2 Timothy 3:14-17
As for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
Today we are looking at 1st and 2nd Timothy – two letters which purport to be from the apostle Paul but, as with everything else we’ve looked at this summer, most likely were not. The two letters are both very short and we should be able to check them both out today.
1st Timothy has all the same problems we have already discussed with 2nd Thessalonians and Ephesians, only in most cases this author appears to have doubled down on them:
I am, personally, always more than a bit leery of those who champion a single canonical doctrine. My father-in-law, as I have undoubtedly mentioned before, was a fundamentalist minister – very fundamentalist. One of his favorite sayings was that so and so was “doctrinally unsound.” My husband and I realized early on that doctrinally unsound generally could be translated as I don’t agree with him. Unfortunately, the assumed equivalency of "I don't agree with this" with "it's doctrinally unsound" has become much too commonplace in too many churches.
Perhaps the most important point in the Timothy letters, and the one that has done the most harm down through the centuries is the one in our reading for today. Especially in the last hundred years, many Protestants have read these verses to mean that the “inspired” Bible is thereby “inerrant” and “infallible.” The conflating of these words into one meaning is the basis for fundamentalism and much of conservation evangelicalism.
But should these words be conflated? “Inspired” is a word we use very loosely. It literally means “breathed by God,” – but what exactly does that mean? We speak of great artists and performers as being inspired – do we ever mean they are inerrant? The prophets of the Old Testament were inspired by God but do we ever claim they themselves were infallible? All creation was breathed out by God, so why is it that only the words in this book are considered infallible? Every one of us who is baptized has had the Holy Spirit breathed into us – are we therefore inerrant?
Inspiration is a loosely defined concept that one group of people – a little over a hundred years ago – took for themselves and cemented into a tight, un-nuanced definition that they insist is the only possible truth. It can be their truth, they have the right to believe that, but it is not my truth and I reject their attempts to force it on me. The reading says all scripture is inspired, not infallible and it also says it is “useful” -- not necessary, but useful. To say that a thing is useful implies that something could be done without it but is just a lot easier with it. It doesn’t sound like something vital to our salvation.
One more thing that Marc Borg points out in this discussion – At the time this was written, when the writer says “all scripture is inspired by God,” the scripture he/she is referring to is the Old Testament – the Jewish Bible. The New Testament didn’t exist as such yet. So it means the scriptures that Jesus would have known – none of the teachings in our New Testament would have been included in this statement.
Again, we have to be careful in how we use these non-Pauline letters. Just because someone put Paul’s name on here does not mean it should carry the same weight of authority as Paul’s authentic writings. The further we get from Jesus, the more we are urged to believe, not what Jesus said and did, but what the institution of the church thinks we should believe – or finds it convenient for us to believe.
Rules are useful and important - the danger lies in the question of who gets to make and enforce the rules? Who benefits from the rules? Who is left-out because of the rules? Applying Paul's name to these new rules lends them a weight and authority they do not necessarily deserve, therefore we need to read these pseudo-Pauline letters with care.
The institutional church is run by fallible mortals – we need to remember that as we attempt to find our way through all these words to the teachings and actions that drew us to Jesus in the first place. I said at the beginning that at this point it had been 50 years since Paul’s death. That’s the same time span since MLK’s death here in our time. I wonder how much we have “re-shaped” MLK’s message to suit our culture? What have we already lost from his teachings simply because we now interpret his words through the lens of today and today's assumptions?
Next week we will close out this part of our study with the Letter to Titus – the last of those attributed to Paul.
1st Timothy has all the same problems we have already discussed with 2nd Thessalonians and Ephesians, only in most cases this author appears to have doubled down on them:
- Slaves are to accept their lot uncomplainingly – God apparently means them to be slaves so they should accept that – but now they’re supposed to smile. Again – this rhetoric bears no resemblance to original Paul’s stance on slaves and owners.
