Week 48 1 Timothy 1
Here’s the very first thing Paul told Timothy: command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer.
What I wondered was: what were the false doctrines Paul was talking about?
I decided to quick-read the letter from-beginning-to-end and find those unorthodox beliefs. Sad to say but I didn’t find what I was after. But I did find three things.
1. Paul mostly didn’t name specific false teachings. He stuck with generic expressions:
myths and endless genealogies
controversial speculations
godless myths
godless chatter
falsely called knowledge
The only specific examples of false teaching I found were:
forbidding people to marry
ordering people to abstain from certain kinds of food.
2. I was surprised to see that one of the repercussions of bad teaching is that people who buy into it will eventually abandon the faith (a bit later Paul reaffirms this. They have: departed from the faith).
3. And if #2 (abandoning the faith) isn’t bad enough there’s another problem. People who make a switch to false doctrine have started to follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. They’ve turned away to follow Satan.
I initially figured that the “false doctrines” Paul was thinking about were garden-variety errors. Minor misunderstandings. But it looks like there’s more to them. Directionally-speaking false doctrines seem to be aiming me straight into the danger zone.
So two Useful Personal Questions: a) how far off-the-beaten-path is this idea going to take me? And b) is it worth the risk?
Note: quotes from 1 Timothy 1:3-4 4:7 6:20 4:3 4:1 6:21 5:15 (NIV)