13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern/form of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us… (1:13-14)
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others… (2:1-2)
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed[1] and is useful for teaching (it gives you truth), rebuking (it tells you when you are out of bounds), correcting (repairing what is broken, like setting a broken arm in a cast) and training (forming habits) in righteousness (‘right living’ by God’s standard), 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped[2] for every good work. (3:14-17)
For the past three weeks, I’ve been coming back to a theme: When God calls you, he equips you. God never commissions anyone to a task without giving a gift appropriate to it.[3] Now I want to focus on a foundational way God equips all of us – through His Word.
Before people build things, they usually have a prototype, a model or a drawing to guide them. When I used to buy lego toys for Vince, there was a model with instructions (thank God). Otherwise I would have been lost. If you have seen what Scott does at J. Scott Smith Visual Design, you see that he creates a model that guides a builder or remodeler or landscaper.
The pattern/form of teaching to which Paul refers (hupotuposis,"the standard") is like that. Paul was given prototype upon which all preaching and teaching should be founded, and he was passing it on to Timothy, who would pass it on to others. Think of how a 3D model printer recreates from the information that it has been given. If Timothy wanted to be a faithful teacher of the gospel, he was not at liberty to deviate from the foundational model of the apostolic teaching.[4] It was intended to be passed down through all generations of teachers.
“I’m preaching the same message today that the apostle Paul preached in the first century. The gospel I preach goes all the way back to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. A faithful man of God shared the gospel with me, and I was saved… If we could track it back, the trail would reach back to Christ; and we would discover that the gospel that we preach from the pages of the Bible is the identical gospel that Jesus preached.
That is a tremendous succession of truth, and it lays upon us the importance of our responsibility to pass on the Good News.”[5]
That’s not to say we can’t or shouldn’t be timely and creative in our application of these foundational principles.[6] Scott could send the same house model to Florida and Alaska, and they would plant different plants, and follow different building codes, and use different materials to factor in the weather. Cultures change; the challenges and dilemmas we face as Christians change. However, the foundational principles that guide us in our response do not.
Timothy had received a model based on sound teaching. (Romans 6:17; Titus 1:9) Sound is from a word (hugiaino) from which we get the word hygiene. It emphasizes cleanliness, and the absence of disease, and I think it has to do with habits and patterns.
Why do we insist our kids brush their teeth every day? Because our habits build momentum over time. When I went to the dentist for the first time after skipping I don’t know how many years, I had soooo many cavities. My mouth sets off metal detectors in airports (just kidding). Why? I drank coffee with sugar and I never flossed. It was not good dental hygiene. When I stopped adding sugar and started flossing? I haven’t had a cavity in about 15 years.
A pattern of sound hygiene has brought health to my mouth and strength to my teeth. That’s the image here. A healthy foundation and a pattern of healthy habits matters a lot not just in dentistry, but in theology.
So Timothy was going to pass on this habit-forming prototype "with faith and love in Christ Jesus."[7]
Sound teaching must be held with love, otherwise the true message becomes obscured by the noise of our lack of love (1Corinthians 13). Holding it with faith means our belief in the concepts has filtered down into your everyday life. Jesus said (Luke 6:46), “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Genuine faith always results in obedience. The content of the teaching is deeply intertwined with the character of the teacher.[8]
This is the standard Paul gives Timothy.[9] This – the teaching and the living - is what has been passed down to us.
In the years following Christ’s departure the early church agreed that a number of things were crucial for Jesus’ followers to know and teach in order to pass on the prototype. We see the first statements of the model teaching emerging within the New Testament itself.
· 55 AD: “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)
· 55 AD “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-7)
· 62 AD “Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)
· 67 AD “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)[10]
On this foundation, and the classic early church creeds, we have built our church’s foundational beliefs.[11] Our CLG statement of faith is more detailed than the historic creeds (as is the case with most churches), but we seek to affirm what the Christian church broadly and historically has affirmed to be true in a way that allows room for differing perspectives on details even as we unite on the fundamentals. This sound, foundational model steadies our hearts in an unsteady world, and it focuses our minds amidst all the noise.
