This is the first of three lectures on the pastoral epistles held at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The speaker is the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Church. Tonight's lecture is entitled, The True Function of the Church. Turning to 1 Timothy this evening. I want to say a little bit about the pastoral epistles in general before we look very quickly at this one in particular. Paul wrote four letters that we still have, which are part of the New Testament, to individuals.

These are in addition to the many letters that he wrote to churches. And three out of the four constitute a group that are called the pastoral epistles. The other is a little, very brief, very personal, incredibly personal letter to a man named Philemon about an escaped slave by the name of Onesimus.

And it stands alone. It's a letter unto itself, very much worth our study at another point. But these three of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are usually linked together, grouped together, and called the pastoral epistles because they deal primarily with the relationship between the pastor and his flock, or the minister and his flock, the leader, if you will, and those that he leads.

They're addressed to two younger men who both were converts under Paul's ministry. We know that Timothy, in particular, came from a Christian family. Not only his mother, but his grandmother were believers and had prayed for him.

And Paul acknowledges their part in Timothy's coming to faith. We know less about Titus' background, but we do know that both of them, at various points, shared Paul's ministry. One about on the missionary endeavor that Paul had engaged upon previously.

Now we're coming toward the very end of Paul's life. He's an old man, at least spiritually speaking, a very great elder. And he foresees the conclusion of his ministry, its termination.

One has a suspicion, and this is particularly true by the time we get to 2 Timothy, that Paul knew that he was not going to be released from prison. You have to add a little bit of extra-biblical material to some very fleeting hints that are found in the letters themselves to discover that Paul was incarcerated twice. Once in around 62-63 A.D.

under Nero, before whom he stood trial, And this is what the book of Acts anticipates as it ends. He's still in jail as the book of Acts comes to a close. But apparently he was released from that, had a bit more ministry, and then somewhere around 65, 66, maybe as late as 67, he was imprisoned again and finally martyred.

And Christian tradition tells us it was by beheading. These three letters are probably the last things that he wrote. And they come in the order of 1 Timothy, Titus, and then 2 Timothy, not in the order in which we have them in the Bible.

We're going to read them the next few weeks in that order. 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy. And by the time we get to 2 Timothy, we really have the finest wine.

The most aged wine. The very finest, saved till last. It's in many ways the most lovely portrait that we have of Paul's care as a pastor for those that he led at the same time that he's entrusting to these younger men the responsibility of leadership.

The general theme is ministry. 1 Timothy deals in a general way with the minister and his ministry or the leader and his flock as I've already said. Titus develops more the church, principles and guidelines for the church itself, and then 2 Timothy deals in a most incredibly personal and very special way with the minister, the leader.

These are trusted men, trusted younger companions to whom Paul is transferring what God has entrusted to him. You might just turn for a moment to 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 2. We'll be referring to this several times.

A kind of signal verse here for all three letters. A kind of summary of discipleship. 2 Timothy 2.2 What you have heard from me before many witnesses in trust of faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

And in one verse, we have four spiritual generations. What you have heard from me. There's the first one, Paul.

What you have heard is the second one, Timothy and Titus. Among many witnesses, entrust to faithful men. That's the third generation.

Paul to Timothy to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And you have this sense of the passing of the torch from one generation to another. I've often reflected on the fact that my grandfather lived to be 98 years old.

And if there had been somebody alive when he was just a very young child who had lived to the same age, and in turn somebody who had been nearly 100 when that man was born, There are only 20 men between me and Jesus. If you stop to think of it that way, you see how absolutely critical each one is in passing on to the next generation. Of course, that's an extraordinary way of putting it.

Typically, a generation would be more like 30 years or so in terms of the real work of the ministry, but no less critical. Each one absolutely has to play his role in passing on what he's received to the next generation. This is one of the themes then, the transfer of leadership.

And what we're going to be doing in the three lectures here is a little bit different from what we've done previously, which has been a fairly careful verse-by-verse or at least paragraph-by-paragraph kind of study. We're not taking the time to do that in this series. We're going to take a much quicker overview, and I'm just going to try to draw the main theme and then leave you to go in and fill in the details in your own study.

I want us to just get a bird's eye view of a bird's eye view. Now these two men, Timothy and Titus, were in a very special position. We don't really have anybody else that occupies the same position in Christian history.

There were the apostles, and then at a later date, there were the bishops. and Timothy and Titus are put into a role that comes in between those two. We don't even have a name for it.

