“I can resist everything except temptation.” Oscar Wilde wrote the play, “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, and it’s a great example of not making too many assumptions when you don’t have all the information. It turns out that Lady Windermere thinks her husband is having an affair. The woman she thinks he’s cheating on her with turns out to be a model of virtue, as is her husband. And the man that she enlists to help her prove her husband’s supposed unfaithfulness, Lord Darlington, winds up being a man who no one would ever ask for council when it comes to ethical concerns. He has no real ethical principles. At one point he says, “Life is too complex for hard and fast rules.” “Situational ethics” is his creed. Everything is flipped on its head. And in one conversation with Lady Windermere, as they are discussing the suitability of “hard and fast” rules, that is when he tells her, “I can resist everything except temptation.”


Contemporary ethics treat temptation more like a joke than a threat, much like Oscar Wilde does in the words of Lord Darlington. But if we truly understood the nature of temptation, it would prove itself to be no joke but to be the poison it actually is.


Scripture has much to say about temptation, to include how destructive giving in to it can be. Temptation makes its first appearance in the garden, in the very beginning, in Genesis 3. The tempter, later identified to be Satan, the devil, the dragon, that ancient serpent, presents a compelling argument for why obedience to God’s word is not in their best interest. Up until the entrance of Satan into the garden, Adam and Eve had lived in perfect obedience to God. They lived by faith, which is living in obedience to the revelation given to us by God. 


It’s mind-boggling to think that the simple presence of Satan did nothing to bring about a curse or human sin. When Satan presented his vision of God’s unfair, unnecessary limits on human experience, Adam could have resisted and continued to live by faith—living in obedience to the revelation given to us by God. It was only when Adam was faced with temptation and began to believe the word of the tempter over the word of the Creator that God issued a curse on the land for his disobedience and lack of faith.


This makes Jesus overcoming the temptations he faced in the wilderness all the more meaningful. As we’ll see, the temptations Jesus faced from Satan were intentional and targeted; they weren’t random. Since the fall of man, through the history of Israel, up until the time of Christ, all people everywhere were held under the power and curse of sin. 


The apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:12-14).


There are two men under whom all of humanity is placed. There is no equivocation, no gray area, no third way, no comprising. You are either in Adam and dead in your sins or in Christ and alive in the Spirit.  Where the first Adam, a type or a shadow of the one who was to come, faced temptation and caved to the false promises of the enemy, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, faced temptation and believed the word of the Father.


Jesus overcame Satan’s temptation by living faithfully to God’s revelation. 


If faith is living according to and trusting in God’s revelation in his word, then living according to every temptation is thinking that I have a right to whatever I want. While that’s the mantra of these last days, it stands in stark contrast to the biblical worldview. Caving to desire is the path to destruction. It is the way of rebellion against God. That was the way of Adam. But the way of Christ is glad obedience and submission to the word of the Father. And in that glad obedience, Christ did what Adam would not do and what none of us are capable of. 


4:1-4, The Temptation to Satisfy Self

Jesus began his public ministry with his baptism. As Jesus came up out of the water, “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16b-17). Seemingly immediately, Jesus is led out into the wilderness by God the Spirit with the express purpose of being tempted by Satan. 


The wilderness is a repetitive theme in Scripture. Adam and Eve are cast out into the wilderness, east of Eden, after the fall. Jacob, one of the patriarchs, wrestles with God in the wilderness. Moses and the Israelites are sent into the wilderness for forty years because of their idolatry, but it is in the wilderness that they will receive the teaching of God and build the tabernacle for worship. And now, Jesus is sent into the wilderness, so we should expect to see Jesus faced with the same struggles. 


As Israel fasted in the wilderness for forty years and proved faithless, as Moses fasted for forty days and nights, so Jesus fasted for forty days and nights and proved faithful. It’s little wonder Satan’s first temptation was food. Satan says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” You might ask yourself, “What’s the problem? Why shouldn’t Jesus feed himself? Doesn’t Jesus miraculously create food at other times?” Yes, Jesus does make food, but never for himself. Anything miraculous that Jesus does is done for the benefit of others. 


Jesus’s response shows his absolute devotion to the Father. He says, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (v.4). This is not the first time these words have been spoken in Scripture. Jesus is quoting from the book of Deuteronomy 8:3. That book is a look back at the time spent wandering in the wilderness. Moses is reviewing that period as the Israelites are about to end it and enter into the promised land for the first time. 


As the Israelites were first learning to live in the wilderness, they began to hate it. They had just been set free from slavery in Egypt after 430 years. They were finally their own people, being formed into their own nation, given their own laws. They were no longer slaves in Egypt. But people are never satisfied. They quite literally just crossed the Red Sea, witnessed the Egyptian army drown in the water, and they begin to complain about…the quality of the food. They are not living by faith, trusting that God would fulfill his promises to them, even though they had just participated in the greatest act of deliverance the world had known.


Moses then remembers this event and interprets it for the children of those who had grumbled in the desert. Even in their grumbling, their outright complaining against their Redeemer, God feeds them. He sends them food from heaven. When they see it, they ask, “What is it?’, which is the word “manna”, hence, manna from heaven. They knew it came from God, but they weren’t sure exactly what it was. 


And Moses tells them in Deuteronomy 8, “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vv.1-3).


They ate bread from heaven that day, and the next day, and until the end of their forty years in the wilderness. God never stopped supplying their need. Sometimes, like he did with Israel, he will let you hunger so that you know how fleeting physical hunger really is and how far more essential is your spiritual hunger. And so Jesus fasted for forty days, not even eating manna from heaven, but relying entirely on God’s provision—whatever it would be. Jesus proved himself to the the faithful Israelite.