It also guides our steps in the path of righteousness. The model is useless if all you do is look at it. Faith is certainly no less than the formation of habits. We are what we habitually do. How we live is inescapably intertwined with why we believe we live and/or for whom we have decided to live. We will keep the commandments of that which we love (John 14:45).
This correlation of content and character has been intertwined in the church from the 1stcentury.
I’ve been raised in church circles for 50 years where I have heard the desire to be like the first century church repeated a lot – think of the first Christians as building the first model church community. God knows it was imperfect, but it reflected something about what Jesus himself had modeled and what the apostles saw fit to build. We often talk just about the theology or the ecclesiology (the services themselves, or the structure of leadership). I think we might be missing the most important part – how they lived out the gospel message in their community life in the church and in the city.
Their habits changed, as will happen with a habit-forming faith. What they believed was expressed through love in life.
“We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war… Now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given us through the Crucified One…. We who formerly treasured money and possessions more than anything else now hand over everything we have to a treasury for all and share it with everyone who needs it. We who formerly hated and murdered one another now live together and share the same table. We pray for our enemies and try to win those who hate us… The more we are persecuted and martyred, the more do others in ever increasing numbers become believers.” ~ Justin the Martyr (100AD – 165AD)
“None of us offers resistance when he is seized, or avenges himself for your unjust violence, although our people are numerous and plentiful…it is not lawful for us to hate, and so we please God more when we render no requital for injury…we repay your hatred with kindness.” ~ St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (died 258AD)
“It is the Christians, O Emperor, who have sought and found the truth, for they acknowledge God…. They show love to their neighbors. They do not do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves. They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in this way they make them their friends. It has become their passion to do good to their enemies…. This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians, and this is their manner of life.” ~ Aristides (written around 137AD)
“This is the way of life: first, thou shalt love the God who made thee, secondly, thy neighbor as thyself: and all things whatsoever thou wouldest not should happen to thee, do not thou to another. The teaching of these words is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast on behalf of those who persecute you: for what thanks will be due to you, if ye love only those who love you? Do not the Gentiles also do the same? But love ye those who hate you, and ye shall not have an enemy.”
~ The Didache, also known as The Teachings of the 12 Apostles, is an early Christian document written between 80AD – 90AD."They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all others; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death and restored to life.
They are poor yet make many rich[12]; they are in lack of all things and yet abound in all; they are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of and yet are justified; they are reviled and bless; they are insulted and repay the insult with honor; they do good yet are punished as evildoers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred. To sum it all up in one word -- what the soul is to the body, that are Christians in the world." - The Epistle to Diognetes (AD 130)
Three Questions
What kind of ‘model’ of faith was passed on to you when you were young?
If faith is habit-forming, what kind of things should be patterns in the life of followers of Jesus?
If we were to apply the model of living from the 1st century church to our times, what kinds of things would followers of Jesus be known for?