You'd call them sub-apostolic. In one sense, they'd be most like today's archbishop where we have an archbishop. But they didn't have that at that point.

Paul is retiring from his leadership and passing on the ministry to these two men, Timothy in Ephesus, Titus in Crete. And he's instructing them to place into positions of leadership bishops. So they're going to be above the bishops, and yet they're not apostles.

Why would we take the time to study something which on the surface of it looks so exclusively directed to the clergy? The inner workings of bishops and archbishops and apostles and so on. Well, I want to just take a moment to explain a couple of very important things here that you might not be aware of on the surface.

Turn over to Titus chapter 1. And beginning with verse 5. Paul says, This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

if any man is blameless the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate that's all one big sentence this is some of the qualification for being an elder and we'll see more about that later then he goes on to say verse 7 for a bishop as God's steward must be blameless he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or drunkard or so on and so on Notice, please, that he's using two words there virtually interchangeably. This is why I left you in Crete, that you might appoint elders, da da da da da da da, for a bishop must be thus and so. He's using the word elder and the word bishop virtually interchangeably.

And this is characteristic of the New Testament. You find this repeatedly in the book of Acts. Paul comes on a missionary visit to a given town and meets with the elders or the bishops interchangeably.

The word that we translate bishop in Greek is episkopos, from which we get our word episkopal. And it's a complex word from skopos and epi. Scopus would be basic to any number of words that we have in English.

Telescope, microscope, periscope. It means what? To see or to look at.

And epi is a prefix that means to do something rigorously or all the more strenuously or more deliberately. So epi, scopus, is to look at very, very carefully, to scrutinize, to be totally aware of what's happening. And the word had a common political meaning, long before we ever get to the New Testament, of being an overseer.

It was a political word, amongst other things. A governor might send in an episkopos, an episkopos, to look at what was happening in a given town, to be cognizant of what was going on and report back to the governor. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the word episkopos is frequently used of God himself God is the overseer who comes and scrutinizes his people Israel he comes and takes careful consideration of what's going on he's not a God that's removed from his people but he's intimately involved in the details of their lives he's concerned about what concerns them in the New Testament the Episcopos is who?

Jesus. Book of Hebrews says he is the bishop, Episcopos, he is the bishop and guardian of our souls. Jesus in the New Testament has the role of overseer that was Yahweh's, the Lord's in the Old Testament.

The other word is presbyteros. from which we get what? Presbyterian.

Literally means elder. This is overseer. This is elder.

Again, Greek version of the Old Testament, the word presbyteros was used for the elders of Israel ever since the days of Moses when they set aside 70 men to help govern. They were the presbyteroi. And that idea of the eldership carries directly over into the New Testament.

It's an Israeli concept or a Hebrew concept translated directly into the New Testament. Now the point is that these two words are in New Testament days used virtually interchangeably. God is the bishop.

Jesus is the bishop. But there are others who are invested with episcopal oversight in every town, who are not the bishop, but who are bishops, whose ministry is like unto Jesus, a ministry of caring, of careful scrutinizing, of knowing what's going on amongst God's people, both to encourage and support on the one hand, and to rebuke and chastise if need be on the other. At this point in Christian history, we do not have bishops and then priests or elders beneath them.

It's the bishops and elders together, words being used interchangeably. You sense here something that in the next couple of centuries does evolve, and it's an almost necessary kind of an evolution, that the word episkopos becomes reserved for the kind of chief shepherd in a given area. So there is one bishop and many presbyteroi, many elders, who are responsible to him under the Lord.

But at this point, they're all used interchangeably. I want to say one other thing about this. It's a great irony of the English language, that the word presbyteros came down to us in Old English, proest.

Presbyteros became proest. In Middle English, preest. And in Modern English, priest.

Now the point here is that our word priest, as applied to a Christian minister, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Old Testament concept of priesthood. That was abolished in Jesus. Please be very, very clear about this.

The Old Testament idea of priesthood is one who sacrifices. There are three ideas that go hand in hand. Priest, altar, sacrifice.

The priest is the one who offers up sacrifices on an altar to appease an angry God. That is completely abolished in Jesus Christ. Book of Hebrews says we have one great high priest who has offered the perfect sacrifice and he has abolished the old system.

That word was hurios. The word for Old Testament priesthood is hurios. There is no sense whatsoever in which the New Testament ever calls a Christian minister a hurios, a sacrificing priest.