Sometimes we can’t see past our need for food so we neglect our most important need—the word of God. Of course we need food, and our heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask. “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing” (Matthew 6:25)? If you live your life, if you make decisions, if you plan your days ahead of time, believing that you have a right to whatever you want, you are easily destroyed by temptation. If you trust in the provision of God at every step in the wilderness, even if it’s in contrast to what you want, you have rule over your sin.


4:5-7, The Temptation to Protect Self

All of these temptations are ultimately a single thinly-veiled attempt by Satan to prove God is untrustworthy. But in a fallen world that’s full of threats and dangers, we are prone to run from God and take matters into our own hands instead of running toward God in childlike dependence and trust, hence why Satan tempts Jesus to throw himself down from the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he says for the second time, “throw yourself down.” If Jesus really was God the Son, then what better place to prove it than the temple. 


Satan somewhat changes his tactics. Since Jesus is quoting Scripture, so will he. He uses Psalm 91 to justify his charge that Jesus should test God in his ability to provide for his people. The full passage from the Psalm reads, “For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone” (vv.11-12). It’s difficult to know if Satan knew the passage as well as he should have, because the very next verse reads, “You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot” (v.13). This is the very condemnation made by God to the serpent in the garden of Eden. The promised Redeemer would crush the serpent’s head with his foot. So yes, God promises to guard his people, but he also promises to destroy the enemy. 


Satan tempts Jesus by telling him to prove that God will protect him. It’s not enough that God has said it; you need to test him and be sure yourself. It’s not enough that God will care for us in the way he knows to be for our good and his glory; you need to force God’s hand to work to your benefit. There is perhaps no greater, clearer rebuke of the prosperity or the health-and-wealth gospel than this, which preaches that with just your word, with enough faith, God will do whatever you ask. His greatest desires for you are more money, better situations in life, more status and power, less strife, no enemies, and quick and painless recoveries from illness—you know, just like the crucified Jesus. God’s glory and his jealousy for his own name plays no role in their belief. Jesus only died to break the curses of all those things. There’s no cross to bear, no temptation to overcome, and no place for death and resurrection. Men and women like Stephen Furtick, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Todd White, Creflo Dollar, Joseph Prince, Joyce Meyer, and many other vipers like them should be marked and avoided. It’s not just television preachers anymore. It’s all over the internet, and it takes biblical discernment and a willingness to to call evil evil to turn away from them. They sound more like Satan than Satan, and their messages have sent as many people to hell as Satan.


Jesus responds to Satan again with the word of God. Again quoting from Deuteronomy, Jesus likens the attitude and ungratefulness of the wandering Israelites to the voice of Satan. “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (v.7). When the Israelites had left Egypt when they were grumbling about their food, they also grumbled about their water. Because they didn’t have it yet, they gave up trust in God to give it to them at all. They didn’t have what they needed when they wanted it, so the only natural conclusion was that God was withholding it from them. When Moses has to deal with the grumbling Israelites again, he asks them, “Why do you test the LORD?” (Exodus 17:1-2). The people were planning to stone Moses because they were so angry. But again, like with the manna, God provided out of his mercy toward them. God even did so in a miraculous way. Moses struck the rock, and water poured out. And as Moses is later retelling this story to the children of the wilderness wanderers, he tells them, “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16). Jesus, though, makes no demands upon the Almighty. Every step of the way, he lives by faith. 


The child of God makes no demands of God. In Luke 17, Jesus tells a parable of unworthy servants where he says, “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’” (vv.7-10).


Our duty is to receive the word of God and respond to it in faith and repentance. It’s true, Jesus paints a complex picture of what it means to be a child of God. We surely are his children who have access to his very throne, but we are not his equals who speak to him as though we can make demands of our Creator and Father. 


Jesus is tempted to satisfy himself apart from God, he is tempted to protect himself on his own terms, and now he faces:


4:8-11, The Temptation to Glorify Self

The temple itself was built on Mt. Zion, so it was elevated above the rest of the city. Now Satan takes Jesus beyond the temple to another high place. Like the wilderness, high places held special meaning in Scripture. Most often, high places were areas where people offered unwarranted sacrifices beyond the temple, or where God had ordained sacrifices to be offered. These places were considered to be nearer to the heavens, thereby nearer to God. The good kings had to repeatedly tear down these altars on the high places that Israelites had made. There was one place to go and offer your sacrifices if you were an Israelite. The high places, beyond the temple, were unsanctioned and idolatrous.


So now, Satan takes Jesus to a high place and tells Jesus that if he will worship Satan there, then all the kingdoms of the earth will be his. It’s difficult to consider the idea that Satan would actually be able to give Jesus anything, nevertheless several kingdoms. By no means is Satan’s an absolute power, but it is a power, temporary it may be, exercised only by God’s permission. 


We read in 1 John 5:19, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1-2, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” And he writes again in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”


We should not think for a moment that Satan has any power over us, but we shouldn’t be so naive to think he exercises no authority at all. And what he offers to Jesus on the mountain is only a temporary, fleeting kind of kingdom. This world is passing away. But Christ’s kingdom, the one prepared for him by his Father, is eternal. The apostle Peter reminds us, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:10-11).


Satan can offer us nothing that is not a mockery of the goodness of God. It is a forgery, nothing like the real thing. Our fallen disposition or nature tempts us to move into idolatry and worship anyone or anything except our Creator. But Jesus again turns our focus back to Scripture, himself quoting Deuteronomy one more time, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (v.10). 


