Run With It: The Teaching that Accords with Godliness

1 Timothy 6:3-5 ESV

“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

Get your Truth from the Scriptures

My most favorite pianist is Natalie Raynes Blanton (1). She plays Christian hymns and she has live broadcasts of her playing the hymns where people can request particular hymns and she plays them. I missed her hymn session this evening. I remembered at about the last 5 minutes, so I listened to the last two songs she played.

Prior to playing the next to the last song she said something about how we need to get our truth from the Scriptures and not from other sources. I can’t remember her exact wording, but that impressed me that she said that because not many people are these days. And she reemphasized it at the end of her session, too, that we need to go to the Scriptures to get truth.

So many people calling themselves Christians these days are teaching an altered and diluted gospel. They take Scriptures out of their context and they twist them to say what they want them to say but not what the Scriptures teach. Many of them don’t even bother with the Scriptures but they just speak what they want to say and people listen to them.

So, we live in a day and age when we must be particularly discerning with regard to what is being taught as truth, and we need to be those who are testing what we read and hear against the Scriptures in their context, comparing Scripture with Scripture in order to get the whole big picture. Like Ephesians 2:8-9 needs to be read with verse 10, and Romans 10:9-10 needs to be read in the whole of Romans, and John 10:28-30 needs verse 27.

Particularly when it comes to the gospel of our salvation we need to know what the whole of the New Testament teaches with regard to salvation from sin and forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God. We can’t just cherry pick Scriptures we like while ignoring the ones we don’t like. And the way we learn this is by reading the Bible one book at a time, in context. For reading each book in context will help us get the big picture.

If Anyone Teaches a Different Doctrine

Today here in America it appears that most preachers and pastors are teaching a different doctrine. It seems the majority of them have adopted the “cheap grace gospel” which is an altered and diluted version of the true gospel and which teaches the broad road as the way to heaven and to eternal life with God and which demonizes the narrow road which does lead to life eternal. Those who teach the truth are in the minority, for certain.

This altered gospel does not teach repentance, obedience to God, and submission to Christ as Lord as necessary components of believing faith which must be there in practice in order for the believer to receive forgiveness of sins, salvation from bondage to sin, and eternal life with God. They teach a man-made faith which leaves the door wide open for them to continue in deliberate and habitual sin while still holding on to the promise of salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

But the true gospel teaches that we must be crucified with Christ in death to sin and be raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. It teaches we must no longer live as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Now we must no longer walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the flesh, but we must now walk according to the Spirit in obedience to our Lord. For if we walk according to the flesh we will not inherit eternal life with God.

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:21-25; Rom 12:1-2; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-11; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Ac 26:18; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15; Eph 2:8-10]

1 Timothy 6:6-10 ESV

“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”

We have many people serving as pastors of “churches” (institutional) here in America who are making a lot of money off preaching and pastoring. And many of them are teaching this cheap grace gospel and they are telling people what their itching ears want to hear. They have turned their “churches” into businesses of men which are being marketed to the people of the world and so they have also altered the meaning of what church is supposed to be, and now most of these gatherings are not the church.

They are not the body of Christ getting together for mutual encouragement in our walks of faith where we are being instructed in the ways of God and in walks of holiness. They are not a place where we can all use our spiritual gifts given to us by God in our God-assigned roles within the body of Christ for the mutual encouragement of the body toward spiritual maturity and walks of faith. But they are businesses of men trying to attract the world to their businesses using worldly means and methods.

But we who are serving the Lord with our lives are not to be doing so for financial gain and to get wealthy. If someone is preaching and pastoring full-time he should be recompensed so that he can provide for his family. I agree with that. But none of us should be in the ministry so that we can gain the wealth of this world. Our attitude should be that we brought nothing into this world and we cannot take anything out of the world. And we should be content with having our basic needs met.

Now not everyone who is wealthy financially is subject to engage themselves in many senseless and harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and destruction. And you don’t have to be wealthy at all to have that happen to you, either. But if our focus is on the wealth of this world and the pleasures of this sinful world and not on the Lord and on holiness and righteousness, then certainly we are opening ourselves wide to many temptations towards senseless and harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and destruction.

1 Timothy 6:11-12 (read through to v. 16) ESV

“But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

So, we are to flee from false doctrines and from the desire for wealth and for sinful pleasures and from false “houses of worship” where they are teaching false doctrines and where they are marketing “the church” to the world. And we are to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, and love, etc. And we are to find our truth in the Scriptures taught in context and not in men/women. And we are to follow Jesus in obedience and no longer live in sin, and we are to be those who are spreading the truth of the gospel and who are exposing the lies and the deceptions so that many will find true salvation.

I Stand in Awe

By Mark Altrogge

You are beautiful

You are beautiful beyond description

Too marvelous for words

Too wonderful for comprehension

Like nothing ever seen or heard

Who can grasp Your infinite wisdom?

Who can fathom the depth of Your love?

You are beautiful beyond description

Majesty, enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of You