MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Importance-Of-Good-Teaching
So anyway, we've come on that topic of is what the Bible intended to communicate, actually being represented by the teachers who are communicating it, and Paul offers a challenge to Timothy, his young apprentice, who's the pastor at the Church of Ephesus around this topic, and that's what we're going to look at today. Working things out, I've entitled this message recovering a holy intolerance from 1 Timothy 1, 3 through 7. When you choose to be a part of Marine Covenant Church, you're part of a church that's pretty well connected and emotionally attached part of a denomination, and there is some risk. It's sort of a dangerous church, a dangerous choice in some ways to choose to be part of a covenant church, because one of the hallmark beliefs, one of the things that's a defining belief of a covenant church and of our denomination, even though the churches are very different, wherever you go, it's not going to be the same liturgy, it'll feel a little different in the churches, but one of the things that's always the same is that we're committed within the congregation, theological diversity within the limits of orthodoxy. So we're not, we're by design and on purpose, not a congregation, or we're not a family of congregations that are saying, here's what we believe about the end times, here's what we believe about spiritual gifts, here's what we believe about this, here's our favorite political party, and everybody has to kind of go along with all that, and if you're too far away from any of that, you're probably not going to feel comfortable here. When I like that, we're on purpose saying, wow, within these limits of the non-negotiables for all Christians, things like the authority of Scripture, the need for Jesus as Savior, the divinity of Christ, there are a handful of beliefs that all Christians need to agree with in order to really be apostolic and Christian. We're saying within that, we love the diversity in our church, and that's a little bit dangerous. In fact, sometimes it can make you feel as though this is part of the risk. Sometimes that commitment can make it feel as though we're trying to be a church that has no theological sidelines at all. Could you imagine trying to play a football game with no boundaries, no sideline, no out of bounds, no in zone, just go ahead and, it would be chaos, it would be bedlam, and sometimes it feels when you're in a covenant church, as though we're trying to do Christianity with no sidelines. That might be the most often asked question I get when it or challenge, especially when people are uncomfortable that come and ask about our church. Are you one of those churches that just believes anything? You're going to believe anything just so you can fill up the room. It sounds like you need way more specificity than you have, and that's part of the risk. It's a dangerous choice to be part of a covenant church. Even some of our own most well-known theologians, the theologians in our movement, have recognized this and admitted it. In fact, I think their recognition of it, their self-awareness, and their honest, almost increment, potentially incriminating statements about that reveal a huge desire for truth, for not misrepresenting scripture, sort of being self-aware and saying, this is one of the things we have to watch out for. In the big old thick doorstop book that we're supposed to read when we get our education with the covenant called "Buy One Spirit." Did you read the thick version, Ben? Because Ben's a historian, so he would have read the thick version. I read the cliff notes and squeaked through the test. But one of the things that Carl Olson, who wrote that, he's gone now, but he's one of our main theologians. In fact, probably our main theologian of modern times anyway in our movement, he wrote this. He said that our risk is that we sometimes treat our loyal heretics because we're about community. We're about, hey, love the people. Let's make room for as many people as possible as we journey toward Christ, which is a good thing. It's one of the reasons so many people come and say, I just feel such warmth. I feel like I can be a part of your church. I feel the love. Even folks who aren't followers of Christ yet who would have drastically different positions on some issues from me or other leaders or maybe even some of you. Yeah, but I still kind of want to come there and hear what you guys have to offer. Olson says our risk is that we sometimes treat our loyal heretics, our relationally astute heretics, much better than we treat our more separatistic but also more orthodox dissidents. That's one of our risks. He said when you're about community and connection and making space for everybody. In an unpublished lecture to the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches in 1971, Olson said in the Free Church, like I think that's the capital F, not the Evangelical Free Church, but any church that would be a free church, a non-state church. He may have been talking about the Evangelical Free Church, but I don't think so. In the Free Church, one is likely to be in trouble for believing wrongly, he said, but not in the Covenant Church. In the Covenant Church, one is more likely to be in trouble for behaving badly toward others. So he is admitting the danger when it comes to being careful about what we hear Scripture saying, how we teach it, what we believe in how we teach it. He's admitting that when you're a church that's about connection and relationship and trying to maximize people's sense of inclusion but still hold to the non-negotiables, there is a danger there and you've got to be aware of it. So the question that I want to ask and address today from this text in 1 Timothy is this, how does a church like ours, who's in alignment with those values that I've just shared, make sure that we're staying on track with what we teach, how do we make sure that we're not so committed to inclusion and relationship and giving people the freedom to take a journey without pretense and not pretending they're somebody they're not or having to perform like this or like this or like this before they can feel like they're part of the community, how do we protect that on the one hand and truth on the other? How in a church community that really does love people, do we mitigate the risks of misrepresenting what the Bible teaches, especially when what it teaches is difficult for those people that we love, that are real true friends of ours. How