1. Uncorruptness: The Purity of the Message Itself
speech. They are the load-bearing pillars of teaching that carries the weight of heaven.
1. Uncorruptness: The Purity of the Message Itself In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.
Titus 2:7
The first mark is uncorruptness. The Greek term is adiaphthoria , a word that means imperishable, uncorrupted, and free from decay. It is the negative of phthora , which speaks of destruction, spoil, and putrefaction.
Paul's command is that the doctrine we hold and teach must not be mixed with decay. It must be pure in its source, pure in its transmission, and pure in its substance.
Uncorruptness begins with the source. Doctrine that bears heaven's weight cannot originate in the imagination of men. Jeremiah indicted the prophets of his day with these words: "The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart" Jeremiah 14:14. The danger is not merely error; it
is corruption through mixture. When human speculation is blended with divine revelation, the compound ceases to be sound. It may retain the vocabulary of Scripture, but it has lost the power of Scripture.
The apostolic standard for uncorruptness was rigid. Paul could say to the Corinthians, "For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ" 2
Corinthians 2:17. The word "corrupt" there is kapēleuō , meaning to retail, to hawk, or to adulterate for profit. Some in Paul's day were mixing the word of God with human ingredients to make it more palatable, more marketable, and more acceptable to the tastes of the audience.
Uncorruptness refuses that transaction. It declares that the word of God
needs no additives and no preservatives. It is living. It is active. It is sufficient.
Uncorruptness also governs transmission. Timothy received this charge:
If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
1 Timothy 4:6
To be "nourished up" in good doctrine implies a steady diet. It is not a sporadic encounter with truth, but a continual feeding. The minister himself must be saturated before he speaks. Why? Because doctrine transmitted by a malnourished man will arrive corrupted. The teacher becomes the vessel.
If the vessel is cracked with compromise, unholy motive, or personal agenda, the water will carry the taste of the container. Uncorruptness demands that the life of the teacher authenticate the content of the teaching.
As Paul wrote, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus" 2 Timothy 1:13. The