Guard the Truth (2 Timothy 2:14-26) by Phil Johnson

Kootenai Church

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Our conference this last weekend, Friday and yesterday, was a success.

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Our conference speaker is here to preach for us this morning. And it has been somewhat surreal, and I've heard this from a number of people in the congregation as well, it's been somewhat surreal for me to hear this voice from behind this pulpit.

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I'm used to hearing it in my headphones, out in the yard and driving around. I have been listening and benefiting from the ministry of Phil Johnson now for about 20 years.

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I don't think I have missed a single one of the Sunday School lessons that he has taught from the pulpit at the

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Grace Life Sunday School class at Grace Community Church since at least 2004.

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And I have listened to every address and message that he has given at a Shepherd's Conference since at least that amount of time, and probably going back from before that.

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Phil Johnson is the executive director of Grace to You, and he teaches the

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Grace Life pulpit, the Grace Life Sunday School class at Grace Community Church. He is an elder at Grace Community Church.

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If his voice is gonna sound familiar to you, it is maybe because you listen to Grace to You, the radio broadcast, and you hear

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Phil's voice at the beginning of each of those broadcasts, and then at the end of each one of those broadcasts.

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Phil was the curator, maybe still is, I guess, of the Spurgeon Archive, and his vast knowledge of Charles Spurgeon was evident over this weekend.

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And Phil is here for the first time in this pulpit, though yesterday he made a commitment that he will come back.

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So this probably, hopefully, Lord willing, will not be the last time, but since this is his first time, in case

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Phil needs a preaching aid to wave around with him, we have a polka -dotted handkerchief for you.

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If you need to gesture wildly, this is here for you. And you'll find it on this little shelf underneath here.

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Feel free to pull it out whenever you need it. Phil Johnson, please come, thank you. Well, thank you for that, and I wish it was a tie, because when

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I packed my stuff to come, I forgot to wear a tie. I never preach on Sunday mornings without a tie, so I feel terrible about it, but, you know, here we are.

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The handkerchief, I should tie it up like a bow tie. First time

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I ever preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, I forgot to shave that morning, so that was even worse, right?

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I'm sitting down there, and they're about to bring me up, and I rub my face and realize, I didn't shave this morning, so I'm looking like a homeless person.

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So here I am again, a homeless person. All right, we read those 13 verses from 2

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Timothy 2, and that's what I want to focus on. Basically, the second half of the chapter, 2

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Timothy 2, 14 through 26, we'll get there, and I love this text, but I must confess to you that in a very painful and personal way, this, of all the texts in the

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New Testaments, challenges me and rebukes me, and I'll be honest, this is a passage of scripture that steps on my toes pretty hard.

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So I want to scan the context with you before we get into the text. The most familiar part of this passage is verse 15, where Paul urges

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Timothy to be diligent in the quest to present himself before God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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And this is also in verse 17, where Paul compares false teaching to gangrene, and he even names two false teachers by name,

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Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth. So he's instructing

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Timothy to be faithful in every sense, be hardworking, be plain spoken, and even be outspoken.

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Outspoken because two chapters after this is where he's going to tell Timothy, preach the word in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, and do that, he says, even when people are begging to have their ears tickled with a more pleasing kind of storytelling.

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And so Paul's final message to Timothy is an extended plea for him to have courage and proclaim the truth boldly and be prepared to defend the truth against those who don't like it.

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And he gets right to the point in verses 13 and 14 of the opening chapter of the epistle with this command, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me and guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

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And then notice in the very next text, the very next verse, verse 15, chapter one, verse 15,

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Paul names by name again two other ecclesiastical miscreants.

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This is one of the saddest verses in all of Paul's writings. You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are

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Phygelus and Hermogenes. And he tells Timothy, be faithful to guard the legacy

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I'm giving you, even if it seems like you're the only one left. And that's his charge to Timothy.

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It's a exposition actually of the closing exhortation he gave at the very end of his first epistle to Timothy.

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First Timothy 6 .20, oh, Timothy, guard the deposit that has entrusted to you.

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And that remains Paul's main message to his protege all the way to the end of his life.

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And in fact, all of those familiar pastoral texts about rightly dividing the word of truth and preach the word in season, out of season, be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

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All of that is an extension and an amplification of his desire to see

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Timothy, follow the pattern of sound words and guard the good deposit that had been entrusted to him.

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It's all basically the same plea to Timothy. In fact, notice that expression, guard the deposit instructed to you.

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That is not only the closing admonition of First Timothy, it's where Paul starts this epistle in Second Timothy chapter one, verses 13 and 14.

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So he stresses throughout his writings to Timothy that faithfully guarding the good deposit is a continuous struggle.

