Sermon or Lesson:  1 Timothy 1:7 (NIV based)
[Lesson Questions included]

TITLE:  Factors That Can Contribute To The Generating Of False Doctrines

INTRO:  Think back to the time in your life when you were searching for, exploring, and evaluating various occupations to determine which one you wanted to pursue as a career.  During that time of evaluation and exposure to hands-on doing the activities of a prospective occupation, did you discover that doing this occupation was not as easy as it looked, and that you were not as good at doing it as you thought you would be?
     Well, teaching God's Word is not as easy as it looks, because an adequate knowledge, understanding, and comprehension is required in order to avoid teaching false or erroneous doctrines.  Let's analyze what God says about this in 1 Timothy chapter 1.
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READ:  1 Timothy 1:7, with verses 3-6 for context

BACKGROUND:
- - In the beginning of 1 Timothy, Paul is again urging Timothy to confront the teaching of false doctrines and myths in his ministry in Ephesus.  (v.3)
- - Those persons teaching false doctrines or myths in churches or ministries are to be commanded to immediately stop their false teaching activities.  (v.3)
- - The content of false doctrines and myths has no righteous value and instead has inherent destructiveness.  (v.4; cf. v.11 in Titus 1:9-11)
- - People who follow false doctrines and myths have turned away from maintaining the disciplines of the faith and have turned towards falseness, incorrectness, or error in Bible doctrine that has no validity before God nor any propriety in ministries.  (vv.4-6)

v.7 - READ

[Lesson Question:  Explore why people want to be teachers of the Word.]

SECTION POINT:  There are people in churches and ministries who want to be teachers of the Word because of pure motives, and others because of impure motives.

"They want to be teachers of the law"
- - Commonly within churches and ministries there are proportionally many people who want to be teachers of the Word of God.  (James 3:1)
- - Standing up in front of a crowd to dispense one's knowledge and understanding is appealing, because this builds one's reputation and aura of importance and esteem.
- - Some people have pure motives for wanting to be teachers of the Word, genuinely moved in that direction by God and concerned for the spiritual well-being of those people under their ministerial care.
- - Other people have impure motives, such as being driven by selfish ambition, a need to control, a need to be exalted, a means for financial gain, a means to build an empire, and etc.  (James 3:13-16; Titus 1:14; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 4:3-4)
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[Lesson Question:  Explore what God says here about the problems with the knowledge and the teaching approach of those who teach false doctrine.]

SECTION POINT:  Teachers of false doctrine are in error on numerous levels.

"but they do not know what they are talking about"
- - In this passage, God has a problem with people who teach the Word when "they do not know what they are talking about", lacking "understanding and comprehension".  (Strong's #3539 - "know")
- - The contents of teaching God's Word derived from a position of ignorance is unacceptable to God.
- - Ignorance of the meaning of God's Word can easily lead to missing the true meaning, generating an incorrect meaning, or distorting the meaning.
- - The concepts and principles in God's Word are sophisticated enough, complicated enough, and important enough to warrant the need for adequate knowledge, understanding, and comprehension in the teaching of it.

"...or what they so confidently affirm"
- - But some people ignore the need for knowledge and even go beyond their lack of knowledge about the Word they are teaching by flaunting their ignorance through confidently affirming that their teaching is correct, which they likewise are ignorant of.  (from Strong's #3383 - "nor, neither")
- - They "strongly affirm, and confirm thoroughly", being firmly and confidently convinced that their teaching is right, "true, valid, genuine", and accurate, which they ardently "declare, maintain, assert, uphold, and establish".  (Strong's #1226 - "confidently affirm"; AHD - 'affirm')
- - Their knowledge, their doctrine, their affirmations, their confidence, and their projection of confidence all go beyond being correct in God's sight.
- - Thus, these 'wanna-be' teachers of the Word are in error on numerous levels - i.e. 'they want to be and they think they are but in reality they are not' a credible teacher of the Word (a suggested definition of the slang term 'wanna-be').
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[Lesson Question:  Explore for other factors that commonly contribute to the generating of false doctrines.]

SECTION POINT:  Besides the lack of knowledge, there are numerous other factors that can contribute to the generating of false doctrines.

