A message and a life worth multiplying

 “Meanwhile, the church multiplied...”

(Acts 9:31, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, February 26, 2012)

31 So the church

Jesus had promised His disciples that He would build His church, and that His assembly of worshipers would be on the move with the message and the life of the cross. The death of Jesus is a fact that yields a powerful message and a powerful way of life. Is that what you want?

Not everyone can accept the message of the cross. Among those who hear the message, not everyone can receive the gift of the powerful way of life that it demands. The church is at its best when it receives both the message and the way of life that flows from the fact of the cross.

The church is a New Testament reality based on the Old Testament Scriptures. The death and resurrection of Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures. When Stephen, Philip, Saul, and Peter went out as representatives of the Lord's message and His surprising way of life, they preached the Old Testament. They clearly had many opponents who stood against them.

They preached something else in addition to the passages in the Law and the prophets that prepared the Jews for the coming Messiah. They preached the events that capped those Scriptures. Not only did passages from Genesis to Malachi prepare the people of God for the coming Messiah who would suffer, die, and rise again. In the fulness of time those events happened. They were convinced that the Scriptures and the events of Messiah were good news.

throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria

This good news of Jesus was being preached throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. Those first century territories covered the area that was originally the Promised Land. Back in the day of Moses, the Canaanites were in that land. God gave that territory to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But Israel would not obey the voice of the Lord in the Scriptures. They would not follow the Law of God.

Eventually they were driven from the Land, receiving the curse of the covenant that God had promised to them if they would not obey Him. Through the centuries of Old Testament history, it became clear that the kingdom of God would not come through Israel's sin.

Far less likely still was any idea that peace for the world could come through the message and life of Gentile nations. The Hebrew Scriptures were not even part of their religious systems. They did not know anything about a suffering Jewish Messiah. They certainly had not heard that the way to glory would come through a cross.

But God's settled intention since the foundation of the world was captured well in one of the songs of Israel. In the words of Psalm 100, “All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice; him serve with fear, his praise forthtell, come ye before him and rejoice.”

The message and life of the cross spread throughout the old territory of Israel, but it was just too good to stop at those old borders. People beyond Israel needed to know that good news. His chosen mechanism for the publication of salvation would be this assembly of suffering servants who would bring the Word forward in a great proclamation and demonstration of love. That work of God through the church, the body of Christ, would be unstoppable. The very gates of hell guarding the nations of the world would not be able to prevail against the people aligned with a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus who died for their sins, and rose again for the public declaration of a righteousness that comes to them from His obedience alone.

had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

This is our message. This is our way of life. Since the beginning of the Christian church, we have been a suffering assembly of worship. Peter and John suffered for the word of the cross. Stephen was stoned by an angry mob of religious rulers who found his teaching completely unacceptable. Saul of Tarsus faced death threats from those who were once his allies in persecuting the church.

Since those early days the suffering of the body of Christ has continued in every place where the message and life of the cross moved forward. But through it all the church has had peace with God and some measure of peace with one another around the common bond of Jesus. Through all the stonings, imprisonments, expulsions, murders, thefts, and oppressions that would take place since that day so long ago when our Savior died for our sins, the church was being built up.

How can you succeed with the word of the cross and the life of the cross? That message and that life demonstrate that power for the best multiplication is in God and not in mankind. When we get away from that message and that life, we become distracted, we lose, and others will take our place who remember these words: “Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.”

Today in the western world, the church is held in derision by many, marginalized as archaic and out of step with the way things are, and considered dangerous and strange whenever it holds to the message and life that is its only glory, the cross. But its most formidable attack comes from within its own ranks from those who may still claim the message of the cross but combine it with a life that is foreign to that cross. When we combine a message that uses the Name of Jesus with a life that just yearns for success according to the world's terms, we empty the cross that we preach of its power. No matter how big that gets, it will never be the kingdom.

How do we come back home to the vitality of the persecuted church that was known in the first century throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria? We need to return to the King of the kingdom who made the heavens and the earth. He is the only one who can give us the fear of the Lord that would keep us from being too moved by those who might see us as fools. Only in Him will we have the comfort of the Holy Spirit, assuring us that this message and life is the Way, and worth living and dying for. Only then will we see the true multiplication of heavenly life.