We do not offer sacrifices. The sacrifice has been offered. If we're biblical, we do not have altars.

You may call that an altar upstairs, but you're not being biblical. It's a table. We have a table because we celebrate a meal.

We don't offer sacrifices. If you call it an altar, God will forgive you. but it's really only figurative.

It's figurative in the loosest sense. And as a matter of fact, the Church of England canon law specifies that you may not have an altar made of stone and immovable fixed to the wall. It must be wood.

It must be movable. It must be clearly a table. Now, when we call a Christian minister, an Episcopal minister, if you will, a priest, what we're really saying is he's an elder.

He's not a sacrificer, he's an elder. And so you see this system which evolved by the middle of the second century a little bit later. Episcopos became Episcopos.

and then the E got dropped and the U.S. got dropped and you have bishop little etymology here of your words for you so Timothy and Titus are being called upon by the Apostle Paul they're being invested with a sub-apostolic authority to appoint, mind you, they didn't have a congregational election, to appoint elders in every city, elders and or bishops, to appoint leaders. Again, the question, why then are we studying these letters?

Well, because we're all called to be ministers in the Christian church. And in a larger sense, we're all called to grow into eldership. You may not formally be appointed an elder, but you're supposed to be growing and becoming more and more elder all the time, and God will give you, as that happens, those for whom you are to exercise pastoral care, just as others have invested in you, so you, following exactly this same pattern, are to be caring for others and God will give you sheep to shepherd if you're being faithful to him.

Doesn't mean that you'll ever have some public ministry of speaking. You may and you may not. But you will grow in eldership, grow in leadership.

And so the principles that we have in these three little books, I think apply to all of us. We're to be governing our churches by these principles. We're to be looking for these qualities of leadership in those that we would elect to our vestry as well as those that we would accept as our clergy.

But in a larger sense, we're all to be moving in this direction. I think it's interesting that the Good News Bible, American Bible Society, today's English version, translates this, not bishops and elders, but leaders and helpers. These are principles for leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Now one other quick word of introduction. I need to acknowledge that there has been a whole lot of controversy regarding both the date and the authorship of these books. Probably no books in the New Testament have been more severely criticized as being fraudulently apostolic.

And the critics have said they were written much, much later. Some would date them as late as the middle of the second century. Forged, if you would.

written in the name of Paul to lend his endorsement to things which had evolved in the church much later. Personally, I think that's a totally obnoxious and spurious kind of an argument. Number one, I don't think that the development is as great as some would say.

We've just been talking about some of it. There was not a highly developed, hierarchical system of church authority at this point. It may have been anticipated to some extent, but it was not highly structured.

Some would see bishops and elders and deacons. That was not here. But number two, I would allow some room for a bit of development within the New Testament itself, certainly within the lifetime of Paul.

Just for point of comparison, sometime you might do a little bit of study on the enormous development between Acts chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians 11 in terms of the Lord's Supper. Enormous development. Acts chapter 2, the Lord's Supper was a common everyday occurrence in the homes of the people like a potluck supper presided over presumably by the lady of the house.

as had been the case in Judaism. A real meal. By the time you get to 1 Corinthians 11, it's much more recognizably what we would have today.

A symbolic meal. And they're being given the instruction, eat at home before you come. Because of the abuse.

People were coming to the Lord's Supper and some were behaving like gluttons and even getting drunk while others were going hungry. And so there's an enormous development by 55 AD. And nobody questions the authenticity of 1 Corinthians.

So I think there is room for some development within the New Testament itself. The development is not as great as the critics would charge, and yet there is room for some. I think the one main thing that has developed by the time we get to 1 Timothy, you discover in the very first two verses.

let me see if you can find it for yourself let's just hold our finger here in 1st Timothy and turn back a few pages and compare the way Paul begins some of his other letters look at Ephesians for instance somebody read the first two verses of Ephesians Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus for the will of God to the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus. Okay. Paul, an apostle to the saints who are faithful. Okay, let's turn over to Colossians. Again, the first two verses.

Somebody else read that? Good. Again, Paul, and this time we meet Timothy.

Timothy is apparently with him at the time of this writing. Paul and Timothy to the saints and faithful brethren. Try 1 Thessalonians.

