In Ephesus, where Timothy would become bishop of the church, all sorts of cultures and religions were present. Many of the citizens of that city converted to Christianity, but they brought a lot of the baggage from their old religions and old lifestyles along with them into the church. Gentiles brought their pagan traditions with them and tried to blend some aspects of their former religions with their new faith in Christ. Jews brought their reverence for the law and for genealogies into the church and were in danger of placing more importance on these things than on faith. In addition, a form of religion called "Gnosticism" was on the rise. Gnosticism was considered outright heresy by the apostles, for it taught that the body and the material world are in a sense not real and that what is done with the body in this world doesn't really matter. This led to a belief that a person could be right in his spirit with God but do anything with his body that he pleased.
Timothy has really got his work cut out for him, but Paul trusts he will be equal to the task. He knows Timothy has the character to perform this job and he knows that God is able to give Timothy the strength he needs to stand against false doctrine.
We concluded yesterday with Paul saying that false doctrine and disputes about matters that don't involve faith are things that don't conform to God's law of love. He said, "The goal of the command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." Today he deplores the fact that there are those who have departed from the law of love and from sound doctrine. "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." (1 Timothy 1:6-7) There were people who wanted to teach the law, but they didn't understand the law, so their teachings twisted the law.
"We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious," (1 Timothy 1:8-9a) I'm going to use a modern example here to illustrate Paul's point. I'm not sitting on my couch right now afraid that at any moment the police will show up at my house to arrest me. Why would they, since I'm not breaking any laws? The laws of our land are put in place to protect our citizens: to tell us which behaviors will not be tolerated and to tell us what the consequences of these behaviors will be. The same is true of the law of Moses and of the "law of love" that we are under now that we are in Christ. The law's purpose was to show people where they were going wrong---to let them know their behavior was going to bring them under judgment if they didn't repent. The law was something a person could measure his life against to see where he was coming up short so he could correct his behavior. So this is why Paul says the laws was made for lawbreakers and rebels. Although no one but Jesus Christ ever perfectly kept the Mosaic law, a person could live in an attitude of faith and obedience to God and in that sense be considered righteous at heart. A person like that wants to keep all of God's laws and commandments and a person like that will repent as soon as he realizes he has broken one of them. Paul is talking about the type of people who don't care about keeping God's laws and commandments. This is why he refers to them as "rebels". A rebel not only disrespects the rules but enjoys breaking them.
The law is also "for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers". (1 Timothy 1:9b) Murder wasn't invented in modern times. After all, Cain killed Abel all the way back in Genesis. We see stories in the news about children killing parents or parents killing children, but things like that were happening in Paul's day too. We hear of all types of murders: murders committed during robberies, mass shootings, bombings, murders for hire, murders to get rid of a spouse a person no longer wants, murders to get rid of a baby someone doesn't want, murders as part of a series of serial killings...and we could go on and on. But the spirit of murder has been present on the earth ever since man fell from grace. People were killing people in Paul's day and people are still killing people in our day. There have to be laws against murder and there have to be penalties for it.
Another thing we tend to think we invented in modern times is sex, which is what Paul will speak of next. The Roman Empire, in which Paul and Timothy lived because they were citizens of territories Rome had conquered, had an attitude of "anything goes" when it came to sex. A Roman citizen could marry anyone he pleased, could divorce and remarry as often as he pleased, and be married to as many people at the same time as he pleased. It was well known that many Roman soldiers had wives and children at home but had male servants who traveled with them in the army who were also their lovers. Divorce was such a speedy process that a man or woman could actually marry and divorce several times a year, causing the children to constantly be in a confusing and broken home. Prostitution was legal, they had both male and female prostitutes, and people felt no shame in Roman society for visiting prostitutes. There were even prostitutes available at some of the pagan temples for the purposes of observing rituals of fertility cults. In the Roman Empire, all this and worse was happening, but I won't go into further detail.