do we develop and protect a holy intolerance for violating scripture while not stooping so low that will become willing to use that very same scripture to violate people, the understanding, the tension of the question? Because we don't want to compromise either one, we're relational, we're connectional, we love it when people who disagree with some of the positions we hold as a church want to be part of us because they're wonderful friends and we actually learn from them and we're crafted through God by God through them but we want to still tell truth as we understand it from scripture and Paul and Timothy were dealing with that very challenging in the text that I'm about to read now. Would you stand with me as we read this text for today? First Timothy chapter one verses three through seven and you pick up what they're dealing with in the text. So Paul says to Timothy, "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay here in Ephesus so that you may command certain persons not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogy such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work which is by faith. The goal of this command is love which comes from pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law but they don't know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. The first Timothy won and may God add his blessing to his holy word, his fully inspired message to us. And so go ahead and take your seats. So that question lingers. How in the world would your community that wants to be inclusive and relate and actually loves people? How can you hold to that without letting that value infringe upon the equal value of wanting to say well here's what scripture really says and here's what God's heart really is and let's deal with it together. How do you make that work? Some of the instruction that Paul gives is this and I'm just going to pull a couple of principles out from those verses and let them simmer with us. Here's the first one. In all of our interpretations and our teachings we need to learn to value substance over novelty, value substance over the desire to find something new and hidden and creative some way of interpreting or presenting a text that's never been in a way that you've never heard it that way before. We value substance over novelty and I hope you understand just how difficult that is these days. We live in a culture that values celebrity over character. You would much rather not you. Most people would rather have most Christians would rather have us arrange for a celebrity to come and speak to you here today than a person of true character. We value celebrity over character. That's just everywhere left to right in our community and it's in the church too. We have to admit it. We have to be aware of it so that we can keep addressing it. Parallel to that we will value. We have a tendency to value novelty or creativity over substance in the teachings that we hear and the teachings that we prefer. Paul's saying to Timothy, "Man, don't let that happen." Value substance over novelty. That's very important to Paul. First of all, let's look at what was actually going on in this church in Ephesus. In verse six you see Paul say, "Some have departed from these teachings, pure teachings, pure faith, and have turned to meaningless chatter or meaningless talk." He gives other inferences of what's actually going on in the first few verses of this section. It's false doctrines, false teachings, and then he sort of reveals what it looked like. They're devoting themselves to myths, to endless genealogies, to controversial speculations rather than to advancing God's work. There was a school of thought. There was a tendency in that day to take the Old Testament law and misapply it, misuse it, misinterpret it, and teach it sort of in a crooked fashion. Especially when it came to some of the lists of the genealogical lists. So-and-so we got so-and-so, and so-and-so, and that can get rather boring. Every read those genealogies are actually profound, but they can get a little boring. And there was this movement, this ability, this fascination with reading things into those genealogies, allegorizing the genealogy. So you'd see this particular name, and then with no study, no backup, nothing to prove it, just a creative sense, a meaning would be assigned to that particular name. And so you would have a little discussion group. So it would sit down and talk about what that name might have meant, and what that name might have meant, and what some of the significance is this and that. And they would end up chasing their tales in theological discussion that was based on nothing. Pure conjecture, driven by an appreciation for and a hunger for something novel instead of something consistent and a little bit less exciting. And Paul is saying, instruct certain people to knock that off. That's going nowhere. And I love the fact that Paul is interesting to me. He doesn't say, "Look, go back there, Timothy, and correct what was taught. Go teach the right thing." He says, "Go back there and locate the folks who are doing the bad teaching and address them." It's really aggressive language, actually. The best translation I can figure out with, as I urged you when we went to Macedonia, that verb to urge, it's a word that could be translated as, "I called you out." It's a very strong urging. It's a really powerful language. In fact, the etymology of the word is two words, and the word around or from, and to call out. So I called you around, and I intensified this sense of calling. I called you out to do this, Timothy. There was no question that I was challenging you. You have to get this done. Paul feels real passionately about this correction and not letting this stuff happen. He feels so strong about that, strongly about it, that in verse 20, he names some of the very people that are doing the false teaching, leaves it sort of general and generic at first, and then he names at least a couple of them later in verse 20. There may have been more. He says, "Go to these specific men, stay on top of them, keep instructing them to stop teaching things that aren't true, that would not be consistent with the values of Scripture." And then in verse 7, he makes a pretty amazing statement. It sounds a little bit cynical. I'm not sure it would translate that way in his original letter, but to us, it sounds a little bit cynical. I suspect that there was a bit of frustration in it on his part. I've got to tell you before I jump into this point, and I'm still talking about