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It's a fierce striving that entails conflict and persecution and perhaps even martyrdom.

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And so Paul keeps saying things to Timothy like share in suffering for the gospel. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, endure suffering.

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Ministry involves adversity and trouble. Faithful ministry is nothing less than spiritual warfare.

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And both of the epistles Paul wrote to Timothy are filled with admonitions for Timothy to be strong and be courageous and wage the good warfare and fight the good fight of faith.

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So this is not a new idea for Timothy, but that is precisely where our chapter starts on a militant tone.

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Chapter two, verse three, share in suffering as a good soldier. Don't miss this. Paul is likening pastoral ministry to soldiering, which is just one more reminder to Timothy that ministry involves warfare.

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It's a battle. It's an unrelenting battle to proclaim and preserve the truth in a context where the truth is often met with animosity and opposition.

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And it's not just the unbelieving world, but quite often and more and more often nowadays, even large segments of the visible church react to unpopular or inconvenient truths with overt hostility.

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The time has come, as Paul said it would, when people will not endure sound teaching, but they have accumulated for themselves teachers to suit their passions.

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They've turned away from listening to the truth and they've wandered off into myths. And Paul is telling

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Timothy, and by extension, he's saying to all of us as well, because we're all hopefully involved in some level of ministry.

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Paul is telling Timothy, if you cater to that, if you're not engaged in the fight to guard the good deposit that's entrusted to you, then you're not being faithful to your calling.

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Jesus said, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

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If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

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Remember that word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you.

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So Jesus says the same thing Paul says, all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

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And here in 2 Timothy 3, 12, Paul tells Timothy that very thing, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse.

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In other words, if you're looking for a career in a context where you never get any pushback, don't go into ministry.

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You can't avoid conflict and be faithful in ministry. It was the apostle

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John who was known as the apostle of love who said, don't be surprised brother that the world hates you.

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If you're so eager to be liked and affirmed that you can't bring yourself to refute lies or refute false teaching or do anything to reprove or correct or fend off the savage wolves that seem to roam in and out of the church these days in large, hungry packs.

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If you're not willing to do that, then you have abdicated one of the main duties

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Christ has given to all of his disciples. In fact, let me be totally candid. If you are so averse to conflict that you're unwilling to refute error or to correct the bevy of bad beliefs that Christians are currently experimenting with, then you're not fit to be, to call yourself a follower of Christ because the qualifications given in scripture for anyone who follows

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Christ and particularly those in church leadership involve at least two duties.

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The elder of the church must be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to refute those who contradict it.

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And elders are simply a pattern for how the rest of us should be. The verse

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I just quoted is Titus 1 .9 and Paul goes on to tell Titus, there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, and they must be silenced.

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That's politically correct these days, isn't it? In fact, I like the more picturesque phrasing of the

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King James Version. Their mouths must be stopped. And that's not an isolated or infrequent theme in Paul's pastoral writings.

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His message to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 was a charge for them to be alert because grievous wolves were going to try and tear their flock to shreds and Paul knew it.

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And he warned them, even from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

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Now think of that. He's speaking to the elders of this church, arguably one of the most important churches in the first century, if not the most important church in the first century, the church at Ephesus.

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And he tells them, he's speaking to a group of elders and he's saying, from among you is going to arise people to speak twisted things.

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This is not exactly a winsome message, but it was a truth they needed to be told.

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And Paul wants Timothy to be like that, to stand boldly for the truth.

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His opening admonition in his first epistle to Timothy is a directive telling Timothy not to tolerate false teaching.

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And he makes it clear that this wasn't the first time he had talked to Timothy about this. 1

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Timothy 1 verse 3, 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.

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I think Timothy knew who those certain persons were. And my guess is Hymenaeus was one of them because he keeps coming up.

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But the apostle clearly wants Timothy, and not only Timothy, but every elder in that church to be steadfast in exposing and refuting and silencing those who were trying to peddle false teachings within the church.

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In other words, be faithful to guard the truth and be faithful to guard the flock that God has entrusted to your care and be faithful to guard the whole church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

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But in addition to all of that, he says, be faithful to guard your own heart and mind and passions.

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And that's the point at which this duty gets most personal. And Paul says it in a single sentence to Timothy in 1

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Timothy 4, 16, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

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And notice the order, watch yourself and guard the teaching. You wanna be a guardian of gospel truth?

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You first need to set a watch on your own heart and your tongue and your affections and your attitude and your mind.

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And in short, guard your labor and your love for Christ. Verse 22 of our text, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart. And that's the key verse of our passage. And this expression, youthful passions, actually covers everything from fleshly lusts, sexual lusts, to that pugnacious adolescent itch to argue and quarrel about everything.

