Most kids don't know the difference between Monopoly money and real money, but as adults, we sure do. We learned that only the real thing has true value, and in the same way, when it comes to preachers in the Bible, it's vitally important to be able to tell the difference between a false teacher and those who are teaching the truth. That's what Alistair Begg is teaching us today on Truth for Life. Can I encourage you to take your Bible and turn to First Timothy and Chapter Six? We resume our studies this morning at verse three.
Just let me read verses three, four, and five. If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words, that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth, and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. At first sight, it may appear that Paul has made a sharp turn to the right or to the left following the second verse, because in the first and second verses he has been dealing with this matter of slavery, encouraging slaves to show respect for all masters, making sure that they show no less respect for Christian masters, and pointing out that believing slaves should be the best of all.
Now, how come this sudden change to the matter of finance and to the particular concern with those who would use godliness or religion as a means to that end?
Well, if you note the end of verse two, where he says, "These are the things you're to teach and urge on the people," he has said this a number of times, and his concern is, as we've noted, that people would know how they ought to conduct themselves in the house of God. And so his concern is for simply another area of the church's teaching. It's the same concern for God's name and for His glory. And I think when we see it in that light, then we can see that there's a fairly obvious progression of thought from the poor behavior of the slaves to the proud bellowing of the false teachers. The message of the gospel was being brought into disrepute, and having dealt with the matter of the poor behavior of slaves, he now turns to the proud bellowings of these false teachers.
Now he has addressed the matter of false teaching from the very beginning of his letter, and now here he is in chapter six, nearing the end of his letter, and in verses three, four, and five, he is dealing again with this matter of these false teachers.
Now it would appear from the instruction of the book, indeed from the instruction of the New Testament, it is clear, and from the surrounding historical information. That the church was full of wandering prophets. They were full of talk, and they had all kinds of versions of the gospel. And they were, in many ways, the religious equivalent of the secular sophists, namely, plying their trade. The sophists would give you a wee bit of philosophy for a fee.
They would dazzle you with words for a price, and they would also gather around them groups of disciples whom they would teach to be able to dazzle others with their talk and philosophy for a small fee. The significant thing about these characters was that they could talk about just about anything at the drop of a hat. They could give you a talk on all kinds of themes. Didn't matter if they cared about it. In most cases, they probably didn't.
But at any moment, they could simply give you a little burst of something. It reminds me, at least, and some of you too, of your sortie into the Shakespeare's play Hamlet, and the arrival of the players. You will remember at Elsinore. And the introduction that Polonius gives to these players when he comes to Hamlet, and he says to him, "Hey, the players are here." And then he describes them as follows: the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, or pastoral, pastoral, comical, historical, pastoral. Tragical, historical, tragical, comical, historical, pastoral, scene indivisible, or poem unlimited.
Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for the law of wit and liberty. These are the only men. And of course, Shakespeare is poking fun at the whole sort of sophisticated rhetorical notion by creating Polonius as this sort of bumbling galoot, which he is, and he is a verbose character manufactured by Shakespeare to poke fun at that whole approach to things.
Now that was present in the Greco-Roman world to which Paul is writing, and these individuals who were moving around the church would compete with each other for the applause of men and women. Chrysostom paints a picture of a public place in Corinth with all the different kinds of competitors, as he refers to them, in full blast. Listen to this. You might hear many poor wretches of sophists shouting and abusing each other, and their disciples, as they call them, squabbling, and many writers of books reading their stupid compositions, and many poets singing their poems, and many jugglers exhibiting their marvels, and no small number of traders driving their trades, like men walking in the dark. They move always in the direction of the clapping and the shouting.
What a dramatic phrase! Like men walking in the dark, they move always in the direction of the clapping and the shouting.
Now, lest we're tempted to think, for even a microsecond, that somehow or another we are removed from this, both by the passing of time and the geographical separation, we need only to think for a moment or two, and to recognize that Chrysostom, describing a first-century scene, has described many a sorry scene in contemporary evangelicalism. He has described sadly a number of conferences. He has described a number of conventions, which takes place regularly across the country, where you can see the jugglers and hear the clowns and listen to the talks and be marvelled and dazzled by all the passing superstars. Beware, says Paul. Beware.
You see, Paul is gravely concerned that the people that are under his care would be instructed in the gospel. He said this from the very beginning in verse three of chapter one. He says, "I went to Macedonia. I urge you to stay there in Ephesus. Why?
So that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer." And it's no surprise that as he begins the end of his instruction, he is back pointing out that if anybody teaches verse three of chapter six, false doctrine, and it does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus and to godly teaching, then you need to be very, very careful in dealing with them.