that first principle, and I'm just about to finish it, of valuing substance over novelty, but it'd be only fair if I, it's not fair if I don't tell you. This will hobby horse of mine, so I may overstate it. Can you forgive me for that ahead of time? Now, thank you. Paul implies or outright states or supports the importance of formal theological education for people who are daring to present Scripture. He says, "They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they're talking about. The things they so confidently affirm, they haven't got a clue of what they're talking about." And the importance in that statement of being willing to take the time to learn so that you can at least minimize the times that you're speaking rather loudly about something over what you have no clue, about what you have no clue at all. James 3 partners with Paul in this. James 3, you know that what James 3 says, "Listen, you want to be teachers." James 3 says, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers." My brothers and sisters, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly every single word that comes out of the mouth of a teacher of Scripture. That teacher is held accountable for those words by God. It ought to be that if somebody wants to be a teacher of Scripture, God has to reach down from heaven and grab you by the back of the collar and force you to stand in front of a podium. It ought to be that we're begging God regularly to let us off the hook, because the risks are just too high. And here you have these people that are called false teachers talking confidently about things and they don't know what they're talking about, because they haven't taken the time to learn what they're talking about. That doesn't mean that going to seminary or having formal theological education or even significant informal theological education does not guarantee against false teaching. But the disregard for that training when it's available does guarantee trouble. And it concerns me, here's my hobby horse, it concerns me, it seems to me that the theological aberrations are increasing these days and becoming more refined, much more crafty, everything's much more nuanced than it ever was before. While a willingness to involve oneself in or even appreciate Asian formal theological education, the churches is decreasing and the churches are going along with it. It ought to be just the opposite. People, there's this rule that we talk about sometimes as preacher, we joke, preachers, we joke about it, we laugh about it. It's really not funny at all. You may have heard it. Like if there's a point that you're trying to make and you're not quite sure of it in a sermon, you know what we're told? Speak it more loudly. Just do it louder and make it more forceful, not according to Paul. I am one of my favorite men is someone that I met at this church. He's one of the best men I think I've ever met, all my life and then one of the best men I ever will meet. They're a handful of guys I could say that about in this church, but one of them is a guy named Gene Sage, some of you know who Gene Sage is. Gene Sage has for a while been teaching a class that meets during this hour across the way and loved Gene Sage. I think he's, well, I can't say enough about him. I was over their house one time taking something over and just visiting. I walk into their living room and what do you think Gene Sage is? This was like a Wednesday or something. What do you think Gene's dining room table looked like in preparation for the class he's teaching right now? They're in first Corinthians and they're going slowly and carefully through first Corinthians covered with books, study material everywhere. Gene, are you in graduate school or something? Because I look at some of the authors and some of the helps he's using in the commentaries and the books on the language and the authors he's reading. Man, it was heavy, heavy stuff because he has such a high respect for what his task is and such a high level of love for the people who are trusting him with what he brings that he goes out of his way to make sure it's a very rare thing that he teaches something from the Bible when he doesn't know what he's talking about. So Paul really explodes this idea that education is not at all important. The Holy Spirit can speak to a teacher who hasn't been formally trained. But we need to remember that that's exception, not the rule, that the Holy Spirit's best tool in a Bible teacher is that teacher's brain and basic logic and a willingness to invest him or herself in learning what it is they're supposed to be talking about. So all of that to remind one of the ways that we can protect against being so concerned with loving people that we forget to tell them the truth, value substance over novelty. And then Paul also includes another principle that's helpful for us. This is one that can kind of knock us on our heels. If you're my age or older and you've grown up in the church, you've seen what I'm talking about here. The second principle is this, to value action over information. I grew up in a Christian context where the more you knew about the Bible and the more you could recite verses, and especially if somebody could recite a verse to you and you could give them the address for the verse. Oh, that's that's Romans 2-3. The information you had about the Bible, the more you could do that, the more spiritually adept you were, the more spiritually mature you were. Because information was king. Paul is saying to have biblical information that has as its goal the acquisition and recitation, you know, the reciting of information that has as that's heresy. That's considered false teaching. Look at what he says in the middle of this text. It says, "They devote themselves to myths and endless genealogy of just over and over, such things promote or such things as their outcome, as their goal, controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work, which is by faith." He says, "The goal of this command, the goal of true teaching is love, which comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith." So in Ephesus, what these teachers were doing was teaching in such a way that they could maybe put together a little discussion group and they would teach about the genealogies and then you would bounce your idea of what this means off of somebody else. They would bounce their idea off of you of what it means and that's all they ever did. I was in Coffee Shop the other day at a conference and I overheard a group of Christian men