Satan may offer a counterfeit kingdom, but his power and authority is itself a childish imitation of Christ’s power as God the Son. In a single word, Jesus says to Satan, “hypagō”, “Be gone”, and Satan has no other option but to leave. Whatever authority or power Satan has over this world, he has no power, no authority, and no ability to withstand the command of God. Jesus was under no compulsion to heed the words of Satan. But with just a word, Satan had no option but to heed the word of God the Son. We’re told in verse 11, “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”


The miracles that Jesus performed showed that he had all power over nature, the body, and evil spirits. If Jesus cast a demon out of someone, he didn’t put in a request and wait for an answer. The unclean spirit could not resist the word of God. In the same way, Satan could not resist Christ’s command to leave him. We can be assured that all temptations, all evil spirits, all works of the devil, are squarely under the sovereignty of God.


Temptation is all around us. God told Cain after murdering his brother, “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). So often, what must change is our minds. From a changed way of thinking comes a changed belief, and changed behavior follows. To think we deserve to have every impulse and desire satisfied immediately will inevitably lead us to self-destruction. Do we even need to comment on how such a way of thinking runs amok today?


What was Jesus really offered in these temptations? If he turned the stones to bread, he could have impressed people with his ability to provide. If he had bobbed off of the top of the temple, he could have impressed people with signs and wonders. If he had accepted the kingdoms of the earth, he could have impressed people with with his royalty.


But Christ came and died not to impress but to save. Jesus regularly told those he healed and exorcised not to tell anyone about what he had done for them. He was not going to distract from his true mission—to seek and save the lost. He would not seek a kingdom that was not from his Father. Jesus did indeed provide for his people, he did many signs and wonders to prove his divinity, and he did of course assume a throne in his ascension. The book of Matthew ends by confirming that Jesus did truly inherit all authority in heaven and on earth. But the book of Luke also tells the story of the temptations of Jesus, and he ends with this important note: “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).


One of the greatest dangers when it comes to temptation is to think that it goes away. Temptation was not gone. Satan was not done. This passage seems to have been in James’ mind when he wrote, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Cain had to be told to rule over sin in Genesis 4, and James had to repeat a similar command thousands of years later. We need to hear that truth as much today as in the past. 


Do not get tired or complacent in the fight against the common temptations of lust, greed, and anger. Be prepared every day to fight against pornography, covetousness, and rage.  Each morning, commit to taming your desires, having just one more degree of mastery over your appetites, and seeking the holiness of God. Don’t be fooled into thinking that temptation has been mastered or erased. 


Don’t get lulled into thinking that the Christian life is lived in an armchair, just waiting to die or for the second coming. The fact that you are justified by Christ’s righteousness and his righteousness alone motivates the believer to seek to put your sin to death, knowing that in Christ’s death you, too, died. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5). You will be tempted until the day you die, but because of Christ’s perfect righteousness, no temptation will come upon you that you cannot bear, and no temptation will come upon you that will be able to take you away from his hand.

Paul needs Timothy to know how to deal with the elders who have been teaching different doctrines. The church flounders when it has leaders who are permitted to get away with anything. Now again, the church is more than its pastors. If you look at most of Paul’s letters, they are written to churches, not pastors. The pastors were to read aloud and explain these letters to the churches. So it’s not always the case that if a pastor sins that the church will implode. But there is a lot working against a church whose leadership is setting a bad trajectory. The church that ignores when pastors teach false doctrine do implode. Poor leaders will run off good people and exasperate the ones who stay. When a pastor teaches false doctrines, he must be removed and replaced. When a pastor no longer focuses on the gospel but instead becomes an activist, he must be removed and replaced. 


Because the fact is that nature abhors a vacuum. Paul give us good reasons why an elder might be to be removed. But what do you do after that? In this case, a vacuum of leadership will be filled by someone. If the wrong people are leading, or if there is no one qualified to put in place to lead, someone will rise up and take that spot. There will not be a vacant office for long. So, instead of just hoping that a warm body raises their hand, as the church, it is required of us to fill leadership roles with qualified men. We should hold our leaders to the standard set forth in Scripture. And when we do that, we can face whatever comes our way. There’s nothing a purified people and qualified leaders can’t handle. And a purified people have to trust their pastors. But what kind of pastors should the people trust and honor?


Honor elders who honor the gospel.


If a leader cannot be charged with any wrongdoing, then he’s not trustworthy. And by that I mean that if the culture of the church is such that the man up front is the holy man who is not to be questioned, then the chances of the rest of the church being healthy are pretty slim.


But on the other hand, a healthy church also honors its leaders. It may seem strange to have a pastor speak of how important it is for the church to honor its pastors, but the point is not to inflate anyone’s ego. For Paul, it’s not about the person but about what they teach and how they live. Whoever stands behind the pulpit regularly and oversees the administration of the church should be honored, regardless of who it is. Honoring someone doesn’t mean ignoring their imperfections. It doesn’t mean to think they’re irreplaceable. Every irreplaceable person eventually gets buried beside another irreplaceable person.



The biggest problem the church in Ephesus was facing was elders or pastors who were teaching different doctrines. Anything that pulls the focus from Scripture and the Christ of Scripture is a different doctrine. Because when you start to have this sense of, “We need to appeal to as many people as possible, so let’s just focus on a few things instead, just focus on the widely acceptable things, just focus on conversion and not real, deep, abiding discipleship,” then people will be prey for any kind of doctrine or ideology that actually has the backbone to standup for itself. And usually, it’s not what honors God. Elders that keep the focus on bringing the gospel to every area of life are to be honored. Those who teach anything else, in word or deed, those who neglect the responsibility of the office, should be removed. And Paul tells Timothy and us just how that should look. Honor elders who honor the gospel.


