Preach Biblical Doctrine. That’s it. Just Biblical Doctrine. Period.

1 Timothy 1:3-4

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

According to Paul, Timothy’s main job as a shepherd of the church at Ephesus was to continue teaching the apostle’s doctrine. If a church/pastor is not going to teach biblical doctrine, what will they teach?

Paul says your other options are “different doctrine,” “myths,” and “endless genealogies.”

“Different doctrine” seems pretty straight forward! It’s just other stuff you’re teaching that has nothing to do with the Bible. Notice he didn’t even say “false doctrine.” There are other things you can teach that are true and fine, just aren’t supposed to be taught in the church.

In other words, a guy could get up and teach about how to pay off your mortgage efficiently, or change the oil in your car, or any number of other things. If you want to do that, do it on your own time. The purpose of the church is to teach biblical doctrine as revealed by the apostles. Period. That’s it. Nothing else.

“Myths” are stories, fictional accounts, words that are designed to entertain rather than instruct from Scripture. Perhaps showing modern day movie clips as sermon illustrations would fit in, I don’t know, who’s to say? Me, that’s who. Don’t do that.

Also beware of your sermon illustrations you get off the internet or from a book. So many of these illustrations are not true. They are fiction. When frogs are placed in pots of water, as the water heats up the frog will indeed try to get out. How dumb do you think they are? All living things have a desire to stay living. They don’t just sit there and get boiled to death. Sheesh. Look up some stuff.

People charged with detecting counterfeit dollars don’t just sit and stare at real dollars all day so they can identify fake ones. Nope, they study what counterfeiters are up to, learn their tricks, and watch out for that.

Eagles don’t fly above storm clouds. Eagles are birds. In storms eagles act like birds. What do birds do in storms? They sit around and wait. That’s what eagles do. Stop telling people to soar above the storms like the eagles, man. No eagle does that.

I could go on. Any sermon illustration that is popular should immediately make you skeptical. It’s fake. It’s not real, I can almost guarantee it.

Maybe you don’t think it’s a big deal to tell a false story to make a spiritual point. If you are standing in front of a church you are required to speak truth. Only speak what is true. Check your sources.

“Endless genealogies” could mean several things. Some think this is a Jewish thing where they look at the genealogical records in the OT and celebrate the awesomeness of their family or tribe, turning these records into reason to be superior to others.

Some think it has to do with things like dating historical events. Like Bishop Usher coming up with the exact time the earth was created (October 22, 4004 BC if you’re wondering).

I have no idea what this term really means. What I do know is this: Don’t be talking about your past as though it were the barometer of your present state. Whether we’re talking family or church tradition or strictly biblical genealogies, doesn’t matter. Past performance is no indicator of present conditions or future results.

All these things, different doctrines, myths, endless genealogies, all have the same effect: endless arguing and questions.

One thing that drove me nuts after 21 years of pastoring was the amount of stupid arguments I had to be in all the time. I started very few of these, but there were people who came into the church with axes to grind, people who were not dedicated to the truth of Scripture, but caught up on some stupid opinion of theirs based on an obscure verse or variant doctrine whose origin remains unknown.

I actually had a guy in our church who argued about genealogies all the time. Once at an evening basketball game for men our church put on, he took himself out of the game to sit by me on the bench and immediately launched into his genealogy argument on me.

I never in my life started an argument about genealogies; I’m nailing this part of the Pastoral Epistles. But that doesn’t mean I was never in an argument about genealogies!

People like to argue. Gentiles seek wisdom, we like to sit around and pontificate and hear some new thing. Mars Hill in Acts 17 is still where many people hang out.

Learn to shun these conversations, maybe even the people after a while. Goodness. Drop it. Let it go. Endless arguing does no favors for anyone.

Preach biblical doctrine. That’s it. Any time you open your mouth before the church, biblical doctrine should be coming out of it. That’s it! Nothing else. I don’t care about the cute illustration you saw on the internet. I don’t care about your family tradition and Uncle Randy’s theory about “new wine.”

Don’t care. Doesn’t matter. Biblical doctrine. That’s it.

___________________________________

If you’d like to hear more of my accumulated pastoral “wisdom” that shrunk my church, I wrote a book. CLICK HERE to get a copy of it. There are 9 tips for how to not grow your church for only $3.50!