- Women should just sit down and shut up – learning from the men in silence and full submission. There is, however, the happy news that women can still “be saved” ..... through child-bearing. I’m sure all the women here feel so much better for that news. This in spite of the fact that Adam and Eve’s fall from grace was entirely Eve’s fault and women are responsible, thereby, for bringing sin into the world.
- The issue that receives the most time in these letters is the continued shift from a free-form gathering of Jesus-people into a formal institution called “church” – with rules and stuff – lots of rules. Both 1st and 2nd Timothy focus on newly created roles for leadership and who can fill those roles and all the rules for “proper” behavior within this new-style “church.”
- As in the earlier letters, this is the primary reason for rejecting claims that it is Paul the Apostle who has written these letters, because the issues being discussed with such passion simply did not exist during Paul’s lifetime. These letters were written in the 110’s, a full fifty years after Paul’s execution in Rome in the 60’s, and the church is already well along its path of accommodation of the prevailing secular culture.
I am, personally, always more than a bit leery of those who champion a single canonical doctrine. My father-in-law, as I have undoubtedly mentioned before, was a fundamentalist minister – very fundamentalist. One of his favorite sayings was that so and so was “doctrinally unsound.” My husband and I realized early on that doctrinally unsound generally could be translated as I don’t agree with him. Unfortunately, the assumed equivalency of "I don't agree with this" with "it's doctrinally unsound" has become much too commonplace in too many churches.
Perhaps the most important point in the Timothy letters, and the one that has done the most harm down through the centuries is the one in our reading for today. Especially in the last hundred years, many Protestants have read these verses to mean that the “inspired” Bible is thereby “inerrant” and “infallible.” The conflating of these words into one meaning is the basis for fundamentalism and much of conservation evangelicalism.
But should these words be conflated? “Inspired” is a word we use very loosely. It literally means “breathed by God,” – but what exactly does that mean? We speak of great artists and performers as being inspired – do we ever mean they are inerrant? The prophets of the Old Testament were inspired by God but do we ever claim they themselves were infallible? All creation was breathed out by God, so why is it that only the words in this book are considered infallible? Every one of us who is baptized has had the Holy Spirit breathed into us – are we therefore inerrant?
Inspiration is a loosely defined concept that one group of people – a little over a hundred years ago – took for themselves and cemented into a tight, un-nuanced definition that they insist is the only possible truth. It can be their truth, they have the right to believe that, but it is not my truth and I reject their attempts to force it on me. The reading says all scripture is inspired, not infallible and it also says it is “useful” -- not necessary, but useful. To say that a thing is useful implies that something could be done without it but is just a lot easier with it. It doesn’t sound like something vital to our salvation.
One more thing that Marc Borg points out in this discussion – At the time this was written, when the writer says “all scripture is inspired by God,” the scripture he/she is referring to is the Old Testament – the Jewish Bible. The New Testament didn’t exist as such yet. So it means the scriptures that Jesus would have known – none of the teachings in our New Testament would have been included in this statement.
Again, we have to be careful in how we use these non-Pauline letters. Just because someone put Paul’s name on here does not mean it should carry the same weight of authority as Paul’s authentic writings. The further we get from Jesus, the more we are urged to believe, not what Jesus said and did, but what the institution of the church thinks we should believe – or finds it convenient for us to believe.
Rules are useful and important - the danger lies in the question of who gets to make and enforce the rules? Who benefits from the rules? Who is left-out because of the rules? Applying Paul's name to these new rules lends them a weight and authority they do not necessarily deserve, therefore we need to read these pseudo-Pauline letters with care.
The institutional church is run by fallible mortals – we need to remember that as we attempt to find our way through all these words to the teachings and actions that drew us to Jesus in the first place. I said at the beginning that at this point it had been 50 years since Paul’s death. That’s the same time span since MLK’s death here in our time. I wonder how much we have “re-shaped” MLK’s message to suit our culture? What have we already lost from his teachings simply because we now interpret his words through the lens of today and today's assumptions?
Next week we will close out this part of our study with the Letter to Titus – the last of those attributed to Paul.
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