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Guard against that. In fact, that's the real point of this passage. And it's remarkable because it comes in this context where Paul is telling

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Timothy to be courageous and be a good soldier and guard the deposit of the truth and not shy away from proclaiming and protecting the truth, all in the face of guaranteed hostility from the enemies of truth.

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But then, right in the middle of this epistle, we have this section that starts in verse 14 and goes to the end of the chapter.

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And the message from verse 14 through the end of the chapter is a rebuke and a corrective to those of us who may find it a little too easy to be contentious.

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And remember, this is where Paul urges Timothy to do his best to be a worker who doesn't need to be ashamed.

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And he describes how to do that by handling the word of God rightly, by fending off those whose irreverent and erroneous talk is like gangrene, and by cleansing himself from that which is dishonorable, and by correcting his opponents.

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And all of those things are aspects of the spiritual warfare that we are called to serve as soldiers in.

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So he's not, for one moment, backing off the command to be a good soldier for Jesus Christ, but he is describing what a truly good soldier is like.

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And this is what stands out so starkly in our passage. Paul begins and ends with admonitions reminding

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Timothy not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers, but rather to be kind to everyone, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

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And he tells Timothy not to engage the purveyors of verbal gangrene in empty chatter, he says.

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And the ESV says, irreverent babble. And the NIV says, godless chatter.

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And the Phil Johnson paraphrase might say, fruitless Twitter battles. I told you this text steps on my toes pretty hard.

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So it's an appeal with instructions on how we are supposed to do discernment and theological polemics.

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Being pugnacious, that is, looking for and loving all those all -out theological bar brawls.

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That's a disqualifying characteristic for leaders in the church. We must be faithful to guard the truth, but here is how we must do it.

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Verse 24, be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.

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Now, one more word about the immediate context, and then I'm gonna read the whole passage again.

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In the first half of this chapter, Paul has employed three metaphors in quick succession.

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The soldier, verse four, the athlete, verse five, and the farmer, verse six.

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And Paul deliberately mixes those metaphors in order to highlight three characteristics of faithful ministry.

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And so taking them in reverse order, you have the virtues of hard work, symbolized by the farmer, determination, exemplified by the athlete, and readiness to fight, which is represented by the soldier.

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Those are essential qualities that he's going to bring up again in our passage, which is the second half of the chapter.

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And by the way, what Paul commends about the soldier is not a combative nature, not a love of warfare.

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This is about readiness, focus, faithfulness, endurance, a willingness to suffer, and a love for and a devotion to the cause for which he fights.

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That's what's noble about a soldier. Paul is not commending brutishness or venom or malice.

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He's not suggesting that every disagreement needs to be answered with sharp -tongued severity and snark.

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He's not urging Timothy to deal with the gangrene of Hymenaeus by amputating the infected part of the body with a battle ax.

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He's not calling Timothy to war against every member of the flock who simply doesn't get it.

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On the contrary, he's going to say in our passage that we are, as ministers, are not lords over the flock, much less are we warlords under orders to be constantly on the attack.

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We're the Lord's servants, and therefore the default response to our opponents should be

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Christ -like gentleness. Remember that Jesus did say of himself, "'I am gentle and lowly in heart.'"

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So now look at verse 11. And here Paul seems to be quoting something that would be familiar to Timothy.

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He calls it a saying. It's a reliable saying, he says, trustworthy. It's arranged in poetic fashion.

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So this is probably a hymn or a portion of a hymn about martyrdom and the blessing of suffering for Christ's sake.

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I'm guessing this is probably a chorus that was sung in worship in the first century churches. If we have died with him, we will also live with him.

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If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.

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If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. You see how poetic that is?

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It'd make a great worship tune. One of you musicians should set it to music and we can sing the last verse twice.

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I'm kidding. But that little poem, that little hymn is the lead -in to our text.

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And it's a hymn that would have made a great theme chorus for this week's conference, because it's all about faithfulness and not only both the enduring faithfulness of God who remains faithful even if we are faithless, and the hymn also celebrates the rewards of living faithfully.

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If we endure, we will reign with him. And we've talked about Spurgeon. He's pretty much the embodiment of that and a good example of what this text calls for.

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And right after that hymn, then we have our passage. And I'm gonna read it again, this time from the

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ESV. Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

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Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene, among them,

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Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened.

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They are upsetting the faith of some, but God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal.

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The Lord knows who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

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Now, in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.

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Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

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So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, along with those who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart, and have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels, and the

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Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

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God may perhaps grant them repentance, to a leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, being captured by him to do his will.

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Now, that passage is in effect, Paul's own commentary on 1

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Timothy 4 .16, which is where he told Timothy, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

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Here, he's simply expounding on that simple two -pronged command. How can we guard ourselves and guard our teaching?