Keep going. we give thanks to God always for you thank you again Timothy is with Paul and a man named Silvanus to the church of the Thessalonians we give thanks to God for you constantly mentioning you remembering your work of faith alright let's look at one more 2 Thessalonians again the same kind of an introduction in verse 3 we are bound to give thanks to God always for you brothers as is fitting because your faith is growing abundantly you begin to see a pattern here Paul to so and so we give thanks or we praise God or we pray for you in terms of your faith, your faithfulness, your growth in faith. Now look at how he begins to Timothy. Not now, Henry.

You may say it later. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my true child, in the faith. don't miss that little word faith as an enterprise here becomes the faith as a sacred deposit that's the major piece of development and the most important thing that we want to see tonight faith as an enterprise my putting my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ a relationship of trust, faithfulness as a characteristic, now is being spoken of as the faith.

My true child in the faith. And the theme, the overarching theme of these three little letters, is guard the faith. The emphasis suddenly shifts here to doctrine, to truth, if you will.

Just notice how frequently it's spoken of in terms of a deposit. Look at verse 3. I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus, that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith.

Look down at verse 10. He gives a whole list of sins that the law is good and the law is not there to condemn those who use it lawfully. It's there to condemn those who don't. And whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.

Verse 10. Over and over and over there's words command and teach these things. Chapter 4 verse 11.

Chapter 5, verse 7, command this. End of chapter 5, verse 21, I charge you to keep these rules without favor. Chapter 6, teach and urge these duties.

Verse 3, if anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit. He knows nothing. He has a morbid craving for controversy, for disputes about words which produce envy, dissensions, slander, base suspicions, wranglings among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

Verse 12, fight the good fight of the faith. Verse 14, I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach. Verse 20, O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.

And it ends, verse 21, Some have missed the mark as regards the faith. You see that? What's at stake here is doctrine, truth, the faith, a sacred deposit, as we already saw in 2 Timothy, that which you have heard from me among many faithful witnesses and trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Now these two things are not at odds with each other. We're not abandoning faith as an enterprise for the faith as some kind of cold book of doctrine or theology. Not at all.

But there's a realization that has to grip our hearts that faith, the exercise of faith, apart from doctrine or content, ultimately becomes empty. Ultimately becomes some kind of an emotional trip. Or worse, becomes heresy.

Or even Satanism. One of the strongest words in this letter. Beginning of chapter 4.

The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith. By giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. It may appear on the surface just an interesting variation.

One more denomination. Somebody's got a little bit different slant on things. A strictly human interpretation.

Paul says that behind the human personalities involved, there is a demonic subterfuge. That faith, apart from sound doctrine, ultimately leads to heresy and Satanism. Now equally, on the other side, doctrine, apart from a lively exercise of faith, is sterile and pharisaic.

God forbid that we would end up just being good theologians. Have that very strong word from James. You believe in God, you do well.

So do the demons and shudder. Doctrine by itself is never going to save anybody. But faith apart from the truth is ultimately going to dissipate into emotionalism or much worse.

The word doctrine appears 15 times in these three letters in contrast to only six times in all the rest of the New Testament put together. And over and over and over again we hear Paul speaking of sound doctrine here. And this is the only place that he does speak of it that way.

Sound doctrine. This is the emphasis. Guard the truth.

Guard the faith. Guard that sacred deposit of sound doctrine. Notice another thing.

It's a little phrase that comes up over and over about a true saying or a sure saying. For instance, in the first chapter, this is the most famous, at least amongst Anglicans, verse 15. We know it from our traditional liturgy.

This is a true saying and worthy of all men to be received. What? That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

What's happening? Paul is quoting a little summary statement which is already very widespread in the church. It's like almost a little chorus, a little nugget of doctrine.

It's a true saying. This is a saying that's being used. They may have even sung it.

And Paul says, it's a true saying. It's a good saying. It's a sure saying, worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

In fact, it's probably John's saying. That's the way John consistently spoke. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And Paul says that's true. And as a matter of fact, I'm the foremost of them. And then chapter 3.

The saying is sure. If anyone aspires to the office of a bishop, He desires a noble task. That was another little saying.

It's not bad to want to be a bishop. Perfectly legitimate, a good thing. But be aware of how high the standards are.

It's a good saying. It's another one over in chapter 4, verse 9. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance.

What saying? The one which immediately precedes it. Train yourself in godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, some value, Godliness is of value in every way. That saying is true. It's a true saying.

I could find a couple of kind of summaries that would draw all of this together for us. I think from one point of view, the main one for all three letters is 1 Timothy 4 and verse 16. from one point of view, is probably the key verse for the pastoral epistles.