17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” 


First, one of the principles guiding what Paul says is that leading the people of God into greater maturity takes great effort. Pastors should put forth as much effort as any profession. Pastors spend time with the Scriptures and pray for clarity and understanding. The Bible is a foreign book, and we need to take the necessary steps to get it right. Then a pastor must bring the clarity that he now has to his people and let the Spirit do his work.
The teacher Apollos from Acts 18 was commended for his teaching but also corrected in some pretty significant ways. For him, it was a matter of accuracy in the things of God, not out-right heresy. One sign of a good pastor-teacher is his willingness to be corrected and amend his ways. And that’s what Paul hopes to see happen there in Ephesus. Let the elders who have taught different doctrines be confronted clearly, and give them a chance to fix it. If they do not, go public in hopes that they change their ways.

To rule well means to be set over and care for a certain group of people. In Scripture, it doesn’t refer to a scepter but a rod and a staff. Ruling well, or leading well, sometimes requires the rod, or the tool used to guide a flock of sheep. "This is where we’re going.” The rod also defended the flock against wolves. It was like a billy club. It’s the tool used for guidance and defense. But the staff is a long, thin stick used for when gentleness and safety are the main concern. The curved, rounded end could save a lamb by dragging it out of a hole. It wouldn’t hurt the sheep, but neither would it let the sheep get away. A staff was used for guiding sheep into a pen for safety and rest. 

Both of them are for the sheep’s good. In the most famous Psalm, Psalm 23, King David thanks God for using both rod and staff with him. The LORD is David’s shepherd, and the shepherd’s rod and staff are a source of great comfort, not anxiety. In the hands of the Good Shepherd, we are both defended against evil and guided into righteousness. In a similar way, all under-shepherds lead or rule well by using the right tool for the right time. There’s a time to announce direction and a time to lead gently into the pen. There’s a time to use the rod to defend against wolves and a time to find and comfort the ones who have gone astray.
Under-shepherds, pastor-teachers who rule well, should be honored for doing so. In the next verse, he makes clear that involves fair compensation for their labors. That doesn’t mean the church should seek to make its pastors wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. It simply refers to making sure its pastors can devote their time to teaching, preaching, visiting and praying with the sick, counseling, and general oversight of the church. All church elders should be honored for their office, but those who labor in teaching and preaching more so, which refers to honest work earning an honest wage.

Paul uses one Old Testament passage and one New Testament passage to buttress his point. He’s not just using quaint, Old Testament sayings to say pay your pastors. He’s saying that the Old Testament still has authority for the church. He quotes Deuteronomy 25:4, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Oxen were once used to stomp on the grain so that it broke open and was usable. Oxen were then allowed to graze as they tread the grain. Their service wasn’t done out of the generosity of their big, oxen hearts.

But interestingly, Paul quotes Jesus in Luke 10:7, “The laborer deserves his wages.” This means Paul knew about the words of Jesus, apparently as they were put together by Luke, by the time he writes to Timothy. There are those who argue that the Bible was put together over long periods of time, the traditional authors are not the real authors, and is therefore not trustworthy in what it says. But for Paul to quote the New Testament, while it was still being inspired and written, it came together a lot earlier than many think. The Bible is trustworthy in what it says.

The church in Ephesus was in the middle of a battle for the truth. The elders were responsible for taking care of the flock, but it seems as though at least a few of them had abdicated their duty. He reminds Timothy that the church is always in a battle for the truth. Elders are always in a state of defense, always on the lookout for the latest offense. We should be able to help you cut through the murky middle and practice discernment. People need answers, and if the church doesn’t give them, then someone outside the church will. And that’s how false teaching enters a church.

19 Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. 

Second, “Thou shalt not bear false witness” applies to everyone. The immediate context for Paul and Timothy was a group of elders, or pastor-teachers, who have swerved from biblical doctrine. You should not stand idly by while doctrine is being watered down or while the lines between church and world are being erased. And when we become convicted that something is wrong, we can become so emboldened that we take immediate action without thinking too much about it. In our crusade for righteousness, it’s easy to overlook the fact that elders charged with false teaching should be able to give an answer. If what they say is true, then we stand corrected. But if what they say is wrong, then they should fix it or be removed.

If an elder has swerved from sound doctrine, then he should be approached with gentleness and respect. Here, we’re moving in to church discipline, of which elders are not exempt. Paul again uses Old Testament patterns for the church. He pulls from Deuteronomy 19:15 when he says that if only one person brings a charge against an elder, then it’s an unqualified charge. This is when we think of grudges, resentment, or just flat-out proving a point. And that’s not something the church should ever entertain.

If there are multiple eyewitnesses to a sin committed by an elder, then it’s appropriate and necessary to speak to that elder. Nobody wants to be charged with wrongdoing by hearsay. In Matthew 18, Jesus also pulls from Deuteronomy 19:15 and gives us a clear sequence of events to deal with offense. If a charge is true, then you approach your brother alone. Don’t make a scene because of a possible offense. Most of church discipline ends right here. Whenever you confront a person in love and win them back, you’ve practiced church discipline. But if the offending party, in this case the offending elder, does not listen to you, then it’s time to bring more people with you. This is not a mob but a group of witnesses who can corroborate what you say. Should the story not end there, then it’s time to bring it before the other leaders and members of the church and remove the elder.

Paul says here that for those who persist in their sin, rebuke them in the presence of everyone. “Rebuke” simply means to make your charge public. Not on social media, not among your friends, but among the members of the church in an organized setting. Rebuking an elder is perhaps the time to show the most restraint, to fully insist on church order. We’re not burning witches but doing the heartbreaking work of dealing with unrepentant people. Are we acting out of zeal for our own self-righteousness or zeal for God’s glory? You should only make it public if you have addressed him in private more than once.

The desired outcome is that the people have a genuine fear of sin. Again from Deuteronomy 19:20, which says, “And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you”, Paul pulls out the general equity, or the principle, from an Old Testament law. The law is not a condition of the new covenant made by Christ, but it does still serve a function. As the law showed the people their sin, so the law still shows us the severity of our sin. 

