Additional Notes §10
§10 The False Teachings Censured (1 Tim. 4:1–5)
Because of the content of 3:14–16—the statement of purpose climaxed by the hymn—it is easy to think of chapter 3 as bringing us to some kind of conclusion, or major break, in the middle of the letter. But to view 3:14–16 that way is to miss the very close tie between chapter 4 and what has preceded.
Paul is about to elaborate in some detail upon the two matters expressed in the charge in chapter 1: the nature of the errors of the false teachers (4:1–5; cf. 1:3–11, 19–20) and Timothy’s role in Ephesus (4:6–16; cf. 1:18–19). The intervening instructions of chapters 2–3, on “what kind of conduct befits a member of God’s household,” are themselves to be understood against the backdrop of the teachings and activities of the straying elders. Now, in 4:1–5, Paul returns to these teachers. First, he says that their emergence should have come as no surprise—the Spirit clearly forewarned about them; second, he indicates that the true source of their teaching is demonic; and third, he gives some specifics of their errors and the reasons why they are errors.
4:1–2 / This paragraph is joined to 3:14–16 by the conjunction de (untranslated in NIV), which could mean “now” (as KJV, meaning “to move on to the next matter”) or “however,” The latter seems preferable. In 3:15–16 Paul declared that the church has been entrusted with the truth—the truth we sing about Christ. “However,” he goes on, the Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith [i.e., the truth].
But who are these some [people]? In this case—and surely this is the great urgency of the letter—they are not the false teachers themselves but the members of “God’s household” (3:15), who are being led astray by the hypocritical liars (the false teachers) of verse 2. Note how this same concern is expressed in 2 Timothy 2:16–18; 3:13; and 4:3–4.
We are not told how the Spirit clearly says. Such a formula is never used by Paul when referring to the OT. But whether this refers to the prophetic Spirit’s having spoken in the church (as Barrett) or to the Spirit speaking to Paul as he writes (or earlier, as in Acts 20) cannot be known. In any case, Paul sees the present “apostasy” (he has here used the verb form of apostasia, “rebellion, falling away”) as something the Spirit has plainly announced beforehand.
In later times refers to their present situation. The early church had long before seen the advent of the Spirit as the beginning of the End. Paul himself believed, and belonged to a tradition that believed, that the End would be accompanied by a time of intense evil (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3–12), including a “falling away” of some of the people of God (see 2 Tim. 3:1; cf. Matt. 24:12; Jude 17–18; 2 Pet. 3:3–7). Thus the present scene was clear evidence for Paul of their living in the later times (the time of the End).
What had only been hinted at before (2:14; 3:6–7) is now boldly stated. The ultimate source of the false teachings is Satan himself. The deceiving spirits and things taught by demons, which some will follow, probably refer to the same reality—the demonic nature of teaching that opposes the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4; 11:3, 13–14).
That such teachings come through hypocritical liars is a particularly strong indictment against the false teachers. Not only are their teachings demonic in nature, but they themselves are liars (lit., “speakers of falsehood”). The translation liar could be somewhat misleading, since it implies a deliberate attempt to state as fact what one knows not to be true. The Greek word implies simply that they are saying things about the gospel that are not true; that is, they are speaking falsehood rather than truth. These “lies” are furthered by hypocritical means, implying that they are outwardly false and therefore that their abstinence in verse 3 is mere pretense or outward show.
Finally, they are characterized as men whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. Paul’s Greek is not all that clear. The implication of the NIV (also RSV, GNB, NAB) is that they have had the seat of their moral judgments totally seared (we get the word cauterized from this verb); thus they are unable to discern truth from falsehood. But it is equally possible that he intends to suggest that their consciences carry Satan’s brand (as NEB, Bernard, Kelly). This seems more in keeping with the context. By teaching in the guise of truth what is actually false, they have been branded by Satan as belonging to him and doing his will.
4:3a / As illustrations of the “things taught by demons” that “come through hypocritical liars,” Paul mentions two items: They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods. These catch us a bit by surprise, although they are perhaps related to these men “wanting to be teachers of the Law” (1:7). It is not altogether easy to see how these items relate to the “myths and wearisome genealogies” of 1:4 or the teaching that “the resurrection has already taken place” (2 Tim. 2:18). Some kind of asceticism, perhaps similar to that in Colossae (Col. 2:16–23), is probably involved. This may have also been mixed with a kind of over-realized eschatology (that the End had not just begun, but had arrived in fullness; cf. 2 Thess. 2:1–2; 1 Cor. 15:12). In Corinth this kind of view about the End was apparently linked to Hellenistic dualism, which believed matter to be corrupt, or evil, and only spirit to be good. Just as some Corinthians denied a future bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12, 35), and some at least took a dim view of sex (7:1–7) and marriage (7:25–38), it is altogether likely that something very much like that is being given out as “Law” in Ephesus. Hence the road to purity was marked off for them through abstaining from marriage (to be like the angels after the resurrection [Matt. 22:30]?) and from certain foods. (See the Introduction, pp. 7–10, for further discussion.)
