Introduction. Read 1Tim1v3to11.

I found it very difficult to get started on this exposition. One reason for this is undoubtedly my extreme distaste for controversy about doctrine. A second reason is that Paul dealt so briefly with the errors which were being introduced into the church that is not easy to understand what they were. It is possible to be so concise that no one knows quite what you mean. A third reason is that my very long winded commentaries on this passage made for pretty tedious reading. The exception is William Barclay and this exposition owes much to him.

(1) Inadequate and erroneous teaching at Ephesus.

There were some teachers in the church in Ephesus who were guilty of:

(a) Peddling false doctrines. Now we do not know for sure what these were because Paul does not elaborate. William Barclay proposes that Gnostic views were beginning to influence some Christian teachers. Some Gnostics thought the body was corrupt and needed to be rigorously controlled. Others taught that the body was of little consequence compared with the spirit and so it didn't matter what you did with it. Views such as these if imported into the church would have profound consequences for conduct.

Now there are lots of false doctrines abroad today - just Google 'false doctrines' and see! I will just mention three:

The prosperity gospel. Unscrupulous preachers promise that if money is given to their cause God will reward the donors with wealth untold. Furthermore material wealth is a sign that God is pleased with you. He obviously wasn't much pleased with Jesus who owned nothing but the clothes he wore by the time of his arrest - and even these were taken away from him!

Hyper grace. Salvation is by grace and not works so it doesn't matter what we do - God will save us by his grace anyway. Beliefs of this kind undermine church discipline and are a disincentive to holy living.

Unconditional election. This is an old heresy! Calvinists believe that God chose individual men and women before the foundation of the earth for salvation or damnation on the basis of nothing at all. His choice was arbitrary. There is nothing we can do about it. Those that God has chosen will be saved come what may. This being the case there is no real incentive to evangelise.

(b) Wasting time on myths and endless genealogies.

The myths were probably invented stories about people who feature in the lists of names in the Old Testament and about whom nothing is really known. Endless genealogies were possibly attempts on the part of Jewish Christians to trace their ancestry back to a name in the Old Testament.

Paul considered these exercises in imagination and invention were:

• A waste of time.

• A source of pointless controversy and meaningless talk.

• Absolutely fruitless. They made no contribution to the work of God.

We used to have a man attend our church who belonged to the British Israelites who believed that the Anglo-Saxons were direct descendents of the lost tribes of Israel. This man, and two others I knew who shared his beliefs, were evangelical. They held orthodox beliefs about Jesus and his saving work but as "Jews" had legalistic views about diet and the Sabbath. I used to tell my friends that it didn't matter whether they were Jews or Eskimos we were all one in Christ Jesus. DNA analysis has shown the sheer futility of the assertions of the British Israelites. There is no trace of Jewish DNA in people of Anglo-Saxon descent.

I think Creationists who try to find evidence in the rocks for a young earth are wasting their time. There is overwhelming evidence that the earth is old. For example, the mid-Atlantic ridge shows where Africa and South America used to be joined together. They have drifted apart for millions of years to produce the Atlantic Ocean. The process is ongoing with the Atlantic getting wider by a few centimetres a year.

Theological speculation about the age and authorship of the books of the Bible is not very fruitful. It does not provide the benefits that actual exposition of Bible passages does. It is possible to spend a lot of time as a Theologian reading the books of other Theologians and neglecting to read the Bible itself.

(c) Incompetent teachers of the Law. Paul wrote: But they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

It would be a help if Paul gave some examples of what the teachers were saying about the Law that revealed their ignorance. There may have been certain practices associated with the Law that they wished to retain like Sabbath rest or ceremonial washing.

There is no doubt that through the years men and women have misused Scripture. Henry VIII, for example, justified his divorce from Katherine of Aragon with reference to the scriptural prohibition of sleeping with your brother's wife. Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonour your brother. Lev18v16. Katherine had been Henry's brother's wife until he died! The prohibition about having sexual relations with your brother's wife only applied so long as your brother was alive!! Indeed the Law instructs a man to marry his brother's widow if she is childless and raise up a son to carry on the name of the dead brother. See Dt25v5and6. So Henry VIII was in the will of God to marry Katherine. None of his religious advisers dared to point this out to the wilful king.