We see a perfect example of this in Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. The first Christians were selling property they owned in order to have funds readily available to help those in need. You can imagine that people were given all kinds of applause for doing so. So a husband and wife, Ananias and Sapphira, sold some property. The money was theirs to do with as they pleased. There was no command to sell your stuff and give it away. But their sin was lying about it. They gave only a portion of the money to the church, but they said they gave all of it. All they wanted was the acclaim and recognition that others had received while still keeping their money. Peter knew what they had done and approached them about it. Both Ananias and Sapphira died for their sin. The result? “And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:11).

Woe to us if think we can sweep anything under the rug, if we can keep anything from God—especially those called on to lead God’s people. There should be a healthy fear of sin both in ourselves and in the church. When sin is public, it brings shame on us. But that’s not bad. Godly fear should prevent any further sin. We lose sight of the gravity or weight of our sin when we refuse to deal with it.

21 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. 22 Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure. 23 (No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.) 

Third, discernment and impartiality are necessary for healthy church life. Paul plays by the same rules, and he has his own witnesses. Before God the Father, God the Son, and the heavenly court of angels, Paul urges Timothy to be impartial in his judgments, in two ways. One, do not be hasty in condemning an elder without many witnesses and corroborating evidence. Two, do not be hasty in ordaining someone an elder. By making someone an elder without testing him first, you participate in his sins. 

God himself is the impartial judge, and our judgments should be like his to the best of our finite ability. Paul has said earlier in Romans 2:11, “For God shows no partiality.” Back in Judah, hundreds of years before Christ, King Jehoshaphat appointed judges all around Judah and told them, “Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes” (2 Chronicles 19:7). Discernment and impartiality are necessary for righteousness in the body of Christ. In the case that some of the elders would be removed for their teaching, it would be necessary to replace them. Timothy is to take the lead on this. He should seek men who meet the qualifications, and he should also show due diligence in his selection. 

Paul tells Timothy to keep himself pure, then there is a short, almost throw-away sentence about Timothy not drinking only water but drinking a little wine. It seems a little out of place at first glance, but somehow it must be tied to purity. In the ancient world, drinking only water and avoiding alcohol was a typical practice of an ascetic. Ascetics were people who avoided worldly pleasures as a way of attaining a higher spiritual state. Instead of taking a vow of abstinence, they were proud of their lack of self-indulgence, which is itself a form of self-indulgence. The humble-brag is an old, old sin.

But back in chapter 3, not being a drunkard is a necessary qualification for both elders and deacons. So it seems most likely that Timothy had given up drinking wine because there were those who were abusing wine by drinking too much of it and those misunderstanding their office by being ascetics. We should not jet off to extremes just to avoid being called extremists. There is no law against avoiding certain things for your own good. That is a matter of conscience. All things are lawful, but not everything is beneficial. In keeping himself pure, Timothy should not harm himself or set a poor example for the flock.

24 The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. 25 So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.

Lastly, even when we fail to make the right decision every single time, nothing is hidden from God’s sight. We should try as hard as we can, but we should know that we will never get every action right. We should absolutely seek to keep the church pure. However, mistakes are unavoidable. Not every sin will get caught, and not every decision will be right. 
In the case of elders, who live extremely public lives, some sins are so obvious that church discipline is purely procedural. A pastor caught in adultery should be removed. A pastor caught stealing from the church should be removed. A pastor who teaches anything contrary to the word of God should be removed. Our sins go before us to judgment, meaning that God is the ultimate judge on the last day. There is coming a day when Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. The day of Lord will bring salvation for his people and judgment for his enemies. To shy away from that truth because some consider it dangerous is to do great evil to those who are perishing. 

If judging sin in the present, as faulty as our judgments can be, should cause great fear among the people, how much more fearful should we be of the perfect judge who knows all things? We are hiding nothing from him. Even more fearful are the sins which aren’t evident to others and only come to light on the last day, sins for which we have never repented. 
There are those good deeds which are well-known. If judgment of sin brings about fear, then acknowledgment of good deeds should bring about joy. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy recognition, but the Christian knows that that is not the right motivation. We live to glorify God in all we do, especially our good works. But in the same way our sin is known fully only to God, so are our good deeds, even if imperfectly executed. The righteous judge sees our sin as well as our acts of worship. The judge of all the earth will do what is right. He rewards those who diligently seek him. There will be nothing hidden from his eyes at the final judgment.

It seems as though Paul has spent an inordinate amount of time on the issue of pastoral leadership, but this isn’t even his final word on the matter. If Paul has this much to say in 1 Timothy and in his other letters, then we should heed his words. We should honor our leaders, but only those who honor the gospel. As important as oversight is, perhaps the most important thing elders can do is teach their people and always shine a light on the gospel of Christ and him crucified. Those are the only elders we should honor. Ministry requires great effort in discipling a church toward maturity so that we are not swayed by every shifting wind. So we must not bring spurious charges against leadership and waste resources and effort. This requires a great deal of wisdom, discernment, and impartiality, ultimately, because God is the impartial judge.

He sees our inner life, the things that no one else sees. This calls for confession of sin and faith in Christ. Only in his name do we find salvation. His perfect life made him the acceptable substitute for our sins and rebellion. God received Christ’s blood in the heavenly temple once-for-all. Therefore, we are spared from being cast away from his presence. The righteous judge accepted the perfect righteousness of Christ, counting it as ours. So we confess Jesus is Lord with our lips and believe that truth in our hearts. This is the gospel we preach. This is the gospel we honor.

