1 Timothy 2

Chapter 2. The Gospel in the Epistles to Timothy(The Church)The first thing which the apostle teaches us about the Church in these pastoral epistles is its calling and purpose.

Calling and Purpose

Calling and PurposeThese are expressed in the 15th verse of the third chapter of the first epistle and have a threefold meaning.

1. The House of God It is the house of God. The first time we meet with this expression in the Bible is at Bethel, where Jacob had just met with God and declares, “This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). It does not refer to a building, for there was no building at Bethel, and there were no church buildings in the early centuries other than upper rooms and private homes which sheltered “the church that meets at their house” (Romans 16:5). It does not so much mean a place as a fellowship of people in whom God has His habitation. The house of God today is a living temple of human hearts where God Himself is already residing. “And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). The Church, therefore, consists of those who have been already baptized by one Spirit into one body, and in which the Lord is dwelling. It is of this company that the Lord Jesus has said, “For where two or three come together in my name, [or as it is translated, ‘into my name’] there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). “The Most High does not live in houses made by men” (Acts 7:48), but wherever purified and consecrated human souls worship God, there He is present just as really as in the highest heaven.
2. The Church of the Living God It is called “the church of the living God” (1 Timothy 3:15). The word “church” means “called out” and denotes the company of believers who have been separated from the world to be His peculiar people. Here again it is not a church building that is referred to, but a body of holy people. The Church had its best days when it had no churches to meet in. Its piles of splendid architecture, its gilded crosses and its spires that seem to point to heaven, have often been but the ministers of idolatry and the shrines of worldliness, pride and sin. By the Church of the living God, Paul emphasizes the contrast between the dead idols of paganism and the one true God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and dwelling in the hearts of Christians.
3. The Pillar and Foundation of the Truth It is described as “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). This evidently means the pillar which supports the truth, even as the foundation and the pillar support the arch of the building. It is as though the truth were inscribed upon the front of the arch, and the Church holds up the message and exhibits it to the world. The business of the Church, therefore, as here expressed, is to be a witness to the world of God’s truth, a revealer of His will, a light to those that sit in darkness, and a message from heaven to the children of men. We have already seen what the message of heaven is. The very next verse expresses it. “He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16). If the Church fails to be true to her testimony, she is the pillar and foundation, not of the truth, but of error. Therefore, it is most important that she should maintain true doctrine as well as life, and be a faithful witness to Jesus Christ in His divine glory and His death and resurrection. Not only is the Church to witness to it by her testimony, but she is to manifest it in her life and to be a living object lesson to the world around her of the life and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Government of the Church

The Government of the ChurchThe apostle gives us in these pastoral epistles a good many glimpses of church government in the early Church. It is evident that the principal official ministers in the church of Ephesus were elders and deacons. It is also evident that the words “elder” and “bishop” were used interchangeably and that they both denote an office of spiritual oversight. A little later there is a distinction in 1 Timothy 5:17 between two classes of elders, the one that seems only to have exercised authority and rule, the other class whose “work is preaching and teaching.” In other words, the one was a ruling elder, the other a teaching elder. There appears to have been no extremely rigid rule in the New Testament about church government further than that a certain body of spiritual overseers were appointed out of every church, and they were called elders or bishops. Some of them, who had the requisite qualifications, exercised the ministry of teaching, while others simply took pastoral oversight over the flock. Out of these general conditions gradually arose Presbyterianism on one hand, and Episcopacy on the other, but neither has exclusive warrant of sufficient strength to justify bigotry or controversy. It is a safe rule to recognize all these various forms of church government as sufficiently scriptural to furnish a frame for the gospel and the Church of God, which is the really essential thing. There was a second class of officers, called deacons. The word denotes a minister; that is, one who ministers—a servant to the Church. This sufficiently covers the office of deacon as it is usually exercised today in Christian churches, the ministry of hospitality and welcome, fellowship, sympathy, kindness to the sick, the stranger and the sufferer, and relief to the poor and needy. These ministries are so important that the office of deacon was the first to be filled in the Apostolic Church. The apostle puts great emphasis upon this part of the ministry and evidently regards it as a steppingstone to a higher service in the Church, for he adds: “They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons” (1 Timothy 3:9-10). The epistles to Timothy recognize the ministry of women, but with very great restrictions. The woman is not allowed to teach or usurp authority over the man, but to maintain her place of subjection. But there was evidently some sisterhood described as widows indeed, into whose number worthy widows were to be taken and cared for by the Church, and who were to devote their lives to ministries to their brethren and the Church of God (1 Timothy 5:5). It would seem that the form of government in the early Church gradually developed and adjusted itself to conditions, and there would seem to be, as far as church government is concerned, no great principle at stake which need hinder the organic union of almost all evangelical denominations of Christians on some simple basis of compromise and concession with each other.

