an impressive succession of earlier teachers. As they studied the Old Testament, they were often looking for instructions on what to do and what not to do, how to live righteously. And their focus was on what can I do, when can I do it, and what do I need to avoid. When they came up with a specific application, they would justify it by quoting some other rabbi. So say Rabbi Smith claims this passage of the Old Testament means A. How do we know he's right? Well, he quotes an older, more authoritative rabbi. So Rabbi Smith quotes Rabbi Jones, and Rabbi Jones quotes another rabbi who says so-and-so, and so we know they're right. Then his conclusion will become the basis for other rabbis to quote, and it becomes the basis then for further extrapolation by some other rabbi, and that chain is endless. Think of it like a chain of footnotes today. It can work like a quotation that gets repeated from book to book. So one writer makes a claim and cites an earlier authority, and then a second writer quotes the first, and a third writer quotes the second and the first, and then a fourth writer comes along who quotes the third, the second, and the first, and the list goes on and on. And everyone assumes that this claim is really well established because look at the impressive trail of citations. It's in all these books. But when someone finally traces the chain back to the beginning, the original source never actually proved his point. And you see this happen a lot. A quote will get attributed to, say, Einstein or Churchill, and it spreads everywhere. And books and sermons and graduation speeches quote it, and they say it came from, say, Einstein, each one citing the last. And it sounds really true because so many credible people agree with it until someone finally checks and Einstein never said it. Well, that's the trap Paul is describing. This teaching wasn't authoritative because it wasn't true. It was authoritative because it came with this impressive trail of citations, or what he calls a genealogy, and no one bothered to check where the trail started. The authority of the conclusion has come to rest on the length of its pedigree rather than on whether the interpretation itself is sound. And I think that's the kind of thing Paul is talking about when he talks about the genealogy. This long list of citations of previous rabbis. And a rabbi's teaching that had a genealogy of citations behind it was considered more authoritative than a rabbi's teaching that lacked a genealogy. The longer his generations of rabbinic scholars, the better. Well, you can see how Jews who became Christians, if they were used to being taught that way, you can see how they would seek that in their Christian teachers. And Paul is urging Timothy, tell these teachers not to teach that way, not to teach any differently than we did. Don't teach a different doctrine, and don't try to justify your different doctrine with all these genealogies of people you're quoting. So Paul, I don't think, is merely telling Timothy to stop anyone who uses a different vocabulary or reaches a minor disagreement. He's warning against a way of teaching that departs from the apostolic message and replaces the investigation of truth with this kind of speculative arguments and accumulated human opinion. Instead, they should teach like Paul. Don't emulate the rabbis who dip into this rabbinic tradition. Instead, teach the way Paul taught them and the way Jesus taught Paul before him. We can see this a little bit in Matthew's gospel. When Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew says this in chapter 7, verses 28 and 29. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. So the crowds hear Jesus preach this sermon on the mount, and they say, There's something different about Jesus. Well, what's the difference between Jesus and the scribes? The scribes and the rabbis quoted each other as authorities. They would say, My argument stands because Rabbi Smith and Rabbi Jones agree with me, and the scribes base their arguments on this kind of chain of human authority, but Jesus is different. He doesn't appeal to any other rabbi. He says, This is the way it is. Jesus taught with authority because he had authority. His opinions were based on a clear and profound understanding of the scriptures. He interpreted the scripture with perfect insight and sound reasoning and spoke as one who had authority in his own right, because as the Messiah, he did have authority in his own right. Now we can emulate Jesus on his sound reasoning and we can follow his good interpretive methodology, but we should not claim to have the kind of authority that he has. In addition to confidently asserting this is what Scripture means, Jesus also claimed that he had a specific role, that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and he claimed that he had perfect understanding because of his relationship to the Father, and he was the one who is going to decide who will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now the scribes didn't make those kind of claims, and Paul didn't make them, and neither would Timothy, and we teachers today do not make those kind of claims. So we don't have the same authority Jesus had, but we can teach the way he did by confidently explaining what the scriptures mean after having put in the hard work of studying it and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to understand it. Now why does Paul call them myths? Do not give heed to myths and endless genealogies? I think by myths he just means something that's not true, a false idea, a fiction, or something that's mistaken. A myth is the opposite of something being true. To close, I want to ask the question, why in the face of this kind of false teaching and opposition, why did Paul choose Timothy to help a church in crisis? Timothy's background, his personality, his stature were not what we might expect of one chosen to lead a large church in a difficult setting. First, as we talked about last time, Timothy's mother was Jewish and his father was Greek, so he is somewhat of an outcast. He was probably not fully welcome in either the Jewish world or the Gentile world because of his mixed heritage. Second, Timothy lacked the stature of age, and we don't know exactly how old he was at this point. Most people estimate the oldest he could be is in his mid thirties, but the ancient world considered a man a youth until he reached the age of forty. So the prospect of receiving the respect he needed from the older folks in order to lead this church in Ephesus through a crisis was would have been problematic. They would have looked down on him as too young. And third, as to ambition, Timothy didn't appear to be very hard driving. He was not, apparently, the ambitious CEO type, eager to seize the mantle of leadership. Timothy seems to have needed encouragement in the face of opposition and in these difficult assignments. Even at the end of their years together, this is in 2 