I am sure that everyone here has seen or is at least quite familiar with “The Wizard of Oz.” It was a special effects masterpiece in its day. If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the musical “The Wiz” with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross from the 70’s. Now pretty much any high school drama team performs it regularly.


In the mid 90’s, Gregory Maguire wrote the book “Wicked” about the generation in Oz before Dorothy arrives. Then about 10 years later, it was turned into a Broadway musical. The book is quite dark, and it focuses on the nature of good and evil and whether they stem more from nature or nurture. But the musical is a cotton-candy version of the same story. 


The musical focuses on two ambitious woman who meet in college with very different ideas of how best to defeat the evil they see around them. The woman who becomes the wicked witch is given the name Elphaba, and the good witch goes by Galinda. Elphaba is more intent on facing reality with all its wrinkles and darkness, accepting it for what it is, and is a misunderstood heroine who wants to expose the wizard for the wicked man he is. Galinda, on the other hand, is a well-to-do, widely accepted young woman who likes to enjoy the perks of the system from the inside. Galinda wants to help Elphaba by encouraging her to do what it takes to become popular. If she’ll dress differently, use the right words, and get to know the right people, you…will…be…popular. Just do what Galinda says, no questions asked, and Elphaba will get what she wants in the end. However, Elphaba isn’t interested in being popular but in doing the right thing. Being popular is just a distraction from the truth. 


Christians often face the same temptation. Parts of culture are outright hostile to the faith and want to see it dismantled. But in the main, what culture wants is to see little changes here and there to supposedly help the church keep up with the times. And the human condition is to want to be popular and accepted by as many people as possible. The world is all too willing to tell us what we will have to give up to make us popular.


In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he says some very unpopular things. In Paul’s day, what he said was unwelcome. Today, what Paul says is hateful, benighted, bigoted, chauvinistic, and intolerant. Many people today, even in the church, want to take Paul’s words and, as Peter says, twist them as they do the other Scriptures. 


What will not happen is us shaping the Scriptures to our liking. We must be shaped by the Scriptures. Do we give lip-service to the authority of Scripture until we have something to disagree with? Any church that creeps away from the words of Scripture is a church on its way out. Paul is adamant that Timothy organizes a church that, above all things, guards the gospel. Timothy is called to put the church in order, and the ordering of the church is one very important and highly visible way of guarding the gospel. God would have his church ordered perhaps a little differently than you or I would. The point of the church is not to reflect you and me, nonetheless the world, but to reflect him. The church is to be a worshiping community of priests, every last one of us. From the cultural mandate of Genesis 1, to the covenantal call of Abraham, to the great commission given by Christ, the church is to be the steward of God’s rule and reign over all creation. Therefore, we are not at liberty to govern ourselves according to our own design. This is Christ’s church, not ours. 


Starting with myself, I must admit my sinful nature, which is being killed day by day, still wants to be in the center of things. We want our will to be the driving force of the universe. We want a world fashioned after our likeness. We don’t mind an impersonal god, as long as he thinks like us. So before we even know what the book says, because it is Scripture, we must be willing to submit ourselves to it and thereby submit ourselves to God.


It might surprise us what’s in this little letter. Things that we might think are a non-issue, or settled, Paul says to take a second look. What we might dismiss, Paul says to reconsider. What culture says is good may not be so good when you peer under the hood. As Paul says elsewhere in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The natural man does not know God and must therefore be taught by God who he is. And God has given us Scripture to learn how the church must be ordered to preach the risen Christ and guard the gospel of the kingdom of God. So we shouldn’t expect to naturally agree with everything we read. We should expect to be confronted in our unbelief. But God loves his people and does not leave us to our own devices. So in these first seven verses of 1 Timothy, we find that …


Teaching doctrine is loving people.


We have all been impacted by outside forces that want to frame the way we view the world. We have all been told the way to be acceptable and popular. Sometimes these views need to be confronted with the word of God and brought into accord with divine truth. Paul is going to address matters of human sexuality, the character of leaders, and men and women in ministry. The wider culture holds nothing back when it speaks on all of those issues, and unless we’re intentional about the authority of Scripture, that Scripture is the final authority in all these matters, that Scripture settles all disputes as the highest authority, then we will be prone to let culture’s voice speak louder than God’s. And that’s not how we love God or each other. Teaching doctrine is loving people. 


1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, 2 To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.


Point 1: Christian doctrine has a divine source.


Paul clearly meant this letter to be read aloud in worship and expounded by the pastor-teachers. Paul and Timothy were extremely close and had worked together as pastors and missionaries for years. Paul considered Timothy to be a son. He calls Timothy a true child in the faith. But Paul wasn’t the one who ministered to Timothy when he became a Christian. Timothy grew up in a loving home where the word was taught to him, at least by his mother and grandmother, as we’re told in 2 Timothy. Paul and Timothy pastored in Ephesus for a time. Paul had other work to do, so he continued traveling and acting as a missionary around the Mediterranean. But Timothy was someone Paul trusted so much he would be comfortable leaving him behind in Ephesus to continue the work left to do.


So it is odd that Paul introduces himself to Timothy as an apostle. Of course Timothy knew Paul was an apostle. There’s no need unless Timothy is not the entirety of the intended audience. Paul is ensuring that the church in Ephesus accepts Timothy as their pastor, as their teacher, and as someone that they should trust in choosing who will hold leadership positions alongside him. Timothy’s authority is not absolute; pastors aren’t dictators. Pastors don’t rule by fiat. But there is an authority of teaching and oversight vested in pastors, and the Ephesian Christians should know that Paul the apostle has chosen Timothy and entrusted him with a lot of responsibility in this young church. So clearly, it’s important that the church know and understand what kind of leaders they should have. 