I find it sad that Presbyterians attempt to justify infant baptism in terms of the Old Testament Law. They argue that just as circumcision was a sign of the Old Covenant so infant baptism is a sign of the New Covenant. Baptism is the New Testament alternative to circumcision. Needless to say there is not a scrap of evidence for this in the New Testament. When Paul denounced the Galatians for circumcising Gentile converts to Christianity he did not say that infant baptism had made the procedure irrelevant. Infant baptism is not mentioned in this context. Circumcision was done to boys only so one has to ask why girls as well as boys are baptised. Jesus makes it clear in his great commission when baptism should occur - following belief. See Mt28v19and20.

(2) Four characteristics of the heretic. (After Barclay)

There are four distinguishing traits of a heretic:

(a) A desire for novelty.

Some Christians adopt weird beliefs and way out life styles to be different and superior. The Corinthian church at the time of Paul provides a good example of this. Some Christians were flaunting their freedom in Christ by adopting the hair style of members of the opposite sex. See exposition on 1Cor11v2to16.

The world of fashion taps into the desire to be up to date - to be modern - to be with it.

When I was a teacher new initiatives were the bane of my life. Some advisor or expert would come along peddling a new approach. It had to represent an improvement because it was new! So course work was deemed a good thing and foisted on teachers until it became evident that it provided too much scope for cheating. Anyone who pointed out the potential for cheating during the years course work was being promoted was labelled a dinosaur.

Modernisers in the church can have a pernicious influence. Liberal elements in the Church of England promote gay marriage and deem it acceptable for practicing gays to be clergymen. What is so sickening is that liberals seem to think it meritorious to depart from 2000 years of church teaching on the subject.

The heretic cringes at the words of Katherine Hankey's hymn:

Tell me the old, old story
Of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and his glory,
Of Jesus and his love

My friend Jack, the British Israelite, loved to speculate about the meaning of the obscure parts of Revelation. He had Christ's 1000 years reign on earth all worked out. Jack was sure he would be one of Christ's teachers during this period and I would finally receive instruction from him. Yes, yes - John Reed would sit at his feet.

Jack was not a highly intelligent man whereas Isaac Newton was. However this did not stop Isaac Newton spending the latter years of his life studying the Book of Revelation and writing arrant nonsense about it.

It is far, far better for a Christian to concentrate upon the teaching of Jesus than speculate about the prophecies of Daniel. The teaching of Jesus will inluence our lives in a way that the symbolism of Revelation never can. We need to major on obeying Jesus for that is crucial to our relationship with him.

(c) Delights in one-up-man-ship.

Heretics are liable to rejoice in a new truth, a new insight, a clever argument - anything that makes them superior to those without their insight and perception.

I suppose you could argue that Eve was the first heretic. Satan had given her a new insight - one that made her superior to Adam. She could eat of the forbidden fruit. It would make her like God - knowing good and evil - and she would not die. Eve, the first heretic, like all the others through history, led Adam astray.

The apostle Paul spent a lot of time combating heresy in the early church. It is amazing how soon it crept into the church and how persistent it has been.

It seems to me that the departments of Theology in our universities are spawning grounds of heresy. Lecturers vie with one another to lead in the scepticism stakes. Someone like Don Cupitt certainly started out as a Theologian. Today he would reject all ideas of gaining salvation by escaping from this world of ours. "All this is all there is", he says and he now sees true religion in terms of joy in life and an active attempt to add value to the human lifeworld. ‘Life’ is all that there is and all we have, and must be accepted with its limits as a package deal. We must avoid all attempts to deny or escape the limits of life — traditionally time, chance and death. So there we have it! Don Cupitt knows better than Jesus who told his disciples: I am going there (my Father's house) to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepared a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John14v3.

(d) Makes a virtue out of ignorance.

I have no patience with those who mock the theory of evolution without knowing anything about it. I also get very annoyed with those who believe that the six days of creation in Genesis must be literally six 24 hour periods whilst remain in ignorance of the reputable disciplines of Geology and Geomorphology. What is even worse is an insistence that the Genesis flood was universal and covered all known land. The actual account of the flood indicates it was local in scale. See my article on the Genesis flood.