Timothy, take heed to yourself and to your teaching. Hold to that, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. This is Paul's charge to this young man.

A young man entering into leadership, major leadership. And Paul's summing up of the whole burden of that leadership is, Timothy, take heed to yourself and to your teaching. Hold to that.

For by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. It's not just the teaching alone, but you've got to practice what you preach. It's not just the lifestyle alone, but you've got to preach what you practice.

take heed to yourself to your life let your life adorn your doctrine but let your doctrine be true and by so doing you will save yourself and those who hear you this is what you are to pass on to the next generation of leadership sound doctrine adorned by godly living one other summary which I think really is the most important for the first letter. The one we've just looked at covers all three. This one is the focal point of 1 Timothy.

Chapter 3 in the last paragraph, beginning with verse 14. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

Isn't that an interesting definition of the church? The bulwark of the truth. Here's how you behave in it.

You see those two things again reflected, your behavior and your teaching. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion or the mystery of godliness. King James, mystery of godliness.

Or the mystery of piety. Great indeed is the mystery of godliness. And here again, a little true saying.

A little summary statement. He, obviously Jesus, was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. if you're like I am you come to this kind of a little set of verses little poetic insertion and you tend to skip over it I read the Tolkien books and whenever I came to the poetry I skipped them third time through my wife said if you skip the poetry you've missed the whole point go back and read those little hobbit songs and you'll finally understand what they're about.

Same thing is true here. In my opinion, this is the very focal point of 1 Timothy. Don't skip over it.

Paul is again quoting something that is widespread in the church already. In fact, it very probably was the first Christian hymn as such. And he says this, this summary statement is the mystery or it's a putting into doctrinal form a summary of the mystery of our godliness, of our right standing before God.

That's what it's all about, ladies and gentlemen. My right standing before a righteous and holy God is summed up in these little verses. Timothy, you've been charged to guard the truth.

What truth? This truth. to pass on to faithful men who will be able to equip others as well the truth, that which has been entrusted to you.

What truth? This truth. It's a doctrinal statement.

A statement about Jesus Christ. So let's just go through it. He was manifested in the flesh.

That tells us, number one, He had a pre-existence. He was already there prior to being manifested in the flesh, but He became flesh for our sake. In that one little phrase is summed up the whole mystery of Christ's pre-existence and becoming man.

He who pre-existed became manifest or evident as a human being. He took flesh upon Himself. As Tertullian put it, The Son of God became a man so that men might become the sons of God.

He was manifested in the flesh. Vindicated or justified or shown to be the righteous one in the Spirit. I think that the RSV is probably wrong in capitalizing Spirit.

They take it to be a reference to the Holy Spirit. Vindicated in or by the Holy Spirit. I don't think that's what it means.

I think it means He was vindicated or shown to be the righteous one in spirit. In His spiritual body, in other words. Manifested in the flesh, in a fleshly body.

Vindicated in His spiritual body. Or in other words, raised from the dead. He became a man, the mystery of the incarnation.

He died as a man, but was raised from that death, the mystery of the resurrection. Seen by angels. Angelos can be translated angels in the sense of angelic host, but it also literally means messengers.

Seen by messengers. Who? the apostles themselves now if you take it to be the angelic host I don't quarrel with you but more particularly the apostles claim to authority was we were eyewitnesses of his glory we were there we saw it John begins his letter that which has been from before the foundation of the world concerning the word of life we have looked upon and touched with our very hands you see we were eyewitnesses when Judas goes out and hangs himself they look to fill his number and they cast lots the one criterion to be eligible was somebody who has been with us from the beginning somebody who in other words is an eyewitness so that Jesus can say the Holy Spirit will come and aid and abet your remembrance you are my witnesses and he will be my witness as well.

Paul's whole argument throughout 1st and 2nd Corinthians is that he too is really an apostle because the Lord Jesus revealed the gospel to him directly. He didn't get it from any other man. Even though he was born out of due season.

He didn't live through it with the other apostles but the Lord Jesus revealed it to him by revelation. So he too is an eyewitness. This Jesus was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in spirit or by resurrection, seen by eyewitness messengers, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up into glorious heavenly session.

This is the truth that is to be guarded. This is the gospel. Gospel of supernatural incarnation, sinless life, atoning death, mighty resurrection, glorious ascension, and heavenly session.

