Introduction The church, as seen in 1 Timothy 3:14-16, is where God’s children are trained according to the truth of Scripture. The church loves, embraces, defends, and promotes the truth, and one of the church’s main functions is to proclaim the mystery of godliness: Jesus Christ. However, it is easy for individuals, and whole churches for that matter, to lose sight of what the church is supposed to be. Paul highlights the threat of losing sight of the church’s true identity and purpose and walking away. This departure from the faith is called apostasy, or falling away. The Bible speaks of the Christian life as following Jesus and abiding in Him (Matt 4:19; Jn 15). In other words, a Christian is someone who stays with Jesus. An apostate is someone who claims to follow Jesus but later departs from the faith. According to various statistics, anywhere from 60-80% of youth will walk away from the faith during their college years. Granted, statistics do not provide the whole story, but the fact remains a sizable number of people who have a public association with Christ will eventually abandon it. The issue of apostasy is real and must be taken seriously. "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." Dealing with Reality
In verse one Paul warns that “the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith.” Apostasy is not merely a possibility in the church, it is an inevitability. So who are the “some” who will depart? They are people who claim to be Christians, join churches, get baptized, some even become officers/pastors in the church, and later depart from the faith and prove they were never really Christians. This is not referring to people who change churches or denominations, this is referring to people who reject “the faith”--the fundamental truths of Christianity. This is a rejection of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Paul’s short-hand way of referring to Christ’s person and work is “the word of the cross” and “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:18, 24). The cross is where the love of God was most clearly displayed, and it is where the foreshadows of the OT sacrificial systems were finally fulfilled. At the cross, sin is taken seriously and only God's love can conquer the consequences of sin. If you do not appreciate the cross with its judgment of sin and display of love, then you do not know the real Jesus. People join the church for a host of reasons, but only those who truly seek Christ and trust Him will remain in the faith. Those who maintain an external relationship to the faith because it happens to serve an ulterior purpose will walk away when their real desire is no longer fulfilled in the church. Paul’s treatment of apostasy in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 will help answer two questions that are important for Christians to understand: (1) How does apostasy begin; and (2) How is apostasy avoided? Where Apostasy Begins First, how does apostasy begin? The short answer is bad doctrine. In verse 1 Paul says that those who depart from the faith do so by “devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.” Apostasy happens when a person’s true loyalty is clarified, not changed. These individuals possessed an external allegiance to Jesus as members of a church, but their true loyalty is not to Christ but to something else that the church temporarily satisfied. Their true desire is for something other than Jesus and when a (false) teaching comes along that provides a more direct route to their desire, they embrace it and forsake Jesus and His church. Judas is a perfect example of this. Based on external evidence, Judas seemed like a genuine follower of Jesus, but his real motives were not rooted in faith and love for Christ (John 12:3-6). Judas followed Jesus because it afforded him something else he wanted (access to money), not because he really loved Jesus. And this became evident when Judas came to a fork in the road and realized that following Jesus would no longer grant him the other thing he really wanted, and he had to choose. Sadly, Judas did not choose Christ, and he perished as a result. But this bad doctrine does not come from nowhere, it is brought through “the insincerity of liars whose conscience is seared (v2).” The word for "insincere" suggests a pretender or actor in a play. Though they may be very convincing, they are not who they seemed to be. Their conscience is seared because they have ignored it for so long; they know they are not obeying the Word of God. God has given every human being a conscience, and we are either in the habit of heeding our conscience or ignoring it. The longer we ignore our conscience the easier it is to continue doing so, as we learn to tune it out as irrelevant noise. This is the fourth time Paul has made mention of the conscience in 1 Timothy (1:5; 1:19; 3:9; and 4:2). Christian living must be one of consistency between profession (what you claim to believe) and practice (how you live). The conscience demands that our profession and practice agree; we become very agitated when we perceive incongruence between the two. If profession and practice are exposed in their disagreement, it is only a matter of time until the conscience