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How do we do that? Our passage is fairly comprehensive answer to that question, and it's a threefold answer.

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Paul says, first of all, verse 15, be an approved workman, guard your own teaching.

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Second, be a sanctified vessel, guard your heart. And third, be a humble slave, guard your attitude.

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It's all right there in this passage, and we'll look at these one at a time. So here's how to be a faithful guardian in three points, if you wanna take these down.

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First of all, be an approved workman, guard your own teaching. And one intriguing fact that is obvious from even a cursory study of Paul's New Testament epistles is that the early church was beset with heretics and false teachers from the very beginning.

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In fact, all of Paul's epistles, except Philemon, deal with problems that stemmed from false teaching in the church, all in the first century.

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And the apostles John and Peter, likewise, had to address and correct significant doctrinal errors in every one of their epistles.

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Jude, you could throw in there as well. And even in Christ's letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, a major recurring theme throughout

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Christ's letters to the churches is the damage that has been done in those flocks by heretics and false prophets and unorthodox teachings and antinomian behavior and even rank apostasy that had already affected those churches from within.

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And one other thing the New Testament stresses is that false teaching from within the visible church is a far greater threat to the spiritual health and well -being of the church than all of the combined persecution, antagonism, ridicule, or any other kind of opposition from the world.

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Satan's primary attack on the church is not being carried out by atheists who openly despise

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Christianity and deny the truth of Scripture. But the most relentless and effective assault on the body of Christ is an attack that comes from within the visible community of professing

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Christians. The devil disguises himself, Scripture says, as an angel of light, 2

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Corinthians 11. That's verse 14. Here's verse 15 of 2 Corinthians 11.

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His servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In other words, they come into the church and they inject false beliefs and corrupt teachings that, here

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Paul says, they spread like gangrene. That's an awful picture. And Paul even names these two examples, verse 17.

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Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened, they are upsetting the faith of some.

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Now let's talk about this guy, Hymenaeus especially. He was a real rogue. He was the

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Rob Bell of the first century, right? He never met a heresy he didn't like.

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Paul mentions him the first time in 1 Timothy 1, verse 20, where you find him with Alexander, linked up with Alexander, and apparently that's the same

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Alexander the coppersmith mentioned in 2 Timothy 4, where Paul says, he did me great harm.

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So whatever Alexander was doing was destructive, both to faith and to morality.

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He was probably teaching a blasphemous corruption of the principle of grace that fostered some kind of lewd or lascivious behavior, because Paul says

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Alexander and Hymenaeus had abandoned both faith and a good conscience and made shipwreck of the faith.

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And he says, I have handed them over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. And what

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Paul is saying is there that he was using his apostolic authority basically to excommunicate them from afar.

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But Hymenaeus is still troubling the church, and now he has a new partner.

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He's linked up with Philetus, and together they're peddling a preterist view of New Testament eschatology.

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In other words, they're claiming that all the end times prophecy that really matters has already been fulfilled up to and including the resurrection of the dead.

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That's already happened, that's preterism. And this of course was a full frontal attack on a cardinal doctrine of the

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Bible that Jesus himself had promised the resurrection of the dead in John 5 .25.

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Truly, truly, I say unto you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the

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Son of God and those who hear will live. And I think Hymenaeus was probably telling people that the resurrection was only a spiritual rebirth, not a literal bodily reality.

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He might have even been quoting Paul's words from Romans 6 .11, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ.

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In fact, there were half a dozen ways these guys might have tried to justify this heresy.

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We know that because there are people today teaching that, the same techniques that heretics today use to try to twist the scripture.

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And I expect that Hymenaeus and Philetus were a whole lot like the hyper -preterists that we have today, who all of them are quarrelsome and arrogant and trying to pass themselves off as eminent scholars, always spoiling for an argument and convinced that the only reason anyone would ever refuse to debate them is that their arguments are just unassailable.

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I don't know if you've noticed the people who peddle those doctrines today. They always seem to be brimful of bombast and intoxicated with their own fleshly arrogance.

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And Hymenaeus had to be like that because Paul had already turned him over to Satan.

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And now he's back with a new sidekick, still enticing people to stray from the truth.

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And the error here was toxic and spiritually significant.

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Something about this particular heterodoxy had a peculiar tendency to foment debauchery and destroy genuine faith.

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According to verse 16, these guys were leading people into more and more ungodliness. And even verse 18, destroying the faith of some, which is exactly what preterism tends to do.

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And so Paul names these men and he singles them out for public disapproval.

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And he says precisely what their basic error was. He likens their influence to gangrene.

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It's clear that these guys posed a profound threat to the church, having already overthrown the faith of some,

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Paul says. So you might expect him to mount a vigorous and detailed argument against their aberrant doctrine.