Now, his concern for Christian doctrine is in direct contrast to periods of the Church's life where we have shown a kind of indifference to the matters of doctrine, which is sadly apparent in far too many quarters, and it is very, very scary. We understand that God is sovereign, and we know that the gates of hell will not prevail against the advance of the church which Jesus is building. Therefore, we are not despondent, but neither are we unduly optimistic. We want to be realistic, and here it is, loved ones. Unless there is the transition about which Paul is so concerned, and he comes to it in his second letter, and he says, "The things that you have heard from me." The same entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
Paul is so concerned that the that the main things and the plain things of the gospel would be grasped by successive generations, so that the gospel would be maintained in its purity down through the corridors of time. And it is in an understanding of what is true that people then will be able to detect what is false. And so Paul sets out for his readers two things. Number one, he gives the characteristics of these false teachers, and then number two, he gives the consequences of their false teaching.
Now let me just go through it with you, each in turn. First of all, what are the characteristics of these false teachers? Number one, according to verse four, they are conceited; they are fat heads. They are so inflated with pride that they are blind to the truth. They regard themselves as being in the know.
They know this. They know that. They know it all. You have the impression that they are simply know-it-alls. But says Paul, these individuals are at best confused and at worst they are corrupt.
Now this is no new theme for Paul. It runs through all of his letters. You can find it in Romans chapter one, verse twenty-two. First Corinthians eight in the opening verses in Titus, and we will turn to the Titus reference. Since it's so close, in Titus his concern is the same.
Verse 15 of Titus 1: To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and their consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.
Now, these are the individuals he's referring to in First Timothy six. Listen to how Phillips puts this notion of empty-minded conceit. He's paraphrasing the verse four. If anyone tries to teach some doctrinal novelty, which is not compatible with sound teaching, then he is a conceited idiot. Has a sort of politically correct ring to it, doesn't it?
Doesn't that make you wince a little bit in your chair? Because the postmodern context in which we live has no place for any absolute, has no place for any touchstone, has no standard by which anything can be judged. Therefore, everybody is judged on their own merits and demerits. And if he's a nice man and has an idea, then he has gained a listening, and we couldn't say anything about him. Not so says Paul.
The fact is that if he is a fat head and a big mouth, and he is teaching that which is not in accord with the sound instruction, the Lord. Jesus Christ. Then he is, to quote the New English Bible, a pompous ignoramus. A pompous ignoramus has a ring to it. I like it.
Such an individual is more interested in attaching people to himself than he is in attaching people to Jesus Christ. He brings this right down to the grassroots. This is how it goes. He is more concerned to add people's names to his mailing list than he is concerned to see people grow in their knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is more concerned to get letters from individuals that have money in them to support the radio program than he is.
To see people's lives touched and transformed by the power of the gospel, he is more concerned to hear his own name spoken about and bandied around and become notorious than he is concerned to hear the name of Christ praised and honoured amongst a growing number of people.
So, just in case we're tempted to think we're talking about anybody. You can't preach the sermon to others until first you preach it to yourself.
So we have a one eight hundred number. We have thousands and thousands of people I have never met on our mailing list. We have growing notoriety across the country, from coast to coast and in all kinds of cities. And it is possible for us to become. Pompous, ignoramuses, more concerned to press our own views than to convey the good news of the Bible.
Such individuals are an antithesis to Michelangelo. Did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel? How do you know? You weren't there. Ha!
That's good because I wrote that down, but I wasn't sure. It's just my. Broad background of knowledge, you know," he said humbly. But it is it's it's reported that when he painted the Sistine Chapel and the ceiling, that he taped a candle to his forehead to prevent his own shadow intruding on the work. And Paul says, "The trouble with these characters, first of all, is." They need a whole ring of candles wrapped around their forehead, because they love it when their shadow intrudes upon the work.
Characteristic number one: conceited. Characteristic number two: controversial.
Now, notice the phrase; it's very important. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies.
Now, that's different from being a controversial character. Right, because you can be controversial for all kinds of good reasons. If you believe in purity, you'll be a controversial person in your high school. That's good. If you believe in integrity, you will be a controversial person in the filling out of expense reports in your.
Sales team area, that's good. If you're concerned to uphold the truth of the Bible in terms of the Trinity, in terms of the deity of Christ, in terms of the fact of the resurrection, then you will be a controversial person. But you may be a controversial person as a result of holding a controversial view, but it is not on account of the fact that you have an unhealthy interest in controversy. That's what he's referring to. These people get off on being controversial.
This is what rings their bell, floats their boat. They love controversy. They have an unhealthy interest in it, and they love to quarrel about words. Phillips paraphrases it: His mind is a morbid jumble of disputation and argument.
So whenever this chap speaks, whenever you move around him, he's always got some deal going. You know, he's always got some little twist to it, some way of looking at it. There's always a little unique spectre to it all. You never feel like he is upholding the sound instruction of the Lord Jesus. There's always this twist.