This is the gospel that the church is to proclaim in the world. And it is this gospel which is under incessant attack. Already it's under attack by the time Paul writes the letter.

There are those, as in the first chapter, who want to add to the gospel with new doctrines, myths, genealogies, all kinds of theological baggage. Look at first chapter. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith and so on and so on and so on.

They want to add to it. There are those, as in the fourth chapter, who want to subtract from it, who want to take away from the sufficiency of the gospel by all these other things that unless you do them, you will not qualify for godliness. The gospel is inadequate by itself.

and so they've got to have these additional rules forbidding of marriage you mustn't get married if you want to really be fully holy marriage is okay for the common people but if you really want to be a saint you've got to be a celibate and an ascetic or you've got to go through fasting and abstinence from certain foods mustn't eat meat mustn't eat anything on Friday God has created these things he says, to be received with thanksgiving. The gospel is under attack, either to be added to or to subtracted from, which, by the way, ultimately turn out to be the same thing. You can't add to the gospel without subtracting from it.

Jim Packer had a lovely quote that I'd like to share with you. He said, You cannot add to evangelical theology without subtracting from it. By augmenting it, you cannot enrich it.

You can only impoverish it. Thus, for example, if you add to the gospel a doctrine of human priestly mediation, as here, if you add to the gospel that we have human beings who serve as priests and who mediate between God and man, you take away the truth of the perfect adequacy of our Lord's priestly mediation. You cannot add without taking away, which is precisely what the book of Hebrews argues.

If you add to the gospel a doctrine of human merit in whatever form, you take away the truth of the perfect adequacy of the merits of Christ. Packer says this principle applies at point after point. What is more than biblical theology is less than biblical theology.

What is more than God's truth is less than God's truth. God's truth, he says, by its very nature cannot be supplemented. It can only be denied.

Now, finally, it's my opinion that all the other parts of this first letter to Timothy extrapolate this theme. Now, they're very, very important in and of themselves. In one sense it's a tragedy that we have to just run over them so quickly.

Each paragraph is rich, but I'll have to leave you this time around to pretty much study them for yourself. I just want us to see the thing that ties them all together, this main theme of guarding and protecting the truth. For instance, chapter 2, first paragraph.

We're to pray for good government. We're to pray for all men and particularly for kings and those who are in high positions. We could preach many, many sermons just on that.

The need to be upholding our leaders, whoever they may be, whether you like them or not. Remember that Paul wrote this in the days of Nero, when the Christians are being burned and crucified and given to the lions for dinner. But notice tonight that the reason we're to pray, the principal reason, is that a stable society, the byproduct of good government, is conducive to a receptivity to the truth.

Pray for kings in all in high positions. Why? That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectable in every way.

This is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. Why? Because he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

It's much more conducive to doing that if you have a stable situation than if people are at war with each other. So pray for your government. The next paragraph, the very, very controversial paragraph on women's submissiveness, Again, is primarily a matter of creating an appropriate image for onlookers to adorn the gospel with an appropriate lifestyle.

Look at verse 10. But by good deeds as befits women who profess religion. Paul's words here are directed to establishing a pattern of behavior that will befit the proclamation of the truth.

Now again, we would have to really dig in to see all the nuances of what he has to say about women's submissiveness. We don't have time to do that tonight. Sorry about that, ladies.

It's a very complicated subject. My opinion, I can just state it tonight, is my opinion is that Paul saw a whole lot of latitude for women's leadership. There were prophetesses within the church.

There were women in various kinds of authority. But he's making a generalization here which is again primarily aimed at the onlooker who is absolutely scandalized that women and men should even be meeting together in a place of worship. This was unheard of in either Greek or Hebrew society.

Unheard of. They didn't meet together. Most of the women are totally uneducated in things religious or things philosophical.

And you can just see what happens. They come to the meeting and they're saying, hey, what's going on? Explain that to me.

And Paul says, let them be quiet and ask their questions when they get home. Let him establish a pattern as befits godliness and true religion. The qualifications for leadership in chapter 3, again, rich and tremendously important in and of themselves, but they're primarily tied in with creating an appropriate leadership to that gospel which we are entrusted with.

He must manage his household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way. For if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God's truth? For God's church, sorry.

We're to honor our elders in chapter 4. We're to provide for our families in chapter 5. We're to pay great respect to our leaders in chapter 6.