Paul says the law is "for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality". (1 Timothy 1:10a) Bear patiently with me here. I'm going to handle the subject of all types of sex outside of marriage as lovingly and compassionately as I can. Sexual immorality is a broad term that means any type of sex other than sex between a husband and wife who are in a monogamous relationship. The union between a husband and wife is the only sexual union we find God blessing in the Scriptures, and this is why Paul says the law's purpose is to show men and women that this is the only type of sexual union they should engage in.
God didn't make the laws regarding sex so that He could hurt us. He made these laws so that He could help us. Premarital sex often leads to unplanned pregnancies, which leads young women (and sometimes also the young men involved) to make hard choices that God never intended them to have to make. They may choose to abort the child and end its life, or they may try to raise the child even though they don't want to and are not capable of doing a good job at it, or they may marry and try to make a family only to divorce shortly thereafter and cause the child to grow up in a broken home.
Adultery is harmful to everyone involved: to the spouses, to the children, to the extended family members, and to the adulterers themselves because they may lose everything they hold dear and they will face the discipline of God for the hurt they've caused. As Solomon said regarding adultery, "Can a man scoop fire into his clothes and not be burned?" (Proverbs 6:27) There's no such thing as committing adultery and getting away with it. Even if the spouses never find out, there are going to be natural repercussions and there are going to be spiritual repercussions. A person who has been unfaithful to his spouse will be aware of this for the rest of his life. Even if he repents and never does it again, he (or she) will always know he broke his marriage vows. Keeping such a secret is going to hurt the wrongdoer; revealing such a secret is going to hurt the one who was wronged. There's really no good solution, and God doesn't want the married person to live his or her life with guilt and regret, so it's best not to make the mistake of adultery in the first place. On top of all this, God sees the sin whether the adulterer is ever caught by his spouse or not. God will bring discipline on the man or woman who is being unfaithful to their spouse. He has to, because He has made laws and they are being broken.
On the subject of homosexuality, I can't help what the Bible says about it. I have friends and acquaintances who are gay and I love them as much as I love my friends and acquaintances who are straight. Jesus does too. Jesus loves every person and He died to save every person who will accept Him as Lord. But there's no question that it's a "hard row to hoe", to use a country saying, to be gay. In most societies throughout history it has not been well-tolerated to be gay. In some eras it simply made a person an outcast; in other eras it brought imprisonment or even death. It hasn't been a peaceful life for most gay or bisexual people and, as the Bible so often reminds us, God wants us to be at peace. Does anyone protest when a man and a woman go to the courthouse or a religious institution to get married to each other? No, because who cares? Does anyone persecute a man and a woman for dating each other, for getting engaged to each other, or for being married to each other? No, because there's no law against such things---not in man's law and not in God's law. So we see that when God tells us what type of sex has His blessing and what types don't have His blessing, He's doing it for our own peace and personal safety.
Paul says the law is "for slave traders and liars and perjurers---and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine". (1 Timothy 1:10b) Again we see that the purpose of the law is to shine a light on wrong behavior. Kidnapping people and selling them into slavery was a practice of ancient times and the not-so-ancient times. This is against God's law. So is committing perjury. So is lying.
Which of us has never told a lie? We might have gone down Paul's list and thought we were okay. We might have said, "Well, I've never murdered anybody. I've never had premarital sex, or adulterous sex, or sex with the same sex. I've never been involved in the slavery business. I've never committed perjury in court. I'm in pretty good shape!" Ah, but who has never told a lie? And if we've ever told a lie, we are lawbreakers, and that means we are sinners. And if we are sinners, we need a Savior, the Savior that Paul preaches about when he shares the gospel, "that which conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which He entrusted to me." (1 Timothy 1:11)
God made laws. We have all broken one, some, or most of them. That makes us lawbreakers. That means we need a source of redemption outside of ourselves. We need the One who perfectly kept the law, the One who gave Himself for us, the One who rose from the dead. We are lawbreakers who need forgiveness from the Lawgiver. Christ gave His life so we could obtain that forgiveness.
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