What we need is God, the great God who made the earth, the good God who sees us in our weakness and rescues us. We need the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who knew what it would take to build a resurrection world and gave His Son for that greatest of all enterprises. We need the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who healed and taught with power that was far beyond anything that the Pharisees could compete with, but who was willing to empty Himself and suffer for our redemption. We need the Holy Spirit, giving us the words of the cross, and leading us in the life of that same cross. With God, we win. Without the cross, we have nothing to give, and we will never know the multiplication that causes rejoicing in heaven.

1. What is the church? Where did it come from? What is its purpose and destiny?

2. What is the significance of the territories mentioned in this summary verse?

3. Despite the persecutions, what was happening in the church in those early years?

4. What is happening in the church today?

OT Passage: Psalm 100

More on being a good follower...

 “You have followed...” – Part 2

(2 Timothy 3:10)

10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

You, however, have followed

Paul writes to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” This is all that a Christian minister can ask. If he tells people that they can safely follow his teaching but not his life, then he admits that he is like the Pharisees who were hypocrites. As Jesus said in Matthew 23:2-3, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.”

my faith,

This kind of double-minded life is powerlessness for the church, and is completely against the godliness that comes from Christ and the gospel. The faith that Timothy had picked up from Paul was not that way. It was a living faith in a living Savior Our faith is all about this Jesus Christ. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. We believe that one died for all, so that all who have died in Him might also live in Him. Faith is trust. In trusting Christ there is power to renounce all the works of the devil.

my patience,

This kind of change of orientation from the ways of a dying world to the ways of Jesus and the new world of resurrection does not work in exactly the same way and exactly at the same pace in all. Not only do we want our godliness to come from God. We also need patience from the God who is slow to anger. Jesus was patient. Paul was patient. Timothy was patient. It was not easy to be that way. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and a gift of God.

my love,

These are all virtues of Almighty God that can be imitated, but we didn't know them as well until Jesus came. The love that He displayed was so far above anything else that mankind has ever known, that in the New Testament, love is spoken of as a new commandment. Why? Because we now have seen the love of God in person, so Jesus can tell us, not just to love another, but to “love one another as I have loved you.” That is new. Jesus loves. Paul loves. Timothy loves. Dr. Walters loved. I love. You need to love. And someone else will love because they see Christ loving through you.

my steadfastness

Yes, Dr. Walters, my preaching professor loved me. It was not easy. I had become a know-it-all. But he was steadfast in his love for me, like Jesus. So was Dr. Wilson. A man who gave himself to the people of Afghanistan until they threw him out. And he continued to love the Afghan people. His love had a big impact on me. He ultimately got that love from Jesus, but it touched this church through J. Christy Wilson and then me.

This is a great way for us to see Christ and for others to see Him through us, and it is the will of God for the church and for you. None of this would be possible were it not for the patience, faith, love, and steadfastness of Jesus expressed supremely through the cross and still filling the church today through the Holy Spirit.

The Boldness of Victorious Joy

 “But I thought that you were on our side!”

(Acts 9:26-30, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, February 19, 2012)

26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

When we last left Saul of Tarsus, he was being lowered down in a basket from a window in the city wall of Damascus. It was in that region that he was teaching in the synagogues that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. During his earlier time away from Damascus he developed a reputation as a man who needed to be silenced. The local political authorities and many Jews who disagreed violently with Saul, were plotting to kill him, but he had evaded their murderous intentions.

The controversy between Jesus-receiving Jews and Jesus-rejecting Jews was not only raging in Damascus. It had been going on since 30 AD in the city of Jerusalem. Saul's arrival there was his return to the place where he had left from so many months before. He left Jerusalem as an official representative of the highest religious authorities on the Jesus-rejecting side of the debate. He came back to Jerusalem as a representative of the highest authority in the Jesus-receiving churches, the reigning King, Jesus Christ Himself.

He attempted to join the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, but all the people were afraid of Him. They knew the dangers they faced from Jesus-rejecting Jews. Stephen was dead. Many had fled from Jerusalem because of the persecution that broke out at that time. Saul had been a key figure in that persecution. How could they trust him?

27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.

Because of the powerful grace of the Lord, people can change. Saul was a new man with a very different sense of calling. Someone had to see that, and Barnabas was the man. Barnabas is not someone we focus on much. We read about him first in Acts 4:36-37, “Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.”

One of the most powerful things that Barnabas ever did for the Christian movement was to have the courage to believe that the change that had taken place in Saul's life was real, and to act upon that conviction by becoming Saul's advocate with the existing Christian community in Jerusalem. He told them Saul's testimony. He told them that Saul was obeying the highest authority in the church in His new mission. He told them about Saul's bold preaching in the name of Jesus at Damascus. Saul's suffering for Christ there had become an important proof of the genuineness of His message.

