BE ON GUARD

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.

Grace be with you all.

1 Timothy 6:20-21

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Finishing at the beginning. That could be the best way of describing Paul’s closing found in the final two verses of 1 Timothy 6.

In order to see this, it will be helpful to go back to chapter 1 of this letter and look again at these opening words of caution sent from the Apostle to his once protégé turned pastor of the Ephesian church. Look again at these verses:

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. 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 a 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 do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. Vv.3-7

Here we find Paul identifying a big issue that had emerged within the fledgling Christian church in Ephesus and he needed Timothy to address it. The issue involved teachers who were bringing false doctrines into the church and therefore interfering with the true Gospel the church was supposed to be grounded in, the true Gospel Paul had brought to the Ephesian Christians when he established the church during his second missionary journey.

We need not speculate as to the nature of the false doctrine because Paul tells Timothy it was devoted to “myths and endless genealogies” that only served to “promote controversial speculations” instead of “advancing God’s work”. These false teachers gad willingly chosen to depart from their faith, turning to “meaningless talk” in their quest to become “teachers of the law”. For obvious reasons, these efforts needed to be nipped in the bud quickly before they infected the minds of the believers and drew them away from the legitimate good news of salvation offered in love by God through belief in His Son Jesus (John 3:16).

With this, we turn to the final two verses of 1 Timothy 6 where Paul concludes with the following:

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.

Grace be with you all.  Vv.20-21

The call was to be on guard and protect the Ephesian believers who had been “entrusted to” Timothy’s care. Part of this guarding was to preserve the sanctity of the Gospel by rejecting “godless chatter” and any “opposing ideas” masquerading as “knowledge” which were being brought forth by the false teachers who had “departed from the faith”.

Friends, today we are finding Satan initiating insidious efforts to pollute and corrupt the modern day Christian church and the true Gospel Jesus called to be presented to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). He has enlisted many false teachers passing off as pastors, using them to spread false doctrines and misleading Christian believers under their purview. These self proclaimed ministers of the Word have departed from the faith and present falsehood disguised as truth and knowledge. And so, there is just as much an urgency to be on guard today as ever.

How can we avoid being deceived and misled?

It really comes down to your knowledge of the scriptures and engagement with the Holy Spirit. For if you truly dedicate yourself to know the word of God, the full word of God that is to be applied to preaching and teaching, then you should be able to easily weed out those who speak legitimately for the Lord and those who are partnering with the enemy. Where there is any hint of uncertainty, go to the Holy Spirit and pray for discernment and wisdom. He will always expose those who are working against the Lord and protect us from being misinformed.

False teachers have existed as long as the Christian church has and so there has always been a need to be on guard against the efforts of the devil. It’s important for all believers to ensure they immunize themselves against being misled so that they will always be grounded in the truth only found in purity within the holy scriptures.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.