demands they be brought into alignment. When this disagreement hits a fever pitch, either the profession or the practice will have to change to restore alignment. Those who profess faith in Christ but practice something else are in great danger of departing from the faith because they are searing their conscience. As one author has said, “Apostasy is the end result of hypocrisy.” These false teachers have ignored their own conscience to the point that they have rejected the true profession of faith to accommodate their sinful practices. And what is the practical result of this false teaching? The inability to rightly enjoy and worship God. We are told these false teachers “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving (v3).” False teaching distorts God’s character and fails to appreciate His goodness and kindness towards us. God has granted good gifts to His people, and forbidding the enjoyment of them in the name of worship is offensive to God, and it impairs the worship of Him. One of the principal ways we worship God is by delighting in Him and receiving and enjoying His gifts with thankful hearts. Bad doctrine introduces fatal misconceptions of God and worship, and this is why it leads to apostasy. Avoiding Apostasy Given the real threat of apostasy, how can it be avoided? The short answer is good doctrine. If apostasy occurs when an individual embraces false beliefs about God that justify the pursuit of sinful desires, then it makes sense that a good way to avoid apostasy would be to teach and celebrate true things about God. If the church professes and practices good doctrine, this will guard against apostasy. Paul says that only those “who believe and know the truth (v3)” are able to truly enjoy God’s gifts with thanksgiving. This includes not only the affirmation of truth but also a personal participation in it. Familiarity, not mere awareness, with truth is what keeps a person from apostasy. It is like a relationship; it must be continually nourished if it is going to continue having an effect. People may be close with someone else but they drift apart, not because there was a clear problem, but simply due to neglect of the relationship. If we want to avoid moving away from Jesus Christ, then we must remain familiar with the truth by abiding in it. Jesus taught that eternal life is to “know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (Jn 17:3).” Eternal life is being with God and growing in our knowledge of Him. Apostasy occurs when we neglect our relationship with God, but it is avoided when we cultivate our relationship with Him by staying in His word. Paul continues by explaining “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer (v3-4).” Enjoying the good things of creation is not worship unless it is “made holy by the word of God and prayer.” What does this mean? Good things God made become fuel for worship only through faith. The word of God produces and informs faith (Rom 10:17), and prayer is the expression of faith as it responds to the word of God. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). The word of God teaches us to understand who God is, what He has done, what He promises to do, and how we are to respond. Prayer responds to what God has said, whether that be in confession, praise, or petition. Receiving gifts with thanksgiving includes understanding that what we have received is a gift. People who fail to appreciate gifts are those who do not understand the difference between what they deserved and what they received. Thankful people understand they have received better than they deserve. Entitled people believe they have received less than what they deserve. The word of God teaches us we are sinners who deserve God’s wrath, but that Jesus Christ offers us forgiveness of sins and a restored relationship with God. We deserved wrath, but we have received mercy and grace instead--thus we are thankful. The word of God and prayer go together like inhaling and exhaling. We take in the word of God like oxygen, and if there is life then there will be an exhale of prayer. Praising God for His gifts with grateful hearts is the practice of the faith we profess. Final Thoughts Apostasy is a real danger, and this warning from Scripture should remind us of a few things. First, we must continually live by faith: trusting and loving the word of God, and responding in prayer. Second, we need to develop a grateful heart by enjoying God’s good gifts to us and thanking Him for them. If we practice these things, we will stay with Jesus and enjoy the full benefits of eternal life. Satan’s first move in separating us from God is to sow discontentment in our hearts towards God. Satan uses bad doctrine to do this. The best way to guard against apostasy is to embrace good doctrine, which teaches us about the sovereignty, mercy, grace, and goodness of God. We will not walk away from Jesus if we truly believe our ultimate good can only be found in Him, and good doctrine makes this plain.
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AuthorI am follower of Jesus Christ by God's grace, married to Kelsey, father to four children, and pastor of Lighthouse Church (EPC). Archives
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