The Church: The Guardian of the Faith (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

Whenever we finish a book, it is like saying goodbye to an old friend. We have spent almost seven months in 1 Timothy and today we bid it farewell. This epistle is a vital epistle for the church to understand. If we can understand this epistle, and obey it, we can avoid many of the challenges which split churches today. As we worked through the book, we learned that the church is the visible picture of Christ. As such the church is entrusted with the role of guarding and obeying the truth of Scripture. We observed this in … 

1 Timothy 3:15 – if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Our world today hates the concept of truth. We have arrived at a place in our post-modern world in which everyone can choose truth for themselves. Whatever makes life work for you can be your truth. There are only a couple of important caveats. First, love (at least the world’s concept of love) is the ultimate truth. The world’s concept of love trumps any truth claim you might make. Second, a religious statement of truth cannot be tolerated. And so, we live in an age of confusion. For, when everyone gets to determine their own truth, there is no truth. Yet, truth (real, dogmatic, unchanging, undeniable truth) does exist. God is truth. John 14:6 reveals to us that He is the truth. Not that he has the truth, but that he is the truth. Truth us bound up in his person and as such he is the determiner of truth. Second, God has revealed that truth to us in His Word (John 17:17). As a result, the church is charged with being the guardian of the truth. 

We have seen this reality over and over in the epistle. As Paul ends this letter to Timothy and the Ephesian church, he reminds them (and us) one last time to guard the faith from all that would destroy it.