Timothy, Paul has to encourage him to fan into flame the gift God had given him. Paul encourages him not to shrink back from confrontation because the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. And that's in 2 Timothy verses 1 or chapter 1 verses 6 and 7. When Paul dispatched Timothy to Corinth, he made sure the church would be sympathetic to his young and somewhat calm, retiring disposition, and therefore he wrote them to put Timothy at ease so that he has nothing to fear while he's with you. That's in 1 Corinthians 16. Those kind of clues suggest that Timothy didn't have this big bold charismatic personality but was probably more on the quiet side. And then finally Timothy's constitution was not the hardiest Paul has to urge him to take a little wine for his stomach because he was frequently sick and we'll see that at the end of the letter when we're searching for a leader today we don't usually think oh I know let's pick the guy who's too young too shy too sick and doesn't fit in yet in Paul's eyes none of those qualities his family background his age his temperament or his constitution none of those things disqualified Timothy from being a leader of the church. Instead we see Paul using the same principle that God used when he decided to replace Saul as king of Israel. God tells Samuel the prophet to go to the sons of Jesse because God has decided to pick a new king and it will be one of Jesse's sons. So Samuel obeys this is recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 16 and he goes to visit Jesse and he looks at the oldest son and he says wow that must be the guy and God says no and he looks at the next son and he says oh he looks wonderful that must be the one and God says no and that keeps happening until all Jesse's sons have gone by and then Samuel says to Jesse are these all your sons isn't there anyone else and he said and Jesse answers oh yeah the youngest he's out keeping the sheep but you know he's the youngest and he's of so little account that we didn't even bother to call him to tell him the prophet had come to town. And yet when David appears before Samuel he's the one God tells him to anoint. He's the one God picked because of his heart this is first Samuel 16 verse 7 but the Lord said to Samuel Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him speaking of the older sons for the Lord sees not as man sees man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. And that's what we see Paul doing. Paul picks Timothy for the same reason. He picks him because of his faithful service to God, this theme of godliness we're going to be talking about throughout this letter and as we'll see Paul urges that all leaders be picked for that reason. Now Paul's choice of Timothy proved to be wise by the end of Paul's life no one in his ministry had been as faithful to Paul as Timothy. Timothy had proven himself the apostle's faithful representative articulating his teaching accurately and faithfully in Thessalonica, in Corinth, in Philippi and in Ephesus Paul commends Timothy in Philippians this is in chapter two starting in nineteen he says this I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you for I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare for they all seek their own interests and not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also so other sons may have deserted Paul in the gospel he preached, but Timothy remained with him was his true son in the faith. And when Paul urges the Corinthians to follow his example he mentions Timothy this is first Corinthians four verses sixteen and seventeen I urge you then be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy my beloved and faithful child in the Lord to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church. Timothy was Paul's trusted beloved and faithful child. Paul could count on Timothy in ways he couldn't count on many of his disciples now I think Timothy's example should encourage us because I think most of us feel like Timothy sometimes all of us think I'm not qualified to do that. God call someone else I'm too old I'm too young I'm too frail I'm too strong minded I'm too opinionated I don't have the right education the right personality the right social status you should call someone else because I just don't have the right qualities yet like Paul we should focus on the qualities of the heart the qualities of what Paul is going to go on to describe in this letter as godliness. Now we often choose leaders the way we choose a tool from a showroom we look for the one that appears the strongest, newest and most impressive but Paul was more like a skilled craftsman. He chose the tool he knew could be trusted because he'd seen it work faithfully under pressure. Timothy's value was not in his outward appearance or his dynamic personality. His value was that he had been tested and proved faithful. Over the course of all their years traveling and working together Timothy had repeatedly proven himself faithful to the gospel. So when you're choosing teachers and leaders in your church or your ministry or your small group those are the qualities you want to look for a faithful servant who has been proven worthy because he's been tested. Paul didn't leave Timothy in Ephesus because Timothy was the most forceful personality in the room. He left him there because Timothy had proved faithful. He knew Paul's teaching he cared genuinely for God's people and he could be trusted not to replace the gospel with his own ideas. And that's the challenge in these opening verses Christian teaching is not a search for novelty nor impressive arguments or an impressive pedigree of authorities. It is the responsibility to faithfully understand what God has revealed and pass it on without distortion. Timothy's task was to guard that teaching in Ephesus Do you ever feel like Timothy too young too quiet too ordinary too something for whatever task God has put in front of you? Well take heart Paul didn't pick the most impressive person in the room he picked the one who proved faithful. If that's you, quietly faithfully wondering if you're enough then this letter says you might be exactly what God's looking for thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means but also shows you how to figure it out. You'll find the blog version of this podcast on WednesdayInTheWord.com slash 1 Timothy 2. You can find all the episodes in this series on my website Wednesdayintheword.com along with many other series and talks. There's no charge, no spam and no ads, just free resources to help you grow in your understanding of scripture and learn to study the Bible for yourself. If you've been blessed by this podcast please follow it and leave a positive rating wherever you listen but most importantly tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can hear Reggie's music on heartfeltmusic.org Thank you for joining me today I'm Krisan Marotta and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word