Bird's-eye view
As Paul brings this weighty letter to a close, he does not wind down gently. Rather, he lands one final, emphatic punch. These closing words are not a sentimental afterthought but the very capstone of his entire charge to his young son in the faith. The central conflict of the whole letter, the clash between sound doctrine and the cancerous growth of false teaching, is brought to its sharpest point. Paul’s final command is for Timothy to take up his post as a sentry on the walls of the church. His task is to guard the treasure of the gospel, to refuse distraction by the meaningless noise of godless intellectualism, and to recognize that this fight is a matter of life and death for the faith. The letter then concludes, as it must, with the only thing that makes such a task possible: grace.
Outline
- 1. The Charge to the Sentinel (1 Tim 6:20a)
- a. The Personal Appeal
- b. The Sacred Deposit
- 2. The Nature of the Threat (1 Tim 6:20b-21a)
- a. The Emptiness of Godless Chatter
- b. The Arrogance of Counterfeit Knowledge
- c. The Consequence of Doctrinal Drift: Apostasy
- 3. The Foundation for Faithfulness (1 Tim 6:21b)
- a. Grace as the Final Word
Context In 1 Timothy
These are the final sentences of the letter. Everything Paul has said before this about false teachers, the love of money, controversies over words, and the need for godly conduct finds its summary purpose here. This is not a new topic but the final, urgent exhortation. Having equipped Timothy to deal with a host of practical issues within the church at Ephesus, from public worship to the care of widows, Paul returns to the foundational issue that threatens to undo it all. If the truth is not guarded, then all the correct church polity in the world will not save them. This is the last word because it is the most important word. The integrity of the gospel message is the central issue for the church in every generation, and Paul leaves Timothy with this ringing in his ears.
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
1 Timothy 6:20
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you... Paul begins with a direct, personal, and affectionate appeal. This is not an abstract treatise; it is a charge from a spiritual father to his beloved son. The command is to "guard." Timothy is a steward, a watchman. He is not an innovator, a creator, or an editor. Something of immense value has been placed into his hands for safekeeping. This thing is the paratheke, the deposit. What is this deposit? It is the whole counsel of God, the apostolic doctrine, the pattern of sound words, the gospel itself. It is a body of objective truth. It was delivered to him, and his sacred duty is to keep it pure and pass it on, untainted and uncompromised. The first and most fundamental task of a minister of the gospel is to be a faithful guardian of this treasure.
...turning aside from godless and empty chatter... The primary threat to the deposit is not, in this context, a frontal assault with swords and spears, but a subtle corruption through words. He is to turn away from it, to give it a wide berth. The first description of this threat is that it is godless, or profane. It treats holy things as if they were common. It is the language of men who have no fear of God and who drag the sublime truths of revelation down into the mud of their own speculation. The second description is that it is empty chatter. The Greek is kenophonias, literally "empty sounds." It is noise that masquerades as substance. It is the sort of theological talk that fills books and conferences but has no spiritual nutrition. It is hollow, producing nothing but more noise. This is the constant temptation of the church: to be fascinated by novelties that are, in the final analysis, nothing but hot air.
...and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, Here Paul gets to the heart of the Ephesian error. The empty chatter has a certain intellectual pretense. It presents itself as knowledge, or gnosis. This is the seedbed of the Gnostic heresy that would fully bloom in the next century. Gnosticism was an elitist system built on secret, superior knowledge. Paul declares it to be a fraud; it is "falsely called" knowledge. It is pseudo-knowledge. And it is characterized by "opposing arguments," or antitheses. This counterfeit knowledge does not submit to the apostolic deposit; it sets itself up in opposition to it. It constantly creates false dichotomies and pits its own cleverness against the plain truth of God's Word. Every generation has its own version of this pseudo-gnosis, this intellectual pride that refuses to bow the knee to revelation. Timothy is to recognize it for the sham that it is and have nothing to do with it.
1 Timothy 6:21
...which some, while professing, have gone astray from the faith. Ideas have consequences, and bad theology is a ravenous wolf. This is not a harmless academic parlor game. Paul points to real people, "some," who have made a shipwreck of their faith on these rocks. They were not silent about their new ideas; they were "professing" this counterfeit knowledge. They were proud of it. And the result was that they "have gone astray from the faith." The verb means to miss the mark, to err, to deviate from a standard. In their attempt to be intellectually superior, they missed the faith altogether. They did not just get a few minor points wrong; they wandered off the path into the outer darkness. Doctrinal fidelity is not a secondary issue; it is the very path of salvation. To abandon the truth is to abandon Christ.
Grace be with you. This is how the letter ends. It is not a throwaway line, like "sincerely yours." It is the foundation for everything Paul has just commanded. How is a young man like Timothy supposed to stand against such sophisticated and insidious error? How can he possibly fulfill the charge to guard the priceless deposit of the gospel? The answer is not in his own strength, his own intellect, or his own willpower. The answer is grace. God's unmerited, sovereign, and powerful favor is the only thing that can enable this kind of faithfulness. Grace is the power that saves, and it is the power that keeps. This final benediction is a prayer that the objective reality of God's favor in Christ would be the subjective and empowering reality in Timothy's life and ministry. Grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Christian life. It is, fittingly, the final word.
Application
The charge to Timothy is the charge to every pastor and to every faithful church. The central duty of the church is not to be innovative but to be faithful. We are guardians of a sacred trust, the gospel, which was once for all delivered to the saints. We are not at liberty to alter it, update it, or blend it with the intellectual fads of our age.
We must cultivate a holy suspicion of "empty chatter." Much of what passes for deep theological discourse today is simply noise. It is a wordiness that obscures the simple, profound truths of Scripture. We must learn to distinguish between substantive truth and the godless chatter of what is falsely called knowledge. This requires us to be men and women of the Book, saturated in the truth so that we can immediately spot a counterfeit.
Finally, we must remember that doctrinal precision is not for the proud, but for the humble. The temptation to go astray comes from a desire to be wise in our own eyes. But true faithfulness is a fight, and we cannot fight it in our own strength. Our only hope for standing firm, for guarding the deposit, and for persevering to the end is the grace of God. All our striving must be a striving that is fueled by His grace, for His glory.