Barnabas was used by the Lord in a very important way at that time, just by opening doors for Saul in this vibrant church that was all over Jerusalem and had spread from Jerusalem to so many other locations through the persecution that Saul had once been a part of. The persecutor had now joined the persecuted. That's a very powerful story. More powerful still is the good news of Jesus that Saul was now boldly preaching.

29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him.

Saul quickly ran into trouble with a group called here “the Hellenists” that he had once been associated with. The Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews from outlying territories who were living in Jerusalem and were zealous for Pharisaic religious traditions. This group had opposed the preaching of Stephen.

Remember that a crisis between Greek-speaking Jews and Hebrew-speaking Jews had been averted earlier by the appointment of Spirit-filled deacons who made sure that poor widows were being cared for regardless of what language they spoke. The way that this dangerous controversy about caring for widows had been solved made a difference to many people in Jerusalem, and a great number of the priests came to faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing infuriates enemies like the success of those they are against. To now have one of the Hellenists' greatest persecutors return to Jerusalem on the other side of a murderous debate was enough to make them want to kill him.

30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

When do you stay and die like Stephen, and when do you leave secretly to live on to fight another day like Saul in Damascus? This is something that requires that the Lord lead the church. We do not face these and many other dilemmas alone. We count on the fact that there are others in the church who can help us to navigate the mysterious path of God's providence.

These brothers in the church in this case became aware that a group of Hellenists were seeking to kill Saul. They brought him to the coastal city of Caesarea, there to leave for his hometown of Tarsus, on the southeastern coast of what is today Turkey. That may have felt like an unfortunate detour, just as the earlier persecution of Jesus-receiving Jews in Jerusalem was certainly a great inconvenience and difficulty. But then we remember that at that earlier time, those who were scattered, preached the Word everywhere that they went.

That Word, the receiving of it and the preaching of it, needs to be the passion of the church in every generation. The message of the Suffering Servant Messiah can be easily lost by the church within just a few years while we concern ourselves with everything else that seems to be of critical importance. It is the Word and Spirit of God that changes a Jesus-rejecting man into a Jesus-receiving and Jesus-obeying man. The whole church has an interest in seeing that such men in every generation get a hearing, that they know how to preach boldly, that they know when to move on to the next place of service, and that they know when to stay and face death.

The Man that we serve is the One who set His face for Jerusalem even though it alarmed His disciples. They knew that Messiah-rejecting Jews had only recently been trying to kill Him there. They would have been happier if He had stayed up in Galilee. But He knew better. We need Him to lead the church in every age. And through it all we need to care more about His message and His kingdom than we do about our own comfort and convenience.

His determination to be faithful has given us the best testimony about the power of Spirit-directed righteous suffering ever known to humanity. We are not trying to throw our lives away, but we do want to offer them up as living sacrifices. Without that kind of suffering love for Jesus and the Word, the church is something very different than what it is supposed to be. Without a community of faith that believes in the power of costly love and in the presence of divine direction from the King, there is no real church.

1. How did the Jesus-receiving Jews in Jerusalem react to Saul at first after his return from Damascus?

2. What was the value of Barnabas' ministry on this occasion?

3. Who were the Hellenists, and why was Saul disputing against them?

4. Who made the decision that Saul should be sent off to Tarsus? How are we to know when to leave and when to stay when we are facing opposition to our faith?

OT Passage: Psalm 97

Is it OK to be a follower?

 “You have followed...” – Part 1

(2 Timothy 3:10)

10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

You, however, have followed

Paul has been warning Timothy about false men who have the appearance of being godly but deny the power of godliness. He encourages his son in the faith that he does not consider Timothy to be one of these men..

Timothy has followed Paul as Paul has followed Christ. A true Christian minister and friend can ask for nothing more than that.

my teaching,

Timothy has followed Paul's teaching that the apostle received from Jesus Christ. To follow a mentor's teaching means to believe and teach others the same content of the faith, with the same sense of proportion and passion. We would all do well to have heat where God has granted us light. This is part of following a balanced teacher.

my conduct,

Timothy has also followed Paul's conduct. If Paul would boast about anything regarding His own conduct, we know what it would be. It would not be his success, but His suffering. Timothy has been willing to suffer inconvenience and persecution for the Name of Jesus Christ. Without this conduct, the teaching would have very little meaning.

my aim in life

Timothy has followed Paul's aim in life. Paul is preaching and living the cross of Christ as one who is stretching toward the prize of the eternal. Paul presses on toward that aim, that hope, and so does his child in the faith and ministry, Timothy.