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[1] “God-breathed. Sometimes translated “inspired.” The Greek word means given by the work of God’s Spirit (see 2 Pet 1:20–21 and note). “The Holy Spirit spoke” in the writings of OT leaders and writers like David (Acts 1:16; see Acts 4:25). By extension this applies to NT writings as well (see 2 Pet 3:15–16 and note on 3:16). God has chosen to reveal himself not only in nature (Ps 8:1, 3; Rom 1:20) and human moral awareness (Rom 2:15) but also supremely by spoken and written human language. This is the doctrine of inspiration. This doctrine does not downplay human action in Scripture’s authorship but affirms Scripture’s ultimate origin in God, who gave it. This makes it “useful for teaching” and related pastoral purposes, because it provides coherent, consistent, and reliable testimony to Christ (Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39–40; 1 Cor 15:3–4).” (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the New Testament)
Founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, Lewis Sperry Chafer, puts it well: “Without violating the authors’ personalities, they wrote with their own feelings, literary abilities, and concerns. But in the end, God could say, That’s exactly what I wanted to have written.” (see 2 Peter 3:16). (Case For Christ Study Bible)
This illustration is imperfect, but consider a pipe organ. All of the pipes have been individually designed. Each one has been made a specified size in order to give a particular sound. Each pipe is unique, but the same wind, the same breath, blows through all of them; so that what you hear are the notes that are intended from the score as it is played… The writers were not impersonal like pipes, but they were individually prepared, uniquely inspired by the Spirit of God, so that they wrote exactly what God intended to be written. (Vines Expository Notes On The Bible)
Theopneustos is a very strong word for "inspired"… He "breathed" on them, as it were, and they were impelled in the direction He wanted them to go-just as we read in 2 Peter 1:20, that "every prophecy of Scripture" (pasa prophēteia graphēs) is not a matter of private or personal interpretation, "for not by the will of man was prophecy ever brought, but being carried along [like a sailboat driven by the breeze] by the Holy Spirit men spoke from God." Such passages make it clear that the authors of Scripture wrote under the influence, guidance, and control of God Himself.” (New International Dictionary of Biblical Difficulties)
[2] Exartizo was used in secular Greek writings to describe documents, a wagon or a rescue boat, all of which were completely outfitted and needing nothing. Exartizo in one secular Greek described a machine that was sold in good condition or in other words was capable of performing the service expected of it! (Precept Austin)
[3] Guthrie
[4] “Christianity is a doctrinal faith. It is not an “X” that you can fill in with whatever content you desire. Christianity is a life based on the doctrines of the Bible.” - Keep Believing Ministries
[5] Vines Expository Bible Notes
[6] “But each person and culture must move on to construction, not violating the principles laid down, but constantly seeking to flesh out the divine vision.” Larry Richards, L O: Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Regency)
[7] See also 1 Timothy 1:4-5; 19)
[8] “The importance of good works in the Pastoral Letters cannot be overemphasized. These are the marks of the genuine servants and people of God in contrast to the false teachers. This emphasis is consistent with the repeated theme of the blending of sound doctrine and godly living, which starts with the reference to purity, faith, and a good conscience in 1 Timothy 1:5 - 19, then is evident in the qualifications for elders and deacons (ch. 3), is important in the life of Timothy as an example in the church (4:6 - 16). (NIV Application Commentary)
[9] “You have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions” (2 Tim. 3:10–11) Timothy had not only "learned" the truth, but he had "become convinced" of it. So what is the significance of the things we "learn" and those we "become convinced of"? We hold the former while the latter holds us. (Precept Austin)
[10] When the early church wrestled with differing theological views, they formed formal statements of belief. As time went on, they became more detailed as they more specifically addressed new challenges. What follows is a combination of the Nicene creed (320) and the apostolic creed (390), two of the earliest church-wide creeds that made official[10] what had been taught as the core of the gospel for 300 years:
1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
3. Who, for us [ALL] for our salvation, came down from heaven, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary and made man; he suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell (or the dead). The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: from thence he shall come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and whose Kingdom shall have no end;
4. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
5. I believe in the holy catholic and apostolic church:
6. the communion of saints:
7. The forgiveness of sins:
8. The resurrection of the body (the dead):
9. And the life everlasting in the world to come. Amen.
[11] Around the 1500’s you start to see Confessions of Faith that include statements on the Bible (Belgic Confession of Faith in 1561, Heidelberg Catechism in 1563, 1646 London Baptist Confession of Faith in 1689, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978). You also begin to see statements of faith that begin to address more specific areas of life typically as a response to cultural challenges that were impacting how Christians lived what they believed, such as the Manhattan Declaration published in 2009.
[12] “The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way - the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.” ― Timothy Keller