Take your Bibles with me and turn to Acts 20. Acts 20. Also go ahead and turn to 1st Timothy chapter 1 and put a bookmark or something there. I plan on starting a little series through 1 Timothy on Sunday nights. And you might think, why are we turning to Acts chapter 20 then? I'm gonna explain that. Acts chapter 19 tells the story of Paul's ministry in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was the most important Roman city in what today we call Turkey and in Bible times they called Asia. Paul's ministry in Ephesus started with just two people, Aquila and Priscilla, but it grew to be a very successful ministry. Paul stayed there for two years and the church in Ephesus grew and became sort of the headquarters for the gospel in Asia. His ministry there was so successful that people in Ephesus stopped buying idols and their idol industry was threatened and the lost people of Ephesus rioted against the Apostle Paul. At the beginning of Chapter 20 the Apostle Paul moves on and goes to Macedonia in Greece to continue his ministry there. But in the middle of the chapter, he calls together the leaders of the church of Ephesus to meet him in a place called Miletus and in Miletus he gives them some important instructions. Those instructions are very important for our understanding of 1st Timothy. So can you picture this with me? Paul is bringing together the leaders, the elders, of his most successful ministry, probably the most important ministry in all of Christendom at this point, the Church of Ephesus. I want to read you what he says to them. > [25](#) And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. > [26](#) Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. > [27](#) For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. > [28](#) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. > [29](#) For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. > [30](#) Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. > [31](#) Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. > Acts 20:25-31 (KJV) There are a couple of important things to note here: 1. The first is that Paul taught them the whole counsel of God. He fed that church the Bible and all of it. 2. The second thing is that Paul is very concerned that this church is going to be taken over by what he calls "grievous wolves entering in among you". There are going to be some bad people that come in and eat up the sheep of that church. 3. The third thing is that some of those sheep, some of those wolves, are actually going to be people that are leaders in this church. Some of the elders he's talking to are going to be people that come in and they are going to speak perverse things and they're going to draw away people from the church. So Paul wants them to know, I'm not going to see you anymore. You need to be on the lookout. These things are going to happen. You are going to have a problem with false teachers and some of you are going to be those false teachers. Now with that in mind, let's go to 1 Timothy. Tonight we're going to read the first seven verses of 1st Timothy. > [1](#) Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; > [2](#) Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. > [3](#) As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, > [4](#) Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. > [5](#) Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: > [6](#) From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; > [7](#) Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. > 1 Timothy 1:1-7 (KJV) I want you to notice some things about this passage that are going to help us understand these verses tonight. Let me take off my preacher hat and put on my teacher hat for a second and ask you some questions. First question: Who's writing this book? (Wait for response) It's the Apostle Paul, right? That's what the very first word tells us. Paul wrote this book: Okay second question: Who is Paul writing to? (Wait for response) he's writing to Timothy, who he considers to be like his own son, Timothy, who is his protege. Okay now a third question: Where is Timothy? You can see this in verse 3. (Wait for response.) Timothy is in Ephesus, right? Paul has gone on and left Timothy in Ephesus with a job to do. Final question: what is the job Paul left Timothy to do? Anyone want to raise their hand? He left them to charge people that they would teach no other doctrine. Okay I'm putting my pastor hat back on now. This is what the book of 1 Timothy is about. Paul is dealing with a church that has been infested with people, their own teachers, who are teaching things they shouldn't teach. Paul is going to push those teachers out and he is setting up Timothy temporarily and he's teaching them what is important in a church. What needs to be taught in a church? This book, over and over again, is going to talk about sound doctrine. Because they didn't have sound doctrine. They had false teachers. So a major emphasis of 1 Timothy is the need for a church to have sound doctrine. Let’s just look at this. Look at verse 10: > [10](#) For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; > 1 Timothy 1:10 (KJV) > [6](#) If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. > 1 Timothy 4:6 (KJV) > [13](#) Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. > 1 Timothy 4:13 (KJV) > [16](#) Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. > 1 Timothy 4:16 (KJV) > [17](#) Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. > 1 Timothy 5:17 (KJV) > [1](#) Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. > 1 Timothy 6:1 (KJV) > [3](#) If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; > [4](#) He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, > 1 Timothy 6:3-4 (KJV) Can you see how important “doctrine” is to this book? Paul keeps going back there. Sound doctrine, sound doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. So what I want to do for the rest of the night is I want us to look at these first seven verses of 1 Timothy again. I want to talk about three surprising things they teach us about the importance of doctrine and how we often leave sound doctrine behind. So the first thing I want to see from these verses is this…. 