We are not all that sure what we think about following.

It seems like an admission of weakness that is not commendable. This attitude against following is not a good impulse, but a proud defiance of the lordship of Jesus.

Jesus was the true Son of the Father in truth and love. He did what He saw His Father do. He said what He heard His father say.

Each of us needs to connect directly with Him, to make the kind of commitment to really following Him that He demands and grants to us, and to have the gift of passion that comes with that commitment. Only then will we have heaven's power for the kingdom of God on earth today.

But that direct connection with Him does not mean that we live a life of spiritual isolation without any mentors or followers, God wants us to be in community with each other in the church. We do not follow superstar celebrity pastors or Christian personalities who we would be shocked to actually see in person. We get to live with real children of God.

Speaking suffering and living suffering

 “The Jews, Saul, and his disciples”

(Acts 9:23-25, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, February 12, 2012)

23 When many days had passed,

The account that the Lord caused Luke to record in Acts did not contain every detail about the early years of Saul's ministry. If there is anything else that God wanted us to know about that, He would have recorded it in another place. So we want fold into our story here something Paul wrote about in Galatians 2:11-24, even though we don't know exactly how to place it in the time-line of the Acts account:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.

the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him,

A second passage (2 Corinthians 11:30-33) tells us some more about these early moments of boldness and difficulty:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.

The Lord had promised that Saul would have a ministry of suffering. He learned to boast in that as part of his weakness, rather than to brag about his strengths, which he counted as nothing. Strengths become nothing, when the cross becomes everything.

Saul's former allies, the Jesus-rejecting Jews, were plotting to kill him. When people are making plans for religious murder, something intense is happening in their hearts and minds. Many people seem to group all religious zealots together. They talk about how many people have been killed in the name of God. That's fine, but we cannot consign every murderous religious battle to the file that is entitled “Religious Insanity.”

There was an intense struggle between Jesus-receiving Jews and Jesus-rejecting Jews in the years between 30 and 70 AD. It started during the life of Jesus, but it continued with greater intensity after Pentecost, spreading everywhere where Jews worshiped.

The disagreement was about the Old Testament, not about the New. Some of the New Testament had not yet been written. It then had to be collected, and even after that it had to be copied and circulated before it was more broadly known. Men like Saul preached their message from the Old Testament Scriptures which were in both Greek and Hebrew and were in synagogues everywhere.

The Jewish disagreement was not just about Jesus. It became focused on a broader issue of the nature of the expected Messiah. The Jesus-rejecting Jews did not believe that the Old Testament taught Israel about a Messiah who would be a personal suffering servant of the Lord. The Jesus-receiving Jews were firmly convinced that many passages prepared Israel for just such a suffering Messiah who would die, rise again, reign from heaven, and return in glory. They believed that Jesus of Nazareth was this Suffering Servant. They learned this from Jesus.

25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

When Saul embraced the Jesus-receiving version of Judaism, He began to teach from these same Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. He became a disciple of Jesus. Disciples make disciples. In this passage we read about what Saul's disciples did. Saul did not teach them to have faith based on something great about Saul. Saul wanted them to be disciples of Jesus.

Disciples are students. They learn about the Scriptures from the service of someone else, but they must evaluate it for themselves. They must come to know for themselves that passages from Genesis all the way through Malachi prepared the Jews for a Savior who would suffer and die, and that He would be victorious after His death.

Consider Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Who is this offspring of the woman that would be wounded on His heel, but would crush the head of the deceiving serpent, Satan? Jesus, the Suffering Messiah, was revealed in the opening pages of the Scriptures. These are the sort of lessons that Saul would have been teaching his fellow Jews.

God blessed this teaching by giving Saul people who had ears to hear the message. They loved Jesus Christ, and they loved their teacher, Saul, not only for what Saul taught, but for how he lived. When his life was threatened, they came up with a plan that involved a daring escape through an opening in the city will. The great Pharisee was lowered out of Damascus in a basket.

True witness yields religious controversy. When Jesus sent out His disciples, He said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” We are not trying to kill or to be killed. We are trying to bring the message of life through a suffering Messiah to a world He came to save. We speak suffering and we live it.

Saul came toward Damascus as a wolf looking for sheep, though he imagined that he was just defending the honor of the God of the Jews. He left Damascus by being lowered down in a basket. He had become a sheep, and there were wolves seeking to consume him now.

