Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
March 1, 1987
What Kind of Teacher?
2 Timothy 3:6-13, KJV
We are supposed to live in a skeptical age. People only believe what they can see. Science is in charge. Religion is tolerated, if anything. More it's pushed out of public life, the better. But there's one form of religion that hasn't diminished - off-the-wall religion. If it's extreme, carnal, and well-publicized, someone will be taken in by it.
Out in California there is a new religious craze called "channeling." For $300 you can listen to a woman who becomes possessed by a 20,000 year old Indian chief. With a husky voice, she intones words of wisdom. No matter how modern we become, there will always be hunger for the supernatural, for a reality that transcends time. And as long as people hunger for it, there will be false teachers who take advantage of them.
Paul's opponents followed this approach. My message last week focused on their character. Verses 4 to 5 sums it up: "Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the Power thereof." That's their character - godliness is just a cover-up for sin.
In verse 6 he describes their methods. First of all, they are devious. Paul says they creep into houses. This is a figurative way to say they took a back-door approach. Just about every cult favors this tactic. They teach positive, common doctrines first. Only later do they get into weird meat. When a pair of Mormon missionaries visited the parsonage, I let them give their spiel and then asked them about the Mormon doctrine of how humans can become a god and populate their own planet. One of the missionaries was silent and the other said he had never heard of it. This is curious because it is a major Mormon doctrine, but one they know might alienate potential converts.
As Christians, we must be up-front in dealing with people. We should tell them of God's love, but also tell them the consequences of sin. False teachers are devious in their methods, and they are also very selective of their victims. Paul says they captivate "silly women." The NIV calls them "weak-willed women." It's really a term of contempt, like "dumb broads."
It sounds pretty chauvinistic, but it makes sense because women have always been more open to religion. They tend to be more intuitive. They are sensitive to feelings. The Christian gospel had a great appeal for women in Paul's day. Jesus traveled with women. He taught them and healed them. They were only ones to stay at crucifixion, first to witness resurrection, and among those who were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
We don't realize how radical this was. In a male dominated culture, Christianity put women on an equal spiritual footing. As Paul says in Galatians 3:28 - "There is neither slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." There are still social distinctions and physical differences, but the Christian gospel is a message of equality and liberation to women.
Down through the ages, women have responded to the gospel. In our own church about 60% of active members are women. They hold key roles throughout the church. And in the home, it is usually the women who are the spiritual leaders. They're the ones who disciple the children, and dedicate themselves to prayer.
Unfortunately, the Christian church is not the only group which has reached out successfully to women. The cults seem to have an even greater success. The openness of women to religion also makes them susceptible to quacks and cults.
It was even worse in the ancient world. Women were not educated. It was just a waste of time, and only made them "uppity" to boot. Being uneducated, women could not figure out where the false teachers were deviating from the true gospel. Women were also secluded. The Victorian period had a saying: "Women should be seen, and not heard." In Paul's day they said, "Women should not even be seen, much less heard." This seclusion made them easy prey for those who offered a wider glimpse of the world. Even if the motives were perverse.
Paul makes 3 points about these women. First, they are weighed down with sins. This can either mean their lives were full of sin, or that their sin was a burden to them - they felt conviction from the Holy Spirit Either way, they were not turning to God. Instead they were allowing their lives to be directed by different kinds of lusts. Finally, they were always learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. This certainly describes our age. Educators love to say that the more you know, the more questions you come up with.
This is true, but eventually you must reach some conclusions. You must sort through all the facts and know where you stand. There are many people who love to toy with religion, as long as they don't have to change. They want to find God and keep the world too. Where these people exist, there will be false teachers who will give them what they want.