(3) The proper objectives of a Christian teacher.

Paul outlines what the aim of the Christian teacher should be in verses 4 and 5. It should be:

(a) To promote God's work.

The work of God is outlined in the teaching and example of Jesus which Christians accept BY FAITH in him. Every Christian should major on the gospels because in them Jesus reveals the will of God like no other Christian teacher.

(b) Motivated by love.

Christians should be motivated by their love for Jesus to show love for others. Sound teaching should involve fostering and encouraging love for God and encouraging acts of love towards others.

Since the very outset of Christianity there have always been those who prefer law to grace! Some preachers enjoy dwelling on man's sins and the reaction of a holy God to sin. They promote a code of conduct for Christians to live by and enjoy censoring those who fall short. Philip Yancey in his book, 'What's so amazing about grace,' writes: I grew up in a church that drew sharp lines between 'the age of Law' and the 'the age of Grace'. While ignoring most moral prohibitions from the Old Testament we had our own pecking order rivalling the Orthodox Jews'. At the top were smoking and drinking. Movies ranked just below these vices, with many church members refusing even to attend, 'The Sound of Music'. Rock music, then in its infancy, was likewise regarded as an abomination, quite possibly demonic in origin.

Other proscriptions - wearing makeup and jewellery, reading the Sunday paper, playing or watching sports on Sunday, mixed swimming, skirt length for girls, hair length for boys - were heeded or not heeded depending on a person's level of spirituality. I grew up with the strong impression that a person became spiritual by attending to these gray-area rules. For the life of me, I could not figure out much difference between the dispensations of Law and Grace.

(c) Characterised by three associates of love.

• We should serve Jesus with a pure heart. In other words we should act from pure motives. Barclay writes: In the heart of the Christian ... there is no thought of self-display, no desire to show how clever he is, no desire to win a purely debating victory, no desire to show up the ignorance of his opponent, no desire to score off the person with whom he is discussing, the faith. His only desire is to help and to illumine and to lead nearer to God.

• We should be men and women of a good conscience. The Christian should be a man or women of integrity. There should be no incompatibility between our words and our deeds. There have always been preachers who reserve their holiness for the pulpit.

• Christians have a sincere faith - a genuine, living faith in Jesus. This is what lends credibility to a man's ministry. A true faith kindles a passion for winning others for Jesus and fosters a determination for staying in the way that leads to eternal life.

(4) The proper use of the Law.

We don't know exactly what mistakes the teachers of the Law were making in the church at Ephesus but it is likely they were urging Christians to conform to parts of the Law no longer relevant to them as Christians - for example: laws about diet, ceremonial cleanliness and Sabbath observance.

Paul affirms that the Law is good if used properly:

(a) The Law is used improperly when applied to the righteous. For example, Christians who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb do not need to observe all the rituals to do with ceremonial cleanliness.

There are still a few legalistic Christian fellowships that insist on women wearing hats during a church service. There are even more that would be offended if men attended wearing hats. I am not convinced that the presence or absence of a hat is important to God.

(b) The Law should be used to restrain, rebuke and punish the unrighteous. The church cannot countenance among its members gross and unrepentant sinners like: murderers, perverts, liars and the lawless. The unholy and irreligious need disciplining by the church. The apostle Paul had to tell the church at Corinth to exclude a young man who was sleeping with his step-mother. See exposition on 1Cor5.

Today there are Bishops happy to appoint practicing homosexuals to the ministry and liberal clergymen who do the church no favours by marrying gay couples. They are wrong because homosexual relationships are bad for society. If they became common birth rates would plummet and increasing numbers of children would be brought up without a female and male role model.

(c) The church should discipline those who teach what is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel. v11.

No Christian preacher should undermine the glorious truth that salvation is by grace through faith. The teaching of the medieval church was contrary to this with its emphasis on works rather than faith. Calvinists who insist that faith itself is a gift from God and thus part of grace teach that salvation is by faith and through faith. This is not what Paul writes! Nor does the Bible teach that salvation is by faith alone - a trap some Arminians fall into.

The glorious gospel keeps the saving work of Jesus, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, absolutely central but invites men and women to take advantage of Christ's redeeming work through trust in him.