We're to be generous with our possessions. But all of these various sub-themes elaborate ways in which our mission here is to be adorning the gospel with our lives. That's the main point.

We're to be adorning the gospel with our lives. Or, in short, taking heed to ourselves and our teaching. We sometimes hear it said that the church gave us the Bible.

And therefore the church has the right to pass judgment on it. But you begin to see here the scripture standing in judgment on the church. It's the other way around.

Paul repeatedly says, this word I did not get from anyone but from the Lord himself. he who would disregard it let him be anathema the word judges the church the whole question of the canon of scripture what books are to be included in the New Testament was not a conferring of authority but simply a recognizing of authority that these books speak to us with God's authority and we are to submit ourselves to what God has spoken. The church does not stand in judgment on the Bible.

The Bible stands in judgment on the church. We're to guard the truth. We're to proclaim the truth.

Our lives are to embody and adorn the truth. We're to pray for all that promotes the truth. G. Campbell Morgan, a great preacher of the last century, summed it up this way.

He said, The church of God in the world today has as its function the proclamation of the truth of godliness. Those who teach the word of God have as their responsibility that they give such exposition of the truth in teaching and life that the church shall be equipped for her great work. May he who has honored us with the sacred responsibility fit us for the fulfillment of the duty.

What is the true function of the church? Keep the faith, baby. Henry, what were you going to say?

He was. And he was commending them for their very arduous commitment to Christ. The thing I just wanted to pick up on was the way in which he used the word faith.

in addition to, I think your point is probably the main point of that first chapter. But in addition to it, he was speaking of faith as an exercise or an enterprise. And by the time we come, this is not exclusive to the pastoral letters, by the way.

You have the same kind of a note being struck in Galatians. You know, who has bewitched you? Having started out with the gospel that you would have departed from it.

But I think it sounded much more loudly and clearly here in these three little letters. So that the summary, the final tying it all together here, is that to guard faithfulness, that lively, warm enterprise of putting my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, to protect that, to shield that, to guard the salvation of men's souls necessarily involves guarding doctrine. That's what we've really come down to.

Guard the truth, Timothy. Protect this sacred deposit, both by your teaching and by your life. Are there any other questions or comments?

Yes, please. I found it a little bit confusing when you were talking about the evangelical thing about priesthood and praying with someone. I think it's confusing to me because I've always been taught about intersexual prayer and people interceding. I had an argument last night with Tim about how I've always believed that we can pray for one another. If we can pray for one another here in the church, people on earth said why can't the saints pray for us so I'm in my high church tradition I've always believed that you know you could pray to a saint to pray for you of course you were a sermon several months ago so it stirred me up on that but that's good I mean it made me think about that for a few more depth but when you said something about a priest and I got a little bit confused because I don't know the difference between praying for someone and offering them Priest in the Old Testament sense is mediation. Someone who stands between God and man. The critical question of all human history is how will sinful man stand before holy God?

Okay? And in the Old Testament, God had honored a system of priesthood in which human beings stood in a mediatorial role. the priest represented God to the people and represented the people to God on behalf of the people he would take an innocent animal a lamb or a sheep a goat, a pigeon, what have you and would kill it and symbolically the sins of the people would be transferred to the animal the animal's life would be taken instead of the lives of the people this is where we get the word scapegoat They would place the sins on the goat.

The goat would go off into the wilderness to die and the people would escape. Escape goat. Okay?

And the priest stands there in one way or another and offers that sacrifice so that the people get to God through the sacrifice and through the priest's ministry. And the word priest in the Old Testament is hureus. H-I-E-R-E-U-S. Hureus.

Okay? Now we come into the New Testament and Jesus is the great high priest and the sacrifice he offers is himself. And so the book of Hebrews, you might just turn over with me to that for a minute.

We've referred to it. Just see if we can find it. Look at chapter 10 of the book of Hebrews.

when he uses the phrase the law here he's really referring to the whole system of priesthood and Levitical law and mediation for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities it can never by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year it that is this whole Levitical system can never make perfect those who draw near. If it could, why would they not have ceased to be offered? In other words, if once it had done its job, that would have been enough.

But instead they have to do it over and over and over, which tells you that it doesn't do the job perfectly. If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices, that is the Levitical sacrifices, Old Testament priesthood, there is a reminder of sin year after year, Day of Atonement in particular.

For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, these are some scriptures from the Old Testament, some prophetic scriptures which refer to the Messiah. He applies them to himself.

