FBC Morning Light – August 3, 2022

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you, and today we find ourselves beginning in our Bible reading in another new

book of the Bible.

You know, you get into these New Testament books, and it's like every few days you're in a new one.

And so today we're in 1 Timothy.

And this letter, 1 Timothy, is written by the Apostle Paul to

a man by the name of Timothy, a younger man, and Timothy has been charged

with the work of the pastoral ministry in the city of Ephesus.

And so much of what Paul writes to Timothy is insight into the work of

pastoral work, pastoral ministry.

And this is, you know, true right off the bat as he opens up this letter.

You see some insight into one of the aspects of the work of a

pastor in these opening verses.

He says in verse 3,

which is in faith.

And so we discover right off the bat here that one of the responsibilities

of proper pastoral ministry is the prevention of

certain kinds of things, like false teaching, you know, doctrine that

is contrary to the gospel.

If someone comes into the work, comes into the church, and wants to promote

some doctrinal aberration that is a distortion of

orthodox doctrine, then no, they need to be shut down, they need to

be stopped.

But then he also talks about those who give heed to fables and endless genealogies.

Now there could be some cultural specific things related to that, you know, the

genealogies, a lot of emphasis was placed on genealogies, and so on and so forth.

But I think the bigger point is that these fables and endless genealogies are

extra -biblical stuff.

That is, this isn't truth from the Scripture.

This isn't God's written revelation that he's given to us.

These are rather speculative ideas that might be

tangentially tied to the Bible.

You know, the Bible has stimulated an awful lot

of ideas and ways of thinking and

stories and ideas that, you know, they're not rooted in

God's revelation.

They are rooted in man's imagination over some idea that he got from the Bible.

You can go to the average Christian bookstore, if there was one anymore, I

don't know if they're already breaking mortar ones anymore, or just do a search

on Christian literature, Christian books on Amazon, or go to Christian book .com, and you can

find an awful lot of books that are written with a Christianized

theme to them that pick on some idea

that may have a kernel of a truth taken

out of the Bible, but then expanded upon and blown out of proportion.

In the end, it's really not very helpful.

It's not helpful because you're not growing in the knowledge of the truth, you're not growing in the grace and the knowledge of

Christ, you're listening to ideas that are the

ideas of men.

These are not the things that are going to feed your faith.

So this is what he says, you know, they instead cause disputes.

People end up arguing over these things that are not clearly delineated in the Scripture,

and it doesn't edify in the faith.

One of the preachers I like to listen to often, he has a saying that I've picked

up on and I found to be quite helpful.

He says, the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.

I think that's a good idea to just keep in mind.

It's a good filter to help us filter through a lot of

the stuff that's purported under the umbrella of Christianity

today.

The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main

things, not fables and endless genealogies.

So the pastor is exhorted to keep his people, to guard his flock

from these things.

The thing that motivates him is love.

He says, the purpose of this commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a

sincere faith.

Some have swerved from this, he says.

They've strayed.

They've turned aside to idle talk.

They desire to be teachers of the law.

They don't understand what they're saying.

The pastor's heart must be one of love for his people, that they

be delivered from any kind of teaching or ideas that will

take them off path, take them astray.

So pray for, again, and we mentioned this the other day, pray for your pastor.

Pray that he fulfills the responsibilities that God has put upon his shoulders,

even in this area of guarding the truth.

So our Father and our God, we thank you for this very good counsel that Paul gave to

Timothy, because it applies to us even today.

I pray that you would deliver us from false teachers and from

insignificant stuff that can distract us from the truly important.

We pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday.

I trust God will bless you richly in it.

Good day.