Stay The Simple Course of Love
As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. 1 Timothy 1:3–7 ESV
In the section that we read this weekend and some last week, praying for leaders and kings doesn’t mean we ignore what is true. This is the previous chapter, and Paul is telling Timothy to stick around in Ephesus to make sure people are teaching the truth. There were plenty of struggles in Ephesus (see Acts 23) from outside the church, but within the church people were getting caught up in other teachings about:
Different doctrines (than what Paul had preached about Jesus)
Myths (elaborated stories and add-on tales about Jesus or Paul or people in the Old Testament)
Genealogies (trying to figure out who had family trees that went back to Old Testament people)
All of these were being used to cook up some excuses for people to live in ways that were not the simple stewardship from God that is by faith.
The simple stewardship that is from God, also translated the “administration” or the “management” of our faith, brings about love that comes from a pure heart and a sincere faith. The real point and basis of our faith, that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead, doesn’t need flowery extra stories or birth certificates and court records. Much like Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 13, if you have a genealogy and an exciting story but you don’t have love, you’re just an entertaining pile of paperwork.
Pop culture loves to flower up Bible stories a little too much sometimes like adding some romance between Mary Magdelene and Jesus, or the awful rock monster angel things in the Noah movie. The fact is that if we read the scriptures together and talk about them together, they don’t need all of that stuff. That’s sort of like the endless mythologies that Paul is talking about. What God has done (and is still doing) is so amazing that we don’t have to make stuff up.
What do you think our modern versions of the genealogies are? Haven’t we seen churches split over the issue of whether God created the world in millions of years or if it was a literal seven days? If we argue over what translation of the Bible to use or what kind of music we sing, haven’t we moved the power of the resurrection and the life of Jesus down the list and exalted our own tastes?
That is what Paul is talking about to Timothy and by the power of the Holy Spirit, warning us too.
The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Not mindless love, but not paperwork love either.Not make-believe faith, but not blind empty faith either.And not a fake faith that only looks good when we want it to, but sincere, caring about the people with which we share our daily life and doing right because of the right that Jesus has already done.