- - The teaching of false doctrines is "to teach other doctrines, to instruct differently".  (v.3, Strong's #2085)
- - Essentially, this involves perverting and/or wandering from what God says, means, and intends.
- - There are numerous ways to generate false doctrines, some of which are: faulty premises, faulty assumptions, faulty information, faulty interpretation, faulty translation, faulty reasoning, faulty evidence, faulty conclusions, faulty applications, and etc.
- - Some false doctrines are based on emotions, or feelings, or assumptions of appearances based on emotions.
- - These various forms of faulty reasoning and unreliable emotions originate from people who are naive, or spiritually immature, or addicted to getting an emotional high, or foolish, or uneducated, or undereducated, or un-teachable, or arrogant, or deceived, or rebellious, or evil, or argumentative, or divisive.  (1 Timothy 6:3-5; Titus 1:9-16; 3:9; 2 Timothy 4:3-4)

- - "Myths" (v.4) are generated in the same type of ways, and can be defined as "fictional tales", "legends, or fables" that church people believe in for some theological, doctrinal, or spiritual purpose, importance, or value.  (v.4; Strong's #3454; AMP)
- - They are appealing concepts that have been heard from or promoted by other people.
- - Myths in Christianity usually have marginal, distorted, or no doctrinal basis.
- - These myths are created by defective processing that leads to erroneous assumptions and conclusions which become elevated and exaggerated to presumably be valid before God and thus important and credible in the practice of one's religion.
- - But in reality, these myths have no true validity before God.
- - They are fabricated inventions of the mind that have been given false credibility.
- - Essentially, these myths blindly wander from what God says, accepts, prescribes, dictates, and intends.  (v.6)
- - "Endless genealogies" (v.4) likewise have no validity before God and are distinctly "unprofitable and useless", even though the main contention erroneously is that having a particular ancestry automatically gives that person unusual high credibility before God.  (Titus 3:9)

- - Most of the people who believe and teach these various kinds of false doctrines usually sincerely believe their doctrine is righteous, God-approved, God-empowered, God-inspired, God-commanded, God-required, God-ordained.
- - They are thoroughly convinced and even staunchly insistent that their doctrine contributes to the pursuit of godliness.
- - Some people even take their fanaticism for their doctrine to the extreme by doggedly promoting their doctrine and plotting to intentionally convert the theology of that church or ministry and/or overthrow its leadership in a hostile takeover or split.
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BIG IDEA:  Church people who believe and promote a false doctrine are correspondingly in serious error in numerous ways.

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IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS:

- - From this study of this verse 7, teaching God's Word obviously requires that the person formulating the teaching minimally needs to possess a correct knowledge about the particular topic of the teaching.
- - For those of you teachers of the Word who do not yet have sufficient knowledge of your own, then you will need to acquire your teaching materials from someone who does have sufficient knowledge with sound doctrine.
- - Or you can carefully research each topic as you go along, adequately learn it, and check your results with a few very knowledgeable sound-doctrine sources before you teach it.
- - With the wide availability of so many resources today, you should be able to find excellent scholarly materials that contain sound-doctrine Bible-based information relating to your topic.

- - Being a teacher of God's Word requires extensive training, study, learning, and guidance from those who have themselves gone through extensive training, study, learning, and guidance.
- - For those of you who regularly teach God's Word to children and youth, the best course of action is to work on getting a 4-year college degree in Bible from an accredited Bible college, which by design will give you an excellent basic foundation of Bible knowledge, understanding, and comprehension.  Beyond that degree, an additional 2-year graduate degree in Bible will give you extensive depth and mastery in the Bible for preaching and teaching adults.
- - Whichever approach you take, a wise lesson that can be learned from this verse 7 is that in teaching the Bible, you should always stick to teaching only what you have an educated understanding of and avoid teaching other content of the Bible until you have gained an educated understanding of it.

- - All of us believers as well as teachers should always strive to have sound doctrines, which necessitates that each of us be a teachable student of God's Word and that we each are continuously striving to gain more knowledge, understanding, and comprehension of God's Word.  (cf. Psalms 1:1-2)
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Works Cited:
The American Heritage Dictionary (AHD). 3rd ed., ver. 3.6a (CD-ROM). Cambridge, MA: SoftKey International Inc., 1994.

Bible. The Comparative Study Bible: A Parallel Bible Presenting New International Version, New American Standard Bible,
     Amplified Bible, King James Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984.

Bible. “The Holy Bible: New International Version.” The Bible Library CD-ROM. Oklahoma City, OK: Ellis Enterprises, 1988.

“Strong's Greek Dictionary.” The Bible Library CD-ROM. Oklahoma City, OK: Ellis Enterprises, 1988.
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Updated: September 8, 2016