The Support of the Ministry

The Support of the MinistryThe passage already quoted in 1 Timothy 5:17, “the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching,” evidently refers to the support of a certain part of the eldership; namely, those who labor in the Word and doctrine. This is the “double honor” meant by the text. Our honorarium, which means the payment of a complimentary fee for literary or special service, conveys the same idea. While Paul himself claimed freedom to preach the gospel without charge, he nowhere imposed this on his brethren as a law, but defended their right to receive adequate support from the churches to which they ministered. This is the law of giving and receiving which the Lord everywhere enjoins, that they who minister to their spiritual needs should receive from those to whom they minister, of their material things. And any Christian who is content to receive the privileges of the gospel without liberal and loving recompense to those who minister to him or her, is spiritually dishonest and will surely lose some blessing for his unfaithfulness.

The Care of the Needy

The Care of the NeedyThere was evidently special care exercised in looking after the poor, the widowed and the needy. “The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11) was the Lord’s own intimation of the sacred and representative character which this class always was to have in the Church of Christ. As we minister to them, we minister to God; and as we neglect and forget them, we let our Master suffer in their person, and someday we will hear Him say, “I was in need and you ministered not unto Me.” Let us not think it a small service to be permitted to care for God’s poor, and let us not complacently enjoy our temporal blessings if we have not distributed to the necessities of saints, and shared our abundance with God’s poor.

Discipline

DisciplineWe find the apostle giving several directions about guarding the Church from false teachers and unfaithful brethren. Of the former, he says, “have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:5), and concerning the latter, he gives several directions: “Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning” (1 Timothy 5:20). This was to be in extreme cases, undoubtedly of open and flagrant and probably unrepented sin. In another place he says, And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26) We are to be tender and gentle to the erring, if haply we may win them back; and where this is impossible, we must be stern and faithful for the sake of the truth and honor of the Lord, testifying against bold and impenitent sin in the Church of God. “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others” (1 Timothy 5:22), may have reference to the hasty calling of men into sacred offices before they have been fully proved, or it may have reference to hastily taking up evil reports against people and laying our hands upon them in judgment. The wise servant of Christ will avoid both extremes.

