Adam's podcast

September 21, 2008 - 1 Timothy 1:3-11 (and 1:18-20; 4:1-8; 6:3-5, 20-21). "When Theology becomes Pathology" from the series "Watch Your Step: A Study of First Timothy."

Things are a mess in Ephesus. Paul indicates that false teachers and outlaws are running amok, causing trouble and disorder in the church. It reminds me of those old westerns where they’d say: "There’s a new sheriff a comin' and he's gonna clean up this town." So Sheriff Paul has deputized Timothy and left him to clean up the fair town of Ephesus

Paul commands, "Watch Your Step" for the trouble is NOT as simple to diagnose as it was in the old westerns: the good guys don’t always wear white and the bad guys don’t always wear black, so they're not that easy to identify.

In fact, the problem is that some of the good guys have become bad guys without turning in their white "good guy" uniforms. Some of the local Elders and church leaders have begun gun slinging for the wrong side.

And now Deputy Timothy has been charged with "calling them out" – exposing the error of these men and cleaning up the church.

The problem with these Elders - these former "good guys" - is that their Theology has become a Pathology. Dictonary.com defines Pathology as, "any deviation from a healthy, normal, or efficient condition." So the Theology and teaching of these Elders had become pathological – deviating from healthy or sound teaching and doctrine.

Timothy is charged to expose the PATHOLOGY of these teachers and remind the church of sound, healthy THEOLOGY.