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Let's answer it. In a different context, 1 Corinthians 15, that's exactly what

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Paul does, meticulously refuting the notion that you can be a Christian and not believe in the doctrine of bodily resurrection.

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Paul refutes it. But here, notice, he doesn't do that. He just scorns the pretense of their enlightened scholarship by calling it profane and vain babbling.

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Says it's vacuous, it's superficial, it's frivolous words to no prophet whose only fruit is the ruin of the hearers.

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And he simply tells Timothy, don't waste your time quarreling about this stuff. Now, clearly,

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Paul does not mean that they should ignore it. Paul himself doesn't ignore it. He names it, and he simply dismisses it for what it is.

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And he's signaling everyone on all sides that this is a bad doctrine, and it doesn't deserve to be treated with any kind of scholarly gravitas.

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And again, bodily resurrection is one of the core issues of Christian conviction, and so the doctrine that was at stake is by no means a trivial thing.

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Paul declares its importance in 1 Corinthians 15, where he says, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

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So he wouldn't say this is a trivial error, and he shows his commitment to the importance of this doctrine by painstakingly answering it in that epistle to the

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Corinthians, point by point, for the sake of the people in Corinth who were confused by it. So what's the difference here?

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Why doesn't he do that here? Well, it's simple. Here, the question is whether he should engage people like Hymenaeus and Philetus in a prolonged debate about the issue.

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And Paul says, no, charge your people before God not to quarrel about words.

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He's not saying that words are unimportant, especially matters of faith and doctrine. As a matter of fact, words are vitally important.

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Don't forget that in chapter one, Paul had told Timothy, hold fast to the pattern of sound words, which you've heard from me.

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Guard those words. But here in our chapter, he's not saying not to get in, he's not saying let the words ignore the words.

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He's saying just don't get into a protracted argument with somebody who has already refused correction because verbal sparring with someone like that is a worthless waste of words.

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It's just words. So chapter one, verse 13 says, hold fast the pattern of sound words.

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And this verse means don't get drawn into arguments over mere words so that the person devoted to propagating heresy isn't gonna gain anything from your squabbling over words anyway, other than a widening of his own audience.

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Verse 16, it will just lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene.

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And by the way, Paul is going to return to this point in verse 23, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

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So then the question is, what is the best response to a deadly error, even a damnable heresy like the hyper -preterism of Hymenaeus and Philetus?

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What should people do instead of quarreling about words with people who have already swerved from the truth and overthrown sound words with unsound ones?

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What do you do? Paul's answer to that is the familiar command of verse 15, do your best to present yourself to God as approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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Now, so many people have done wonderful expositions of that verse that I don't need to belabor it here, but you know,

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I'm sure that the English expression, accurately handling or rightly dividing the word, it's translated from a single

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Greek word, ortho tomeo, which literally means make a straight cut, cut it straight.

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Paul is telling Timothy, handle God's word carefully, interpret it correctly, cut it straight, teach it plainly without revising it, without adding to it, without taking away from it, without twisting it.

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You're not working with God's approval if you're not doing that. And if you're not doing that, he suggests, you ought to be ashamed.

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But in this context, he's also making a bigger and even more specific point. He's telling

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Timothy that the optimal and most important and most consistently effective way of being faithful to guard the good deposit that's entrusted to you is to devote yourself to the diligent study of God's word, to handle it correctly and carefully, and to do all of that as unto the

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Lord for his approval. And that's the actual point. The actual point, be an approved workman and work hard to guard your own teaching from error.

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And in the process, you'll do more to preserve and propagate the truth than you ever could do through a purely polemical argumentative approach.

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Instruction is a better way to deal with error than taunting and insults.

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And now he's not saying, like some people do today, that we should never engage in any kind of argumentation about doctrine, because this is, after all, the

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Apostle Paul, who was by no means averse to pointing out heresies and refuting them.

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As I said earlier, in all of his epistles, and in fact, virtually every one of the

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New Testament epistles, no matter who's writing, you have doctrines, false doctrines, exposed and debunked carefully and emphatically and uncompromisingly.

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And Paul did it with more relentless intensity and energy than anybody else. Read the book of Galatians, which is an extended attack on a false doctrine.

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And so he's not telling Timothy to do something different than that, because no one hated false doctrine with more passion than the

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Apostle Paul. And he had it all the time. False teachers stalked his trail, sowing confusion in every church he ever planted, speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after him.

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There's just no way Paul would have discouraged Timothy from refuting the error.

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But here's what I want you to see. How we refute error is vitally important. Paul did not aspire to be a full -time polemicist, and nor did he want that for Timothy or any other church leader.