This, he says, is the kind of person who, in an unhealthy manner, is stimulated by word battles, and these word battles prove to be nothing more than verbal quibbles. Such an individual, instead of putting off his shoes from his feet because the ground is holy before the burning bush, wants to take photographs of the burning bush and send it out to all the people on his mailing list. You won't want to miss the striking picture of the burning bush that I have for you this month, for an offer of no less than you know how it goes. This kind of individual. Loves to debate theories about the return of Jesus Christ, but doesn't live in purity.
Doesn't live in holiness. Doesn't live with a zealous concern for evangelism. This kind of individual loves to debate which English translation of the Bible is the absolute right translation, while not reading his Bible, or obeying his Bible, or sharing his Bible with anybody else. You know the kind of person I mean, don't you? They come up to you and out of the blue, it's their first question.
Did you read the book by Mister So and So on the versions of the Bible? Yes, I did.
Somebody sent it to me. In fact, three people sent it to me. They wanted me to understand that the NIV is a heretical translation of the Bible and that I should stop using it.
Now, two of them I put in the round file, and one I kept for history's sake. It's on my shelf. But it is a battle about words. It is spurious. It is an unhealthy interest in controversy, and it's not the issue.
But certain individuals are never happy unless they're stirring up controversy. Says Trap in an earlier day, the wit, i.e., the the skill and ability, because wit. Has a different connotation now, doesn't it? But let's say the skill and ability of heretics and schismatics will better serve them to devise a thousand shifts to elude the truth than their pride will suffer them once to yield and acknowledge it.
So, in other words, their ability allows them always to be doing the soft shoe shuffle around the Bible. They've always got a little angle on it. You never can get them to stand still for a moment. Instead of their ability bringing them down underneath the instruction of God's word, they're conceited, they're controversial. Thirdly, they're corrupted.
He comes back to these individuals in verse five. We'll deal with the interim verses in a moment, but in verse five, he comes back to them. That's what he says. This constant friction takes place between men of corrupt mind. Not only has their unhealthy interest infected others, as we're about to see, but it has led to their own personal corruption and decay.
These false teachers, somehow or another, in the past were acquainted with the truth, but it is clear that they were never arrested by the truth. They pandered to it, but they were not possessed by it. Acquainted, but not arrested. See, there's all the difference in the world, is there not, between being simply acquainted with a matter and that matter having somehow or another burned itself into the core of our beings, so we can deal with things at arm's length. We can talk, for example, about whatever it is that we may have a modicum of knowledge on.
The double circulatory system of the heart—the only thing I ever understood in biology—so I can give you fifty fifty cents worth on that. But if you press me with one good question, I'll collapse. But I can talk about it; I have some acquaintance with it. But when I talk to my dad on the phone, and he tells me how his legs are all swollen up, and his knees are fat, and his legs seem to weigh eighty-five pounds each, and he can't walk around. Then suddenly, the news of the double circulatory system arrests me.
It impacts me. It's not a biology textbook. It's a life. It's a relationship.
Now, for men and women who wander around the fringes of religion, it is increasingly possible to be acquainted with all kinds of things, both as listeners as well as by as teachers.
So we're acquainted with it all. We're inoculated against it because we have a modicum of knowledge, and as a result of that, we're able to deflect different approaches that come our way, and we can answer in this way and answer in that because we have sufficient knowledge of the truth. But it has not arrested us. And that's the factor in relationship to these teachers. They can talk at the drop of a hat, but there is no passion in their souls.
There is no change in their lives. There is no conviction that drives them. You think you're at a performance. They can move you, stir you, and if you're stupid enough, you'll buy their stuff. And their tapes, and their books, and attend their conferences, and go down the Cuyahoga River on a banana skin.
These individuals have lost their hold on the truth because the truth clearly never had a hold on them. Their inner orientation, their mental attitude, has been diverted and corrupted. They're so full of themselves that there's actually no place for any truth inside of them. There's no place left. You are listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.
We'll hear more about how to detect false teachers tomorrow. Here at Truth for Life, we are always searching for more ways to help you become more established in your faith, and to help you tell others about the gospel. We have many online resources you can access and share for free. For example, you can watch or listen to thousands of Alister's messages. You can read new articles.
Sign up for a daily devotional email. We even have some Bible studies and study guides that you can download at no cost. You'll find all of this and more on our website at truthforlife.org, and it's the generosity of listeners like you who make this daily program and all of the free online Bible teaching available to people all around the world. When you give a gift to Truth for Life today, we want to say thank you by inviting you to request a brand new release from Alister. It's called *Guarding the Truth*, and it's a verse-by-verse study through Paul's Second Letter to Timothy.
You can ask for your copy when you give online at truthforlife.org/donate, or call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we'll find out why false teaching needs to be addressed as soon as it's identified. The Bible teaching of Aleister Beg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