We have already noted (2:8–15) how this teaching that forbids people to marry had probably affected some of the women in Ephesus (cf. 5:6, 11–15). For the rest of this paragraph, Paul will respond only to the prohibition against certain foods.
4:3b–5 / Paul has had to contend with the matter of eating or not eating certain foods several times before—in 1 Corinthians 10:23–33; Romans 14:1–23; Colossians 2:16, 21. Each of these situations was different, thus accounting for what appears to have been some ambivalence on his part. However, some consistent guidelines emerge: Food is a matter of indifference; therefore, one mayor may not partake as one wishes. However, one who abstains may not judge the one who partakes (Rom. 14:3, 10; 1 Cor. 10:29–30), and when one goes beyond mere “judging” to demanding abstinence for religious or theological reasons, as in Colossians 2, Paul comes out fighting. One may do as one wishes before God, but one may not impose those “wishes” as regulations for others to follow. The response here combines some things said in 1 Corinthians 10:25–26 and 29–30 within a context of anti-abstinence polemic similar to Colossians 2:16 and 21–23.
The reasons given for Paul’s anti-abstinence stance are basically twofold—repeated and elaborated several times: God created those foods … to be received; and they are received (lit., “shared in,” “partaken of”) with thanksgiving by those who believe.
The first point speaks directly against any form of dualism that would impute impurity, ritual or ethical (although the context is ritual here), to any created thing (see also Titus 1:14–16). God created those foods—those rejected by the false teachers, but by implication, all foods—to be partaken of by those who believe and who know the truth (for this combination, cf. Titus 1:1). Those who believe the gospel are freed from the food laws (cf. Mark 7:19; Acts 10:9–16). One reason for this is an appeal to a repeated motif in Genesis 1—everything created is good. That is, the very fact that God created something has inherent in it the fact of its goodness. Therefore, nothing is to be rejected, implying rejection for reasons of ritual uncleanness (cf. Rom. 14:14: “Nothing is unclean of itself”).
The second reason appeals to the common fact that a benediction, or thanksgiving, always accompanied meals in Judaism and the early church. This is evidenced both in the Gospels (Mark 6:41; 8:6; 14:22–23 and synoptic parallels; Luke 24:30) and in Paul (1 Cor. 10:30; Rom. 14:6). Indeed by the second century in Judaism, “it is forbidden a man to enjoy anything of this world without a benediction” (Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 35a). Paul’s point is the same as in 1 Corinthians 10:30: How can one condemn another for eating that for which the thanksgiving has been offered? Implied in this is not that the prayer in itself consecrates it, but that the prayer of thanksgiving has inherent in it the recognition of God’s prior creative action. It is thus the believer’s response to God as creator, and the word of God and prayer together consecrate it (lit., “sanctify it,” keeping the ritual imagery).
There has been considerable debate as to what the word of God means in verse 5. Many see it as referring to the words of the OT often used in the thanksgiving prayer (e.g., Ps. 24:1, used by Paul in his argument in 1 Cor. 10:25–26). However, Paul does not use the term word of God to refer to the OT as an objective, inscripturated reality. In the PE, the word of God invariably refers to the gospel message (2 Tim. 2:19; Titus 1:3; 2:5; cf. 1 Tim. 5:17; 2 Tim. 2:15; 4:2). If that is the case here then it reflects the idea of believers’ having come to know the truth (v. 3) that in Christ there are no food laws. On the other hand, it may (perhaps more likely in the context) refer to the word God spoke in Genesis 1 that declared everything created by God to be good, not referring to an OT text per se but to the fact of God’s having declared all food good.
Abstinence, therefore, has nothing to do with the gospel; mandatory abstinence from marriage or foods is ultimately the teaching of demons, and the church in Ephesus is not to be deceived thereby.
4:1–2 / The fact that early Christians understood themselves to be living in later times, at the time of the End, often perplexes twentieth-century Christians. But one must be careful not to overstress the idea of “imminence”—although it may well often have been there. Rather, living in later times has to do with a new understanding of existence. The End has already begun; believers are to be the people of the Future in the present age, even though the consummation of what has begun still lies in the Future. Thus Christian existence always belongs to the later times, already begun with the advent of the Spirit. For an overview of this framework of understanding in Paul, see, e.g., G. E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, pp. 360–75.
4:3a / For the possibility that the heresy involved a form of “over-realized eschatology,” see W. L. Lane, “I Tim. iv 1–3. An Early Instance of Over-realized Eschatology?”
4:3b–5 / There are at least three other interpretations of the word of God in this sentence, including the possibility that the prayer itself functioned as God’s word, that it meant a word of blessing from God in response to the prayer (Hendriksen), or that it referred, in a most circuitous way, to the bread and wine of the Eucharist (Hanson).