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In Acts 20, when he tells the Ephesian elders, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, he then says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock.

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In other words, he's saying, don't get so fixated on the wolves that you lose focus on yourself or your own teaching or the flock that's been put in your care.

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And in the sentence that immediately precedes that command, he reminds them what his own style of ministry was like.

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He says, I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God, doctrine and training in righteousness, as well as reproof and correction.

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Paul's reproofs and rebukes and exhortations were always tempered with complete patience and teaching, and that's precisely how he wants

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Timothy to teach. Now, Paul, of course, was capable of sharp rebukes and stern warnings and harsh words, and even biting sarcasm.

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There are occasional examples of all of those things in Paul's writings, but they're fairly rare.

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And the point is that was never his default tone. 1 Thessalonians 2 .7, he says, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

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And what gave Paul the ability to remain both dignified and gentle, even when the most gangrenous kind of false teaching reared its ugly head, was his unshakable confidence that God is sovereign and God is steadfast in his faithfulness.

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Notice verse 19, right on the heels of describing the destructive impact of Hymenaeus and Philetus, he says this, but God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal, the

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Lord knows who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

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Two statements, both of them borrowed by Paul and paraphrased, but they're right out of Numbers 16.

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The Lord knows those who are his, let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

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Interesting that the two statements also emphasize one of them, divine sovereignty, the other, human responsibility.

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And again, Numbers 16, that's the passage that tells about the rebellion that was led by Korah, where the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the rebels.

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And the point I think Paul is making here is that if we stand for the truth and speak up for the truth and proclaim the truth in the face of error,

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God himself will humble the rebels. And that part isn't really our job as guardians of the truth.

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We're not called to be God's avengers. The real challenge for us is to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt us.

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And one thing is clear, Paul did not share the combative temperament that so many people today associate with discernment.

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He was nothing at all like those podcasters who say they're doing discernment ministry when they just seem to relish the conflict.

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I know you've seen them. Their native mode of expression is harsh and caustic and hypercritical and always bitterly sarcastic, always cantankerous, constantly quibbling.

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That attitude disqualifies a man from eldership in the church. First Timothy 3 .3

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says, an elder can't be a drunkard and he can't be a lover of money and sandwiched right between those two disqualifying statements is this one.

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He must not be pugnacious, but be gentle, peaceable. After all, true discernment is motivated by the

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Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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There is not a hint of bellicosity anywhere in that list. So by all means, guard the truth, but start by guarding your own teaching, including the tone and the temperament with which you teach.

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Does it make you uncomfortable for me to dwell so long on that particular point? Because it makes me uncomfortable.

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Doubtless, you will quote to me this proverb, physician, heal yourself. If you want to point out that there've been a few times when

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I might've seasoned my own words or salted my blog posts with a little grace,

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I'll hang my head in remorse and plead guilty. I've already admitted that this section of scripture convicts me, but notice how prominent this theme is in our passage.

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It's where Paul starts and ends. Verse 14, don't quarrel about words. Verse 23, have nothing to do with foolish ignorant controversies because you know that breeds quarrels.

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And then from that verse to the end of the chapter, he keeps stressing the need to be gentle and patient rather than harsh and pugnacious.

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So we're not yet done with this point. We need to come back to it again before we finish this text.

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But that's the first thing we have to do in order to be faithful guardians of the deposit we're called to steward.

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Resist being quarrelsome. An ill -tempered, contentious spirit is the log in the eye of everyone

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I've ever known whose only real passion is to call out the errors of other people. And if that's your approach to discernment, if your polemical style looks and feels like gamesmanship, you're doing it wrong.

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Paul says it like this, be an approved workman. Guard your teaching, guard your own teaching first of all.

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Here's a second duty for the faithful guardian. Number two, be a sanctified vessel, guard your heart.

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In verse 20, Paul employs an analogy that was never far from his mind.

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And it's the idea that human beings are vessels made by God for his own infinitely wise and sovereign purposes.

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Some for honorable uses, some for dishonorable. So that while they're all useful, they're not all equally honorable.

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Their dignity is determined not by what they're made from, but what they're made for.

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For example, you might have a spittoon of solid gold, but it's still just a thing to be spit into.

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On the other hand, you might store jewels and money in a container made of clay. That is a vessel for honorable purposes.

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And by the way, Paul borrows this analogy from the Old Testament. It's a famous one rooted in Jeremiah 18, where God is the great potter.

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It's the same word picture that's mentioned in Isaiah 29 .16 and also the book of Lamentations.

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Here's Lamentations 2 verse four, the precious sons of Zion worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter's hands.

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Earthen pots worth their weight in fine gold, but that's not because of anything intrinsic in them.