Paul the apostle tells us that his apostolic office was not chosen by him but commanded him by God. He did not wake up one day and think, “Today’s the day I start being persecuted.” He was literally knocked to the ground by the Lord and given a commission the old Paul would have wanted nothing to do with. He was present for the first Christian martyr, the deacon Stephen. We’re told he held the coats of those who stoned him, which might also imply he was the ringleader. But Christ gave Paul a new commission. Instead of the great persecutor of the church, he would be the humble planter of many churches. Paul wasn’t given a choice; he was given a commission. There was no rejecting it or coming to different terms. He was knocked down from his pedestal, went down into the waters of baptism, and was raised to new life in Christ. Paul now lived and breathed the gospel. So he is passionate about the church guarding this gospel for which so many have lost their lives. Paul gave his life preaching the gospel he received from Christ. Teaching doctrine is loving people.


3 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, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 


Point 2: Christ is the center of all doctrine.


The perennial problem for every church is straying from the core message and truth of Scripture. The difficulty lies in that every generation has their own version of it, so it can be difficult to trace a clear line. Most of the time, it’s an ancient heresy or heterodox position repackaged as something novel. But there is a thread running through all of them: Christ is not enough. Some are more subtle than others, but it’s there all the same. Here are two contemporary examples:


In the prosperity gospel, Christ giving himself up for our sin is replaced with God existing to meet your needs and glorify you. Jesus’ death was just an example of what God is willing to do for you, if it has any noteworthiness at all. If you can hide what the Bible says behind false promises of health and wealth, you can make people do anything and give you any amount of money.


In one of the newest spiritual, so-called “Christian” movements, the new apostolic reformation, the Holy Spirit vesting the written word of Scripture with his authority is replaced with mystical power and centralized leadership in the man at the top. If you say God gave you a mandate to heal diseases, cast out demons, and teach new revelations he has given you, then you don’t need to teach what he’s said in Scripture.


But again, the thread in all of these deceitful movements is that they displace Christ as the center of all doctrine. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, Christ Jesus is the point. He is the thesis of Scripture. He is the culmination of all that God has said and done. He is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Every covenant of the Old Testament is a movement toward the new covenant made in Christ’s blood. 


Maybe in no other place is that truth made more explicit than in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews has been called the greatest commentary on the Old Testament. In that book, the author goes to great lengths to show how everything that came before Christ was a shadow of Christ. Before Christ came, all you had to go off of to know what God would do was based on those shadows. Once Christ came, you no longer had to look at the shadow to get a sense of what he actually looked like. We look at him! Christ is better than the angels because the angels worship him. He is better than Moses because Moses was God’s servant but Christ is God’s Son. He is better than the priesthood because his priesthood is eternal. And he is better than any old covenant because his covenant dealt with sin once and for all.


In Paul’s other letters, he warns about people creeping in and teaching false doctrine. They want to usurp the leadership in place. But we don’t get that sense in 1 Timothy. Paul tells Timothy to charge certain persons from teaching different doctrine. It seems as though Paul is talking about Timothy’s fellow teaching pastors of the church. There are those who have not necessarily started teaching contradictory truths, or heresies, but they have started focusing on things that distract from the gospel. This makes sense since Paul goes into greater detail about leadership qualifications in the next few chapters. 


The examples Paul gives of different doctrines are myths and genealogies. This supports the idea that they are pastors who have lost their way and not outside pagan influencers, because they are at least trying to make connections to the Bible. Myths are those ideas that usually lack all truth. They might be used to support a doctrine, but they are not themselves true. Therefore they shouldn’t be taught. This was extremely common among the Jews of the first century and well into the next few hundred years. They developed a bunch of background stories for biblical characters or filled in the holes of what is in Scripture. They thought they were helping, but all they were doing is burdening people with myths that are completely unnecessary and might actually not be true. Myths about all the famous Bible characters developed, from Adam, to Moses, to Enoch. Today, we see this in shows like The Chosen. Holy imagination is still imagination. People who watch TV but don’t read the Bible are easily persuaded. Any time we perform something from Scripture, whether it be a video Bible story in Sunday school or an Easter cantata, it better be the words of Scripture. Otherwise, we’re dealing with the same kind of myth that Paul was in the first century.


But what really stands out here is genealogies. The Bible is full of genealogies, and Paul says they’re bad? Not exactly. Unlike myths, genealogies have a good purpose. They are notoriously long and often glossed over in our reading plans, even by yours truly, but they have a grand purpose. They are there to show God’s consistent covenantal faithfulness across generations. The genealogies of Genesis date from creation to God’s selection of Abraham. The genealogies of 1 Chronicles show that not one of God’s elect was lost in the Babylonian captivity. And the genealogies of Matthew and Luke show that the life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ has been the plan of God all along. So used rightly, the genealogies comfort the believer and give evidence of God’s lovingkindness.


But that’s not the only way they have been used. All too often, genealogies were used to corroborate their myths. And later, Paul will address how these teachers have understood and taught the law of God. It’s not that the law was bad, but how the teachers used the law was wrong. In the same way, how the teachers used the genealogies was wrong, even though they were good. Any doctrine that leads away from Christ, or pulls focus from him, is a dangerous doctrine. Teaching doctrine that is centered on Christ is how we love people.


5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 


Point 3: Doctrine should form the whole person.


One of the great questions every believer must ask themselves, both regularly and perhaps especially at times we receive the Lord’s Supper, is “Do I really believe all this? Do I really believe all these doctrines? How can I know? Have I really been changed into someone who loves God and his people? Because it doesn’t always feel like it.” 


Now because it doesn’t always feel like it, we’re told to examine ourselves. There will be evidence, or fruit, in the Christian’s life. Much or meager, there will be fruit. In verse 5, Paul tells us what the grand, over-arching theme of our doctrine is: love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. He is applying this well-established rule as a guide for us.