An early Christian named Irenaeus faced this situation. He describes a false teacher named Marcus. Marcus picked out rich women. He then told them he could teach them to prophesy. When they said they weren't able to, Marcus told them, "Open your mouth, speak whatever occurs to you, and you will prophesy." The women did it, and were conned into thinking they could really prophesy.[1]
Irenaeus concluded, "She then rewards Marcus, not only by the gift of her possessions, but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him." This may sound pretty flaky, but it's the exact technique used by Jim Jones in the People's Temple. Offer spirituality, then cater to the flesh. The latest example of this kind of spirituality is Shirley MacLaine's "Out On A Limb." It promotes reincarnation (MacLaine always seems to have been a princess...) and astral projection, among other New Age ideas.
Why is it so popular? There's something to it. That's right - decadent spirituality can really work. This is because the devil is behind it. In verse 8 Paul points to the example of Jannes and Jambres. These were the two magicians who worked for Pharaoh and opposed Moses. They are not named in the Old Testament, but Jewish tradition passed it down. If you'll remember, when Moses turned his rod into a snake, they did it, too. It worked - up to a point. They could not duplicate the final miracles and stood exposed.
Jannes and Jambres were flashy. So is Shirley McLaine and Omar the Astrologer. The sign of a genuine Christian is usually a lack of flash. Paul can only point to himself. He says, Timothy, you know me. You've been with me and seen what I'm like and what I've been through. In verse 10 he mentions his love and patience. Not too many people can point to that. In verse 11 he brings up persecutions. Antioch, Iconium and Lystra - these were the very first cities he evangelized. At Lystra, he was stoned and left for dead. Instead of quitting, he got up and went to Derbe to preach. This is the town Timothy was from. It must have made quite an impression on the young convert.
The world wants a religion with sizzle. Religion that makes no demands, but makes you feel good. The Bible offers something else. It offers a changed life, one that should be marked by faith and patience and love. It's a commitment that can face up to suffering, and endure it. Jesus said he would bear a cross daily. Paul says all who want to live godly lives in Jesus will suffer persecution. The true test of a Christian leader is not their style, but their substance.
Many so-called Christian leaders have catered to the flesh and been consumed by it. The ruin themselves and take others with them. True Christian leaders will live like followers of Jesus and will be consistent in doctrine and lifestyle no matter what comes at them. Instead of using people, they will minister to them.
I hope no one here will limit this to a pastor. Every deacon, every Sunday School teacher, every believer must Listen to these verses. Many of us are wrapped up in our own lives, but some are making a difference.
A number of our young people are growing up in single-parent homes. No parent can be both a father and a mother, no matter how hard they try. One adult in this church has taken it upon themselves to adopt a young person in this situation. Every week they visit and spend some time with them. It makes a difference. This Christian provides a role model.
When we live like this, God does his part. As Paul says at the end of verse 11, "Out of all these troubles, the Lord delivered me." [testimony given about a church family who had been delivered from a terrible car accident that week]
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1. For example, see http://www.piney.com/MuProLaugh.html
Original texts on Irenaeus can be found at http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/irenaeus.asp
Against Heresies, book 1, chapter 6, § 3.
"Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the "most perfect" among them addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that "they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." ... .Others of them yield themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things should be allowed to the carnal nature, while spiritual things are provided for the spiritual. Some of them, moreover, are in the habit of defiling those women to whom they have taught the above doctrine, as has frequently been confessed by those women who have been led astray by certain of them, on their returning to the Church of God, and acknowledging this along with the rest of their errors. Others of them, too, openly and without a blush, having become passionately attached to certain women, seduce them away from their husbands, and contract marriages of their own with them. Others of them, again, who pretend at first. to live in all modesty with them as with sisters, have in course of time been revealed in their true colours, when the sister has been found with child by her [pretended] brother."
Against Heresies, book 1, chapter 13, § 3.
"It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him, by addressing them in such seductive words as these: "I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Charis, since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me [the gift of] Charis. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Charis has descended upon thee; open thy mouth and prophesy." On the woman replying," I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy; "then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her, "Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy." She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit. (Referring to this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.) Henceforth she reckons herself a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted to her of his own Charis. She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him."
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Typed on January 17, 2005, by Betty Fowler of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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