1. We move away from sound doctrine when we move from revelation to speculation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Look again at 1 Timothy chapter 1 in verses 3 and 4. > [3](#) As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, > [4](#) Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. > 1 Timothy 1:3-4 (KJV) These verses give us an idea of what was going on in this church here at Ephesus. Apparently you had elders, pastors in this church that were teaching other doctrines. Now it doesn't say that they were teaching false doctrine. It doesn't say that they were teaching things that were contrary to the gospel. They were just teaching other doctrines. And we get a hint at what they were teaching in verse number 4. It talks about fables and endless genealogies. In verse 7 it says they desire to be teachers of the law but they don't understand what they're teaching. Here's what seems to be going on. It seems like these Christian teachers, these pastors in this church at Ephesus, were looking at the rabbis and the way that the rabbis taught in Judaism. They wanted the prestige of the rabbis. The Old Testament has a lot of genealogies and there's a lot of question marks in those genealogies. Throughout history people have tried to fill in those question marks with all kinds of myths. I'll give you one example. Okay, how many of you have ever heard someone talk about the Nephilim before? The sons of God marrying the daughters of men in the book of Genesis. All right you read that and you're like, 'Okay all right, there's a lot of question marks there.' If you're looking for it, you can find all kinds of things in the Bible that give you question marks and you can go to seed on the question marks. People do this with genealogies. People do this with prophecy. People do this with Bible numbers. I'll never forget. I was in a store once with a preacher friend and he handed me a book about the Bible Code. Supposedly this Jewish rabbi used this computer algorithm to figure out codes from the numbers of the Bible that predicted the JFK assassination and all kinds of other things. Or maybe you've seen the books by preachers about blood moons and other prophetic signs. Maybe you've heard of preachers setting the dates for the rapture, the dates for Christ's return. Here's the thing about all of that kind of preaching: All of that is speculation. All of that is question marks. What happens is people get bored with the plain teaching of Scripture. They get bored with the straight forward meaning of the Word of God and they move into these more "exciting" teachings. They move into finding obscure rules or finding obscure patterns in the numbers or finding about things that are between the lines of Scripture. And they might teach that alongside the Bible. They might teach that alongside the gospel but it's destructive. It is not sound doctrine. So the key thing to remember is we focus on revelation not on speculation. We focus on what God has plainly said not on what might be there. We focus on the periods and the exclamation points and not on the question marks. And that might be boring to people but that is sound doctrine and that is where the power is. So number one we move away from sound doctrine when we move from revelation to speculation. Let's look at number two, the second thing we see in these verses. 2. When we move away from sound doctrine it leads to questions and vanity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Verse 4 tells us that giving heed to fables and endless genealogies ministers questions. Verse 6 tells us that it leads to vain jangling. So moving away from sound doctrine does two things: it leads us into questions and it leads us into vanity. You know, something can sound important. It can sound spiritual and it can be absolutely vacuous, absolutely empty. Something can sound good and actually lead us to doubt what God's word actually says. I'm going to give a modern knot preacher illustration of this and then I’ll tie it back. There are certain popular political commentators that make their bread and butter by “just asking questions”. (Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens come to mind.) They have figured out that they can ask the right questions and sow doubt among people and keep people coming back for more. They don't ever have to reveal anything. In fact they rarely do reveal anything. They just have to keep you entertained, keep you on the scent of the trail, and they make all kinds of money in doing it. They are telling you the truth. They are leading you further and further into a maze because the longer you follow them the more money they make. They could just come out and say it. They could just come out and say, 'Hey, this is what I know.' And lay it out clearly for you but they never will because they want you to tune in tomorrow And the same thing happens in churches. There are people out there that are hungry for crazy prophecy content. There are plenty of people that go to these churches that talk about the blood moons and that talk about this number referring to this thing that's coming up and this number referring to that thing that's coming up. There are other people that go to churches that are looking for rules, just rules and rules and rules, rules between the lines, so that they can feel better about themselves and all the other Christians. And on and on it goes and what this does is it tears down Christians. It doesn't actually edify. Sound doctrine edifies. Sound doctrine builds people up. These questions tear people down and they puff people up. I love that King James language, vain jangling. It reminds me of throwing silverware