Saying that love is the greatest of all the Christian virtues is nothing new for Paul. He has said early in 1 Corinthians 13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (v.13). Love is the highest of all virtues. And of course, Jesus tells his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). That is the goal to which we attain, the kind of love modeled for us in the substitutionary death of Christ. 


But what makes up love? What are its components? A clean or pure heart, an unbothered conscience, and an unfeigned faith. 


What makes our hearts pure? King David knew. He writes in Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (v.10). It is God who creates new hearts. God cleans the heart. Apart from him our hearts deceive us time and time again. David was incapable of changing himself. Sure, he could exercise and get in shape, he could color his hair, he could change his clothes. But all that exterior stuff is of far lesser value than the interior work on the heart that only God can do. Jesus tells us in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.” So God must act first if we are to have love from a pure heart. 


But what about our conscience? If you’re anything like me, your conscience still bothers you. It’s a sign that the Spirit is at work when my sin bothers me. It’s not just a fear of getting caught that everyone feels but a grief over the rebellious nature of my sin. How can I have a good, clean, undefiled conscience? Your conscience is both a blessing as well as a tool of the enemy. The enemy says to us, “If you know what you did, then of course God knows what you did, and he told you not to do it. So how can you ever think you’ll be a good person?”


A good conscience is not a conscience unaware of your sins and disobedience. A good conscience is the result of repentance. Repentance is confession of our sins and a desire to pursue holiness because God is holy. Repentance is not a one-and-done deal. Repentance is the Christian lifestyle. Repentance is the pursuit of holiness. Martin Luther, the German reformer, nailed his famous 95 theses to the doors of the Wittenberg castle in 1517. It was meant to be a list of topics for debate in the university held in the cathedral. The first thesis was this: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.” A good and clean conscience does not come from perfection but from turning from sin and pursuing holiness each and every day, and more precisely, especially when we fail.


But love has a third component: a pure heart, a good conscience, and lastly, a sincere faith. That word “sincere” means to hold to the faith once delivered to the saints without hypocrisy. Whether or not you have a sincere faith is answered by questions like, “Is God just a conversation piece for you? Does God owe you anything for your good deeds? Do you give any thought to obedience outside of Sunday morning?” There are those who see Christianity as just worship attendance and little else. But if you seek to give the Lord everything, if his Word is the answer to your questions regardless of whether you like it or not, your faith is without hypocrisy. And just because your faith waivers, that does not mean your faith is not sincere. The tallest skyscrapers move the most in the wind. It’s the one-story, insignificant buildings that are destroyed by the wind. That’s because there’s nothing to them! Their foundations are in the dirt. But why do those tall buildings not fall over? How can they stand up to the wind? Because their foundations go deeper than a one-story house. They go all the way down to the bedrock. 


So how do you build your foundations all the way down to the bedrock, past all the sand and dirt and clay? You build your life on the words of Christ. He tells us, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27). Your faith can waiver if it’s built on rock. The rock is what makes it secure. So when your faith waivers, don’t think of it as weak. When buildings move with the wind, they’re actually showing how strong they are. They’ll still be standing when the wind stops. When your faith waivers, look to the bedrock. Remember his life, his death, his resurrection, and his exaltation. He will not let you falter to the point of turning from him.


6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.


Point 4: Deserting doctrine leads to more misunderstanding.


Few things are as dangerous as someone holding a gun and not looking where they're aiming. “Swerving” here is a term from the archery world, meaning to aim carelessly. It’s like going to the gun range and putting blinders on. It’s deadly. When you don’t know what you’re aiming at, people die. Paul says that these pastor-teachers have aimed carelessly at the law of God. Instead of using the law of God biblically, they are making up their own ways. They don’t know how to use it. The law of God shows us our sin and calls us to repentance. It also shows us the perfect righteous standard God expects. It was only ever executed perfectly in one man, Christ Jesus. So by putting our faith in him, we are counted as righteous, as if we fulfilled the law. If we don’t get that right, we’re treading on dangerous ground. If we don’t understand it was fulfilled in Christ, we risk misunderstanding a host of other doctrines. We will inevitably get the atonement wrong. We will get the church wrong. We will get the whole notion of covenant and faithfulness wrong. One way or another, everything is tied to the law of God. And it’s when we get the law wrong that we misunderstand many other doctrines.


This is one way teachers get students. When they don’t understand the important things, they dress them up in order to give an appearance of understanding. Jesus often charged the Pharisees with something similar. They understood the letter of the law, but they did not understand that he was the fulfillment of the law, even though he proved it many times in public. You can spout off all the $1 words you want, but if you don’t see them as pointing you to Christ, you are like the Pharisees and these pastors in Ephesus. This doesn’t mean everyone goes to Bible college to get a proper education. In fact, theological education should primarily take place in the church. That was the failure of these pastor-teachers. They didn’t understand the Scriptures themselves, so they padded their sermons and lessons with nonsense. 


Teaching doctrine is loving people. This is especially true when the doctrine is unpopular and considered intolerant, as we’ll see. Our doctrine comes from God, not man. It came through apostles and prophets, but it’s source was always God. And all of our doctrine ultimately points us to Christ. Christ is the thread going through every page. Sometimes we need help to see it, but it’s there. And when we see Christ on every page, every part of us is changed. Good doctrine is for the mind, of course, but it’s also for the heart and soul. What starts in the mind must eventually change the things we love. And if we neglect the fact that Christ is the culmination of God’s plan, we’ll radically misunderstand other doctrines as well. Without Christ, we have no doctrine. The most loving thing we can do for ourselves and others is to live lives in accordance with the law of God. Teaching doctrine is loving people.