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Their immense value is owing to the purpose that the potter has designed them for. And Paul uses exactly that imagery in 2

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Corinthians 4 .7, where he says this about being entrusted with the truth of the gospel.

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We have this treasure in jars of clay, treasure in clay pots to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

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So that we, that's you and me, we're like jars of clay. We're crude, we're inconsequential, we're without much intrinsic value or true beauty.

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And whatever beauty or value we have is fading, but we are useful to the

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Lord for a holy purpose that gives us inestimable worth and dignity. And therefore

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Paul says it behooves us to keep ourselves pure. Be a sanctified vessel, guard your heart, verse 21.

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If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

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Now notice, this is our duty, God's sovereign will to save us from our sin doesn't nullify our duty to mortify the sin.

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And in fact, look back at verse 19. These two statements that are adapted from number 16 expressly affirm, as I showed you, both divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

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The Lord knows who are his, that's God's sovereignty, and let everyone who names the name of the

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Lord depart from iniquity, that's human responsibility. And in verse 21, Paul is merely expounding on that duty.

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He's stressing the principle of human responsibility. So verse 19, depart from iniquity.

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Verse 21, cleanse yourself from that which is dishonorable. And here's how, verse 22, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, along with all who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart. So flee what's unholy and follow what's holy.

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And of course, the context, as we've already seen it, makes it clear that one of the youthful passions that we have to flee is that sort of biting combativeness that young men are especially prone to.

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Flee that. He's not just talking about sexual lusts. He is talking about that, but more.

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And it's clear that even that isn't all he has in mind. The Greek term, epithumia, speaks of evil desire.

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That's all it is, any evil desire. The NIV says, the evil desires of youth. And the term is just that broad.

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It signifies a covetous craving for something that cannot be righteously or lawfully obtained.

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And that covers everything from the arrogant, pharisaical sense of superiority to any other kind of fleshly self -gratification.

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And most translations say lust, and epithumia is often used for that to signify concupiscence, sexual lust.

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In 1 Peter 2 .11, Peter uses the same word, epithumia, when he says, the passions of the flesh wage war against your soul.

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And that is true of all youthful passions, including the proud, youthful arrogance as much as the burning sexual lust.

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All of those things wage war against your soul. So guard your heart and mortify those dishonorable passions because, verse 21, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

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So to review, verses 14 through 19, be an approved workman, guard your teaching.

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Second, verses 20 through 22, be a sanctified vessel, guard your heart.

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And now third, verses 23 through 26, be a humble slave, guard your attitude.

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Notice, verse 24, Paul calls Timothy the Lord's servant, and the

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Greek word there means slave. This is talking about someone who is literally owned by his master, an abject slave.

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It's not a server in the restaurant, but an abject slave. 1 Corinthians 6 .19,

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you are not your own, you were bought with a price, a slave. And that's how every

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Christian ought to self -identify. And pastors in particular, the pastor's not the

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CEO of the church, even the pastor is the Lord's servant, and the task he has been given involves shepherding and teaching, and Paul is speaking to Timothy here as a pastor and saying, your work involves leading, but not lording it over those who are allotted to your charge.

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Jesus said, if anyone would be first, he should be last of all, and slave of all. So cultivate the attitude of a slave, and not the arrogance of a

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Pharisee. You know, Paul himself had been trained and lived for years as a

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Pharisee, a pedophagic theological nitpicker, passionate about ceremonial orthodoxy, literally to the point of violence.

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And here's Paul's own testimony about that. Acts 26, verses 10 through 11. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death,

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I cast my vote against them, and I punished them often in all the synagogues, and I tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them,

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I persecuted them even to foreign cities, chasing believers all around the

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Roman Empire just to persecute them. That was Paul's full -time occupation prior to his salvation.

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Jesus represented the polar opposite style and temperament. Matthew 12, verses 18 through 20.

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He will proclaim justice to the Gentiles, but he will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

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A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory.

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So Jesus put the Pharisees to shame, but he did it chiefly by his teaching.

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He didn't chase them around, carping at them about their theological errors. They did that to him, and he answered all their challenges, and he admonished his disciples about the evils of the

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Pharisees' hypocrisy in a long discourse in Matthew 23, and that discourse is filled with stern, plain -spoken words of woe and warning.

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It actually makes seven formal pronouncements of doom against them, woe and condemnation, but he was never unkind or abusive, and significantly, even when he stopped

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Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road, it was not with harsh words of condemnation, but rather a tender appeal.

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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And that encounter changed everything about Paul, including the ruthless way he handled his theological opponents.