This difference between Jesus-receiving Jews and Jesus-rejecting Jews was no small matter. It was a question of life or death. It was a matter of Biblical interpretation that made a very passionate divide between Jew and Jew. Is the man who died on a Roman cross a Messiah-imposter and failure who would have deceived the people of Israel? Or is He the Savior who came to suffer for our sins in accord with the Hebrew Scriptures? You believe in God. You believe in Jesus. Do you believe in the cross? Do you believe that the victorious Jewish Messiah had to suffer and die for you? Do you believe in His suffering enough to follow Him in suffering?

1. Why did certain Jews want to kill Saul?

2. How serious were their intentions?

3. Who were Saul's disciples?

4. What did Jesus mean when He told His followers to be as wise as serpents innocent as doves?

OT Passage: Psalm 93

Saving secret sinners...

 “Jesus wins. How did He do it?”

(2 Timothy 3:8-9)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,

4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ...

5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,

7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.

We don't know exactly who Jannes and Jambres actually were. Some tradition connects them to the magicians directed by Pharaoh to replicate the signs performed by the Lord through Moses. Other tradition has them on the side of Balaam in his various intrigues against Israel.

What we do know is that these men opposed Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant and a man through whom the Lord was giving revelation to Israel. Paul has been talking about people who have an appearance of godliness, but who deny the power of it. Leaders like this in the church are very dangerous. They need to be avoided.

Such men oppose the truth, though they may seem to be the most vigorous defenders of God and godliness. There are many ways to oppose the truth. One way is to have hidden areas of your life and past that even God is not allowed to expose and to change. Then gather around you a group of disciples and expect them to follow your every word and instruction, but never allow them to see the real you.

You may even forget the truth of who you are and what you will not allow God to change in you. Your mind and heart become deadened to the true power of godliness. This is a soul corruption that will not be contained. Paul says that such people are disqualified regarding the faith.

9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

Such men may be impressed with their own appearance of godliness, but they will not be able to contain their own growing evil. They will not get very far, though they seem to do so much damage to themselves and to others. Very soon their foolishness will be plain to all.

Who will defeat them? The same great Leader of integrity who won the battle for you against eternal death is protecting His bride from religious sorcerers who are stuck in growing depravity. He wins by exposing secret darkness to the light for your sake.

He can even save a minister who is in this kind of deadly pit, and grant true repentance...

Deeply Disappointing (but no reason to give up)

 “The Truth Shall Set You Free”

(2 Timothy 3:6-7)

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,

4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ...

5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,

7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

For among them are those who creep into households

In this world we will have tribulation, but Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Church tribulation is deeply disappointing. The warning that Paul gives Timothy is horrible news about the gospel era. Christians, even Ministers of the Word will slink into other peoples homes, taking advantage of bonds of Christian affection to work their own evil schemes.

Such people probably do not set out consciously to invade a troubled home and to destroy someone else's marriage and family life. But that is what they do. They are deceived and they deceive and harm others who they may sincerely admire.

and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,

Who are the weak and who are the strong in the church? It is not always easy to tell.

Christians have access to the personal lives of other Christians when we walk through this life with each other. Will we abuse this intimacy to satisfy our own need to be a rescue party of one? Do we want to be admired and appreciated so much by people that we would use the weak for our own strange purposes?

There are foolish women in this world who may think of themselves as very spiritually strong, but who are not well acquainted with honesty and integrity in their most important commitments. They are easily led astray by various eager longings.

Paul says “various” passions here because people can be captivated by more than just physical lust. We can have a lust for spiritual intimacy and the approval of others, for instance. Or we can have a lust for other people's lives that are not our own. God has given one woman the gift of understanding the sufferings of Christ better as she struggles to be faithful in a difficult marriage. But what if she rejects that gift, and lusts after a different relationship that may even appear to be more pleasing to God than her own?

always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

The deception in this is very thick. A woman may be very intellectual and seem very attentive to spiritual growth, and all the while she may be captivated by various lusts, She is never able to experience much sanctification, because she is more interested in appearing spiritual than in pursuing holiness in the fear of the Lord.

Only the One who is the truth can set us free from this kind of fake life, and we need His ministry desperately in the church. We need Him to expose our sin and then we need to embrace His saving love. When we do that, various passions that used to captivate us will lose their power, we will be able to have the true spiritual awareness to see evil as evil, and to flee from it.

May the Lord who loved us in the genuine spirituality of the cross be a powerful protector in these evil days, and may he grant true repentance and restoration to those who have fallen.