and I'm sure there's a lot more to their lives than this but it was interesting to me that while I was studying this very point, they're kind of talking loud and I can hear what they're doing and they're studying Scripture but their conversations had very little, if anything, to do with what difference that made in the way they were going to live and what they were going to do about what they were reading. All their conversations had to do with their opinions about what they met, that met and then of course they slid into the obligatory bashing of our president and the political conversation and what's wrong with the economy. Nothing that actually put footprints on anything was discussed in this group and if we're not careful as Christians that can be enough for us chasing our tails as I said, theologically, and learning more stuff, talking about more stuff, and calling it orthodox. It is not orthodox. That's never what good solid biblical instruction has in mind. The goal of good solid biblical instruction of sound teaching, Paul says, is measurable love. Loving and relevant involvement in humanity's quest for a relationship with God and a world that reflects God. You hear that? That's the goal of clear biblical, reliable biblical teaching, not simply the acquisition of theological data. You value action over information. It's not that information isn't valuable. It's just that it's wasted if it doesn't result in action. Every single verse between the covers of Scripture is about getting out and doing something, showing love. It should have a result someplace. It should change the world. It should affect the world. It should reach down into a cave where little children who are not valued any less by their parents than our own children are valued by us when they were coming down the hallways. Their precious faces just like that, children that were never intended to satisfy the broken desires of really, really broken people sexually. Christian teaching results in Christians who learn, gather information, and that information wakes them up at night, and they reach their hand in the tunnels like the one you saw on the video, and they help people out of whatever it is that enslave them measurable love. And if we ever slide to the place where knowing Bible stuff equals knowing the author of the Bible, where knowing biblical theological information is how we measure spiritual maturity, we have slid right into heresy, a functional heresy. We value action over information, even though we value information. It makes sense. It's one of the things Paul has tried. That's what Gary Hogan most have experienced when he grew up in the church that we were in. It's been overstated here. I was not Gary's youth pastor. I was one of the relatively unknown youth ministry interns when Gary was in our youth group, but I did get to meet with him. He's got this great family that I really love and we're still friends. But when Gary started IJM, I rather imagine it must have come out, at least in part, out of his memory of the good solid teaching he received, his experience of what he saw when he was working for the government, what in Rwanda, and some of the terrible things he saw. And then the collision of these values, we said, "What I've learned must result in some kind of a change that represents the agenda of God for the world. It asks to where, what's it worth if it doesn't?" And IJM came out of that sort of conviction. So those are the two principles that I offer today in response to that first question that I asked about. Man, how do you make sure you're teaching what's true, especially when the things you're teaching might make life more difficult or even put at risk the people you love and their willingness to stay connected on this journey together? You value substance over novelty. You value action over information. And if we do that, probably, probably be okay. Those are some of the things that Paul teaches to Timothy. I love the way James expresses what Paul is here instructing. In just a few verses, James exemplifies both of these values, the value of substance and the value of action. I'll just read a few verses, but look for these things and what James writes. Well, you're in James chapter two. You're going to see a substantial, well thought out, theologically astute argument that results in action. That's what he's arguing for. He says, "What use is it, my brother?" And if someone says he has faith but has no works, can that faith save him? If her brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food or being oppressed by somebody smarter than them, richer than them and more powerful than them and used for terrible, terrible things. And one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body. What use is that? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead." Do you see the substance that's in that argument and the value for action that comes out of the biblical arguments he's offering? But someone may say, "You have faith and I have works." His response is, "Show me your faith without the works and I'll show you my faith by my works." It's not one or the other, James is saying. You believe that God is one God? That's theologically accurate. We could sit and talk about that for hours and theologians could do that. You do well, he says, but the demons also believe that and they shudder. Are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow, James says, that faith without works is useless, substance and action. How in a church community that really does love people do we mitigate the risk of misrepresenting what the Bible teaches, especially when what it teaches is difficult for those very people we love. We're going to hear that in the conversation. How do we redirect our intolerance, develop a holy intolerance for violating Scripture? While not stooping solo that we become willing to use that very same Scripture to violate people, what a wonderful tension we're invited to live in to? We have seen a great example of just that through what our friend Melissa showed us, I think, where the truth of Scripture informed caring minds and good hearts. There's God's hunger for justice, his disgust within justice and oppression. Where do you think folks learn that from the Bible? But they took that. They said this is an information that we're just supposed to have so that we can maybe teach it to someone else and they can teach it to someone else. This is about action too. We've seen a wonderful example of that with IJM. May we live in to the example we've seen.