Christ says, sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, But a body thou, God, hast prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, I, the mediator, the Messiah, I said, Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God, as it is written of me in the roll of the book.

So on, so on. Verse 9. He abolishes.

Get that word. He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. He abolishes the one system in order to establish the other.

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service. Old Testament priest, every hurios, every sacrificer stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. The old system of Levitical priesthood, of mediation of priesthood, is abolished, completely done away with.

The new system is one high priest who has offered one sacrifice once for all. That's what we say in our communion service. He offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

Right? I'm not offering a sacrifice. He offered the sacrifice.

New Testament, what we have is not priests, but elders. What I did here was simply took you through a little excursus to show one of the greatest ironies of the English language, that there has been an evolution of the word presbyteros or presbyter into priest. But it means elder.

It does not mean a sacrificer. So if you want to call me a priest, I'm perfectly happy to have you do so. I am a priest.

But the word priest means presbyter, elder. Okay? That was really just a parenthesis.

But I thought it was an important one. Amy? I think our liturgy perpetuates some of this idea. There are words like, in here we have heard that we don't say as ourselves and minds to be a reasonable way. Yes, it does. Can you all hear what she's saying? She says that the liturgy perpetuates some of this, and she's right.

There is sacrificial language in our liturgy. Here we offer and present unto thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice. Sure, and a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, but not a sacrifice for sin.

Sacrifice for sin, by definition, is a blood sacrifice. There can be no redemption of sin except by the shedding of blood. Old Testament and New Testament.

Sacrifice in that sense is a blood offering. We're offering ourselves, sure, sacrificially. A living sacrifice, but not a sin offering.

We are not justified by offering ourselves back to God. That's the important thing. And the sacrifice of our praise, sure.

We are humbling ourselves and we are offering God our praise, the sacrifice of our lips. But it's not for sin. It does not take away sin.

That's what we're talking about. Does that answer it? Terribly, terribly important.

You can read all that back into the liturgy if you want to. But you're really reading into it an Old Testament view, which the New Testament has said has been abolished. It's not there.

Money. Can you give us some examples today of adding to the truth? Sure.

Sure. Thou must not smoke, drink, dance, wear makeup, go to movies. That's one.

I think that our church, in insisting that you must have a monarchical, hierarchical system of bishops, adds. That's a legitimate way of governing your church, but it certainly is not the only possible way. I think we're excessive in insisting on that.

And, you know, when we have the Lambeth quadrilateral or the Chicago quadrilateral, and we put on the same level as the authority of Scripture, the insistence on bishops in this sense of a hierarchical form, we're really going beyond Scripture. Scripture would certainly say you may govern in that way, But it wouldn't insist that you must, as we've seen here. Bishops, in the plural, in every city.

Many bishops, many elders, in the plural. And then I think virtually every denomination has its own little special things that it insists on. So that the Baptists would say, unless you're baptized by immersion.

Scripture doesn't say you must be baptized by immersion. It says you must be baptized. It doesn't tell anything about the mode.

Okay? good let's have a prayer together Lord we bow before you just to draw together the threads of these last few moments of our discussion we would see again this evening the mystery of godliness that my right standing before you is in no way what I have done, but it's in what Jesus Christ has done for me. He was manifested in the flesh.

He was vindicated in the Spirit. He was seen by messengers. He was preached among the nations.

He was believed on. here on earth. He was taken up into glory.

And that's the mystery of my godliness. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this doctrinal summary of all my hope.

We would see tonight, Lord, that it's not the rules that some would add. It's not those things, on the other hand, which would subtract. But it's that truth, believed on, trusted in, and lived out in my life.

Thank You, Father, for causing Paul to see that so clearly. That faith without sound doctrine becomes an empty and vain thing. Ultimately heresy and even worse.

Thank You for His care to protect The truth revealed in Your Word. Thank You for Timothy's faithfulness in passing it on to other faithful men in Ephesus. Thank You for their faithfulness in transmitting it to still others who have passed it on generation to generation to us.

Lord, I beg You. I beg You in the name of Jesus to help me to be faithful in this commission. To never teach anything but what I find in Scripture.

Whenever I'm shown to have been in error by the Scripture, to immediately correct myself. We pray for each other as we move into positions of leadership in your church. Help us to guard the truth.

To take heed to ourselves and to our teaching. to hold to that, that we might save both ourselves and our hearers. For Christ's sake.

Amen.