2 Timothy 08 Competent with Truth

2 Timothy 2:14-19 Elections are fast approaching. What do you look for in a leader? May I suggest two things? These are essential for every leader regardless of the task. Competency, and Character. Character without competency = a well intentioned nincompoop. Compentency without character = a very dangerous person. These attributes arent just for our political leaders. They are essential for everyone who is in a position of leadership. And since Jesus told us to LEAD people to him, we are all leaders in some regard. WE all must possess competency and character. If I had to boil 2 Timothy 2:14-19 into two overaching ideas, this would be it. Paul is telling him to be competent in the truth and then have the 14* Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Paul was hammering the gospel. In Verse 8 he said, Remember the gospel. Remember who Jesus said he was and what the scripture taught about him. Now he says, in verse 14, Remind them of these things Why? Because we forget. We have this innate ability to turn the truth to fit our situation.

Bonheoffer says that this is at the heart of temptation. Satan does not her fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case? Is it really not permitted to me, yes expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire? The tempter puts me in a privileged position as he tried to put the hungry Son of God in a privileged position. I boast of my privilege against God. It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.1. We have a hard time with this. So many things that tempt us. I dont care if its the temptation to leave the dishes in the sink until the next day, or the temptation to put off your homework, or the temptation to indulge in a gallon of ice cream or the temptation to fudge on the truth, or the temptation to nurse a habit or indulge in something illicit. The temptation of temptation is to redefine the truth to fit our desires. Our only real defense against this is a rock solid understanding of truth. Competent in truth. So Paul tells Timothy to bring the hammer down when it comes to truth. Winston Churchill once said, If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile
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Bonheoffer, temptation

driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. Thats what Paul is doing here. Look at Verse 14 again, Solemnly charge them before the Lord. Not to wrangle about words. Wrangle about words is actually one compound word in the original. Words. Logos. And maxomai. Fight. Wrestle. Dont be a word wrestler. Twisting the words to make them fit your scheme. You see this in every cult or group that drifts into error. They will get an idea, then try to make the Scripture support it. In the process they have to wrestle with words. My first experience with this came in my first year of Christianity. I was in a college art class seated beside a Jehovahs witness. One day the subject of faith came up. Jehovahs Witness teach polytheism because they hang up on the trinity. Want to separate them out the person of God. Three in one. We arent left with this as an option because of the great line Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! Deuteronomy 6:4, NAS95. God is one, and yet he is three. This is the orthodox understanding of the trinity. How can that be? I dont know. All I know is this is what the scripture teaches. God will not fit between these two ears. I dont understand how a television works but I trust it and use it.

So in order to get around the clear teaching of the Bible the JWs will point you to John 1. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was god. The young lady in my art class told me that the Greek actually says the word was A God. She said that whenever the word God was used it always has an article. This time it didnt. So it meant a god. I didnt know Greek at the time so I couldnt really argue with her. Then I learned to read the bible in Greek and one of the first things I did was to check that line. Sure enough there is no article before God in that verse. But its not to allow us to understand Jesus or the word as a God. It was part of the grammatical construction. God in that setting was the predicate. Because of the way Greek constructs sentences, you wouldnt put an article, the before a predicate so that you would know the subject. The word, subject was God predicate. It has nothing to do with her assertion. But thats what happens when you come with a preconceived idea and then look from some minor thing to support it. Thats called proof texting. We call it sound bites. Ignore the clear meaning and twist it to fit your beliefs. This can be done to prove a theological position, but it is more often done to excuse a lifestyle choice that God never intended. A persons morality will dictate his or her theology. Paul illustrates it with two characters in the church that Timothy knew, Hymenaeus and Philetus. 16* But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness,

Good test of a teacher. Does his teaching lead to greater godliness, or greater ungodliness? 17* and their talk will spread like gangrene. As gangrene poisons the body, this false teaching will poison a person and a church. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18* men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some. Philetus, we never hear about before or after this. But this is the second time we see the name Hymenaeus. Paul talked about him in 1 timothy 1:18-20 18 This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, 19* keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. 20* Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Notice that line in verse 19 keeping faith and a good conscience. Thats the opposite of what they were doing. Apparently Hymenaeus and Alexander were twisting the word of God in order to accommodate some sin. So Paul handed them over to Satan. What in the world? This is a reference used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 when a man in the church was living with his fathers wife. Paul told the church to deliver the guy over to the devil so that he would repent of his behavior and come back to Christ. It alludes to putting a person out of the church as discipline.