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His attitude after that was markedly different. As I said, he used both stinging sarcasm and severe words of condemnation about the

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Judaizers because of their relentless efforts to confound the gospel and mix it with law, and all of that was leading the

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Galatians astray, and Paul also told Titus that the lazy

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Cretans needed sharp rebuke. In Acts 3 .10, he speaks directly to Elimus, the magician, and he says, you son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the

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Lord? That is a sharp rebuke right to his face, and as we've seen, sharp rebukes are sometimes necessary, but not all the time, and sometimes, even in the face of gross evil, a sharp rebuke is inappropriate.

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On one occasion, Paul gave a sharp rebuke to the high priest, but he apologized when he realized whom he had rebuked.

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His fierce cruelty and that brutal, callous, savage zeal for condemning and punishing all of his adversaries is utterly gone in the born -again

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Paul, and you see that most clearly right here in our text. He tells

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Timothy, verse 24, the Lord's servant must be kind to everyone, patiently enduring evil.

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I think he means it. In fact, there's no doubt he means it. This final paragraph of 2

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Timothy 2 returns to the theme that ties this whole passage together, and now he summarizes the point as plainly as possible.

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Verse 23, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels.

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Now, obviously, not every controversy can be classified as foolish and ignorant.

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I'll say it again. Paul himself was at the vortex of controversy throughout most of his ministry, throughout all of his ministry, really, and it was controversy over key tenets of gospel truth.

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He wasn't, Paul wasn't arguing with fresh seminary graduates over the fine points of Clarence Larkin's dispensational charts.

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Maybe if he saw those charts, he would, but he didn't. He was defending core truths of the gospel, but sometimes controversies over those cardinal doctrines can become foolish and ignorant as well.

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Remember, Hymenaeus and Philetus taught a doctrine that, in effect, denied the future bodily resurrection of the saints, which is no trivial error, but Paul doesn't engage them in controversy, and he doesn't want

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Timothy to do that either. Hymenaeus' well -established unteachability made controversy with him useless and therefore foolish.

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Paul would have no doubt patiently instructed anyone who was merely confused by that error, the way he did in 1

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Corinthians 15, but he was not going to legitimize Hymenaeus by engaging him in a dispute.

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The apostle Paul was nothing like those people whose chief ministry is using the internet to maximize the scandal of every doctrinal error they can find.

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Paul rejects that kind of controversy -mongering because it engenders strife.

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It breeds contentiousness, and more and more quarrels among foolish, unlearned people whose passions are fueled more by their own ignorance than by their understanding of Scripture.

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Insults and derision are of no help to people who are merely confused.

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An unkind and abusive polemical style can literally drive people deeper into error.

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Proverbs 26, 21, as charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.

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Proverbs 15, 1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

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Romans 12, 21, overcome evil with good. The brutal arrogance that you see so often in online discussion forums is clean contrary to the true aim of a godly teacher.

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Verse 24, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, and given the context here, he means gifted and eager to teach rather than always itching to dispute.

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But gifted, eager to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

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That's the actual goal, not to condemn people, but to deliver them from the strongholds of error.

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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil.

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That's the goal. Paul's words to Timothy about this are simply too numerous and too emphatic to just brush them aside.

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Religion that is pure and undefiled before God does not consist in endless disputation, and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

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In fact, let me say this as candidly as possible, and I'll point this at some of my brothers out there who may hear recordings of this, who think themselves especially gifted in the realm of discernment or polemical theology.

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If you want to be a guardian of the truth, but you consistently ignore or even throw scorn on the clear message of this text, you sacrifice a significant amount of credibility in everything else you say.

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Rational people won't take you seriously, nor should they. And if you really want to be a faithful guardian of the truth, you need to guard your own heart against any temptation to ignore or downplay or explain away or minimize the truth of what

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Paul is saying to Timothy in this chapter. Now, I hope if you know me at all, you know

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I believe with all my heart that error must be candidly and clearly confronted and corrected, and by all means, put away falsehood and let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.

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But while you're doing that, also let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander also be put away from you, along with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you, and speak the truth in love.

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That's how to be faithful as you guard the truth. Be an approved workman, be a sanctified vessel, be a humble slave.

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In other words, keep a close watch on your own teaching, diligently guard your own heart, your imaginations, your thought life, your passions, your personal purity, and while you are at it, keep careful control of your attitude.

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Wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience. And hold fast the faithful words as you have been taught, and you will be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convict those who contradict.

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And if all of those things are in order, you will be a good soldier of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, give us firm hearts with regard to the truth.

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Give us loving hearts for those whom you have placed in our pastoral care, in the circles of our friendship.

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Give us generous hearts towards brethren with whom we may disagree, and give us tender, caring hearts for those in our world who are held captive by the lies of the devil.

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May we always speak the truth in love, and may we be passionate for the truth, but may that passion always be tempered not by fleshly arrogance, but by the meekness and humility of Christ.