down the stairs. It's just noise; doesn't mean anything. It might sound good. It might sound pompous and important but it doesn't mean anything. What you get is puffed up people. What you get is people that think they know better than everybody else. Oh what you have there, that's a good starting point, that's a good foundation, but once you really spend the time in meditation and study, like I have, you'll see that there are deeper things that you're not even scratching the surface of. No! No, no, no! We don't need to go deeper than the plain meaning of Scripture. When we try to, we are getting into things that we don't understand and people don't understand. We're not building them up; we're puffing them up. We need sound doctrine! Just plain basic meat and potatoes. This is what the Bible teaches, clear as day doctrine. So can you see from this passage what was happening there at Ephesus? Can you see that these people were trying to get something deeper than what the Bible teaches? They were trying to get to something more exciting than what the Bible teaches, more important sounding. In actuality they were tearing down people's faith, they were leading them astray, and they were filling people with pride. It was such a bad thing that Paul had to send Timothy to stop it, to get rid of these pastors that were doing this because it's dangerous. 1. So number one when we move away from sound doctrine, we move from revelation to speculation. 2. Number two when we move from sound doctrine, it leads to questions and vanity. Before I get to the third point, I want us to look at one more verse in First Timothy, chapter one. > [5](#) Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: > 1 Timothy 1:5 (KJV) The commandment this verse is talking about is the command that Paul gave to Timothy to go to that church, to stop the false doctrine and to teach right doctrine. Paul's telling Timothy the end of that commandment, the goal, the purpose, the ending place of you doing this thing I told you to do, of stopping the false doctrine and teaching sound doctrine. What class? It's charity. It's love. And so here's our third point about sound doctrine tonight…. 3. When we put sound doctrine in place, it leads to true Christian love. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are lots of people that want to tell us that doctrine divides. Oh we just need to talk about grace. We don't need to teach people doctrine. The more we teach people the more we divide people. Oh let's just all hold hands and sing kumbaya and forget about all this doctrinal stuff. But the Bible teaches us the exact opposite of that. The Bible teaches us that doctrine doesn't divide. Doctrine, good doctrine, sound doctrine, actually leads to true Christian love. The more we know about God and the more we know about Christ, the more we are going to love God and love Christ and the more we're going to love His children. Notice Paul doesn't just say that sound doctrine leads to charity, but it leads to a certain kind of charity. A certain kind of Christian love. Christian love out of a pure heart. Christian love out of a good conscience and Christian love out of unfeigned or sincere faith. This isn't some kind of fake, painted-on Christian love. This is real, to the bone, to the core, absolutely pure Christian love. The only way that we can get that is through sound doctrine. I've certainly found it to be true in my life and my experience that the churches I've been in that love doctrine the most have been the most loving churches. The churches where the emphasis is on just teaching the plain meaning of Scripture and letting Scripture do its work are churches that grow in Christian love. But there are churches that say they love doctrine and what they really love is they love questions. What they really love is arguing over minutiae and arguing over prophecy. In those churches you can feel the lack of charity. Conclusion ========== Now here's what this passage teaches us. Paul's great concern for his greatest ministry was that they would go astray in this area of sound doctrine. That they would lose their interest in the plain teaching of scripture and seek after something that felt deeper, something that felt more mystical, something that maybe made them feel more exciting. He saw that come true. It was a big enough deal that Paul sent his protégé, Timothy, to this church at Ephesus to clean house and put a stop to it. Now church, what I want us to understand is that this is not just an Ephesus problem; this is not just a first-century problem. Every church in every age faces this temptation: the temptation to move away from what God's Word clearly says and to focus on speculation, to focus on questions. Our church needs to revolve around sound doctrine, clear teaching of the Word of God. If you've been on our church website, right at the top of the page, it says this. > Making the Bible clear and accessible in Mattoon and around the world. If you look at our bulletins, on every one of our bulletins, it says the same thing, making the Bible clear and accessible in Mattoon and around the world. That is a reminder for me and a reminder for you that one of the most important things in our church is that we clearly teach the Bible, not our own ideas about the Bible but the Bible. We don't try to go into deep tangents or speculative prophecy. We just tell people what the Bible says. Because church, that's where the power is. The power is not in my ideas. I don't have any great ideas anyways. The power is not in some crazy thing that 99% of Christians in history have missed. The power is in the plain meaning of the Word of God. And so as we go through this book of 1 Timothy on Sunday nights, we are going to take our time and let the book teach us. As we go through it we are going to see how sound doctrine works in a local church to produce what God wants to produce. I'm excited about it. I hope you are too. Let's stand for prayer.