ATTENTION: Please note that this is The Adult Sunday School Lesson, Remember Jesus Christ, on 2 Timothy 2:8-19 for the 4-3-11 International Sunday School Lesson. You will find the 3-27-11 lesson, Compassionate Service aka Worship Inspires Service, directly beneath this message and on the right side.
Jed
Remember Jesus Christ
2 Timothy 2:8-19
International Sunday School Lesson
April 3, 2011
Commentary
By
Jed Greenough
When you prepare weekly for these lessons do you pray? I suppose many of you, like me that teach, do just that. You pray that God would enable you to do justice to His word. You pray that you would look at the scripture each week and find with the aid of the Holy Spirit the lesson that would best convey to your students what it is that God wants you to communicate. Well, that is my prayer for you anyway!
What Paul is instructing Timothy is to keep it simple and that is what I hope you will do also. We begin with Paul saying very succinctly what his gospel is, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.” This is why Paul was in chains. Can you think about that for a while? Paul wasn’t in chains because of great exhortations against the powers that be or for aggressive physical actions, no, if he only stood in the corner of a synagogue and said, “I preach Christ and Him crucified,” then he was in danger.
What do you think Paul meant by his warning for us not to quarrel about words or godless chatter? Well, quite simply as in several areas of his epistles Paul warns of false teaching and one way to help prevent it is Paul’s message of the simplicity of the gospel.
False teaching can take the guise of supposed insight when someone comes up with the idea that Paul was a stutterer or that Timothy was a wimp. Those that come up with these teachings out of the blue try to make their voice heard above the din and throw something against that proverbial wall and see if it sticks. Seems innocent but in trying to get creative, false teaching can occur.
False teaching might take the route of something as sinister as what Paul mentioned in verse 18 today that the resurrection had already taken place. What other teachings can you think of that obviously lead astray like that? Sadly the list is too extensive to list in its entirety.
How about that there are texts that are just as authoritative as the Bible and they are still being revealed.
That there is more than one God, that He evolved, that He has a body and a wife and children.
That God is not triune.
That before our creation, that is before we were created at conception by God, we were raised to maturity as spirits.
That Jesus was not God.
That Jesus was not bodily resurrected.
That Jesus is not eternal.
That Michael was Jesus.
That hell is not eternal.
I know that you recognize some of these and you would place them and their followers into the category of cults, but do you know that those who believe those things consider themselves to be Christian? Yep, that’s right, they are Christians in their minds and in the minds of the unsaved or the weak in doctrine they are just the same as you.
Can you see why Paul stressed over and over this fear of his that the simple gospel message would be polluted and why godless chatter can lead to more and more ungodliness. What they will become is revealed in the next chapter when Paul speaks of the last days and he says that they will have “a form of godliness.”
I believe that one of the biggest problems we have is complacency in our churches, complacency that we are somehow different from these cults. Churches think that they would never teach from that list above and that is true. But what is becoming too frequent is the teaching of a false or rarely heard gospel of Christ and Him crucified. The gospel if preached is preached in an incomplete manner and has left out the role we are each to play to evangelize. Godless chatter takes many forms.
For Discussion:
1. Can you, if asked, simply articulate the gospel? I recommend a small and very readable book, “What is the Gospel?” by Greg Gilbert.
2. If godless chatter causes people to become more ungodly and wander away from the truth, hadn’t you better have a pretty good handle on what constitutes godless chatter?
3. Do you believe we teach what we believe? In other words, do you a humble Christian, preach what you practice?
4. If you answered in the affirmative, do you believe that there is a problem with endorsing secular leaders who believe things from the list above?
5. Verse 19 says that, “everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” Do you then turn completely and in all ways from the list above?
6. Those that lead us are respected, just look at “The Most Respected” lists. People emulate those that lead them, that is why as it says in verse 17, “Their teaching will spread like gangrene.”
7. Due to other commitments, I try to stay at least a couple weeks ahead on these lessons, if you would like to get a head start on a lesson coming up, send me an email and if I have it done I will send it to you!
4-10-11: Praise Builds Us Up (Remember the Warnings) Jude 17-25
4-17-11: Hosanna! (Praise the Lord) Mark 11:1-11
4-24-11: Christ is Risen! (Go and Tell) Matthew 28
5-1-11: Be Like Jesus (The Christ Hymn) Philippians 2:1-11
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved
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