The Perils of the Church in the Last Days

The Perils of the Church in the Last DaysThe apostle gives a very solemn picture in both epistles of the teachers that are to develop in the Church of Christ before the end. The first passage is 1 Timothy 4:1-3. The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. These errors arise from seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. It was clearly intimated by the Lord that the enemy would sow tares among the wheat, and these are some of the tares. They were to look very much like wheat; indeed, the error was in the guise of truth and an overstraining of the good, until it became all bad. The spirit of asceticism which afterwards developed in the Roman Catholic Church, with all its attendant errors and crimes, is clearly hinted at in the words, “they forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods” (1 Timothy 4:3)—an unnatural and strained severity and self-denial, posing as a higher kind of holiness, and leading to the depths of sin. Christianity is natural and normal and simple. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul gives another picture of these latter-day apostates. These two pictures have reference to the days in which we are living, and give a very solemn view of the perils that are sweeping around the Church of Christ like a flood. They are of Satanic origin. The apostle distinctly refers to seductive spirits and doctrines of demons. Again he refers to Jannes and Jambres, who withstood Moses, as types of these latter-day false prophets. In the book of Revelation John tells us of a flood of demons, “evil spirits that looked like frogs” which are “spirits of demons performing miraculous signs” (Revelation 16:13-14), which are to break loose in the last days and lead their victims on to the battle of Armageddon. We may, therefore, look for supernatural manifestations in our time of the most seductive and misleading character which are not of God, but from the wicked one. There is a true and holy supernaturalism which will always be recognized by its humility, self-control, holiness, love and good fruits. But there is a loud, arrogant, presumptuous and disorderly fanaticism, which scoffs at all restraints and scatters its anathemas against all that oppose it and, if possible, would “deceive even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). The special apostasy to which Paul refers in Timothy is marked by a flood of human wickedness as well as devilish delusion. Its first feature is selfishness, leading to covetousness, the love of pleasure, pride and arrogance, licentiousness, neglect of home, loss of natural affection, evil speaking, and hardness and cruelty toward others. One of its special features is the multitudes of weak women who are carried away by it. Its leaders “worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth” (2 Timothy 3:6-7). These persons are troubled about their sins and burdened with an evil conscience, and they are ready to turn to any teacher who will give them rest. And yet they never find rest and never get anywhere. These are in every age at once dupes and the deceivers of others. Again it will be noticed that this apostasy is “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). It claims superior sanctity and is characterized by the strain that marks almost all false teaching. “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods” (1 Timothy 4:3), and as someone has said, standing so straight that it really falls over backward. We are in the beginnings of these things. Let us watch and pray, and keep very humble, very simple, very practical and very near to the Master’s feet.

The Security of the Church

The Security of the Church"Nevertheless," Paul assures us, “God’s solid foundation stands firm” (2 Timothy 2:19). The foundation means that which God has founded, the Church which He has already spoken of as the house of God. He then proceeds to give several reasons for its security. The first is God’s foreknowledge and infinite wisdom. “Sealed with this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’” (2 Timothy 2:19). God will keep His own and they shall never perish, and “no one can snatch them out of [his] hand” (John 10:28). The next reason for the Church’s security is “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness” (2 Timothy 2:19). Our personal holiness is the best proof we are His, and against the breastplate of righteousness the assaults of hell can never prevail. The third condition of the Church’s security is given in the fine passage, 2 Timothy 2:20-22. In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

1. The Church of Christ The great house here referred to is the Church of Christ, which we have already seen is the house of God, here compared to some courtly mansion with a great variety of servants, vessels and ministries.
2. Its Various Vessels We have its various vessels. There are vessels of gold and silver; there are also vessels of wood and earth; there are vessels unto honor, and there are vessels unto dishonor. The idea is not that some are good, but some are of higher rank than others. There are lower and higher ministries in the Church of God. There are ordinary Christians and there are choice ones. Some Christians spend all their lives in the scullery and the cellar. They are not gold and silver vases in the chambers of the king to hold rich perfume, but slop-pails to empty out the refuse in the waste pipes. There are some lips that would not condescend to gossip and frivolity. There are others from whom it pours like an eave-trough or a waterspout on a wet day. The Lord cannot use such people much in His higher service, or to bear His holy messages. You would not want to drink out of a slop-pail, and the Lord does not greatly enjoy the worship of those who allow themselves to be defiled by all the flotsam of life’s murky stream. Paul says that we should purge ourselves from these. He does not mean purge ourselves from the sinful sins of the world outside, but from the common things that may be loved in a way, but are not the highest things. Be not content to be always in the kitchen, but let the Lord make you a vessel of gold to be used at the altar of incense and as a minister to feed His people at the table of His grace.