So we see that even then there were some who would twist the truth to live in sin. Back to 2 timothy 2. Apparently they had done it so much that they had actually come to teach that the resurrection had already occurred. I can just see that the teaching had become so horizontal, this worldly, that they no longer considered heaven or life with God beyond the grave to be a possibility. Life is temporary and temporal. So do whatever you want. Look again at verse 14. Paul says two things about this. First, it is useless. Second, it leads to the ruin of the listeners. We see this happening all around us. People are trying to take the clear teaching of the Bible and shape it to fit our own decadence. Rather than Jesus being the way of denying self, taking up the cross, and following, he has become an excuse for self-indulgence. What the Bible really teaches, they say, is that you should be happy and that you need to follow your heart and do what feels right to you. The beatitudes are no longer moral dictates of a sacrificed life; they are the Be-happy attitudes. When you love Jesus, Every day is a Friday. Suffering and perseverance are for losers. To me, its like the cocaine dealer who understands the power of his drug peddling that poison and telling people how good its gonna make them feel. But the end is a life of bondage. Seneca To be enslaved to ones self is the heaviest of all servitudes.

God doesnt push righteousness and self-control to kill your fun. He says it to save your life. The physician that tells you to lose 40 pounds and start exercising isnt trying to make life worse; hes trying to make life better. Sometimes we do hard things to find a good life. No generation has understood this less than our own. I see it in the sexual promiscuity of this culture. Guys and girls are told that they can do whatever they want sexually. No boundaries or parameters. The fallout is devastating to relationships. More and more marriages that last a year. Or less. Old Facebook flames popping up that bring back memories. My husband bores me because hes about mowing the lawn and paying the bills. Hes not nearly as exciting as boyfriend number 12. Oh, look, boyfriend number 12 just messaged me So much sexual intimacy that the heart is divided. Rather than giving your whole heart, you can only give the pieces that are left. Whats the answer? Competency with truth.

Everyone wants to think that a guy like Bill Gates just somehow fell into Microsoft. Read his story. As a young boy, he was lucky enough to attend a good school that had access to computers. The school was connected to the University of Washington and they allowed them access to their mainframe computers. Gates became absorbed in this. He even learned to crack the code when he didnt have permission. While everyone else was doing his or her own adolescent things, Bill Gates was staying up nights learning code. This is the same with any overnight success. They work really hard. In the same way, Paul tells us to work hard at understanding the scripture. Accurately handling the word of truth. Accurately handling means, To cut straight. a reference to the exactness demanded by such trades as carpentry, masonry, and Pauls trade of leather-working and tentmaking. Precision and accuracy are required in biblical interpretation, beyond all other enterprises, because the interpreter is handling Gods Word.2 You say, Thats the job of the professionals. No, its not. There was no professional ministry at that time. Paul was a tentmaker/preacher. Listen to this amazing statistic I recently read: 1) 75% of Bible heroes are not religious professionals and 2) 45 of 52 parables are in workplace settings. All that to say, the workplace is key to spreading the gospel.
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Competency
Go back to verse 15. 15* Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Be diligent to be a workman. Translation. Work hard. There is no substitute for hard work. Look at any person of achievement and you will find both genius and discipline. That discipline produces competency.

MacArthur, John (2005-05-09). The MacArthur Bible Commentary (Kindle Locations 60691-60693). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

If we are serious about knowing Gods will then we must be serious about studying his word. But be careful. Let the Bible say what it meant to say. Dont force your opinions onto it. We counter that with competency. We work hard to know the word so that we can follow it.