TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   J.   Warnings against False Teachers (4:1-5)

1 Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. 2 These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.[*]

3 They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. 4 Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. 5 For we know it is made acceptable[*] by the word of God and prayer.

NOTES

4:1 the Holy Spirit. The Greek text lacks “Holy,” although there is no doubt that Paul was referring to the third member of the Trinity.

tells us clearly. This is not the introductory phrase typically used in the NT to introduce Scripture. The present tense could be a dramatic use, intended to make the readers or listeners feel as if they are part of the original audience (e.g., “Moses says that we. . . .”; “it is written that . . .”). But “Spirit” plus the verb “to speak” suggests a prophetic word at the time of writing. The pronoun “us” is lacking in the Greek text. The phrase “the Spirit clearly says” could simply be a formulaic introduction with no direct object intended. The word “clearly” (rhētōs [TG4490, ZG4843]) could also be translated “thusly” or “in so many words.” Paul’s coworker, Silas, had the gift of prophesy and could well have been the source. Luke tells us that “Judas and Silas, both being prophets, spoke at length to the believers [at Antioch], encouraging and strengthening their faith” (Acts 15:32).

in the last times. This is an idiomatic phrase for the period between Christ’s first and second comings. The Greek word “last” (husterois [TG5306, ZG5731]) is a comparative used as a superlative for the final of a series of epochs (L&N 61.16; Zerwick 1996:149).

some will turn away. The Greek verb means to “apostatize” or “defect” (apostēsontai [TG868A, ZG923]).

from the true faith. The NLT adds “true.” “The faith” is the orthodox body of teaching affirmed and transmitted from one generation to the next.

they will follow. The Greek prosechontes [TG4337, ZG4668] means “to attend to” or “give allegiance to” something.

deceptive spirits. The adjective planos [TG4108, ZG4418], only used here and in 2 Cor 6:8, refers to Satanic activity.

teachings. False teaching is the heart of the Ephesian problem. Eight of the fifteen uses of didaskalia [TG1319, ZG1436] in the Pastorals are found in 1 Timothy.

that come from demons. The genitive “the teachings of demons” could be construed as source (“teachings from demons”) or as adjectival (“demonic teachings”).

4:2 consciences. Six of Paul’s twenty uses of this word appear in the Pastorals. The concern is for a “good” (1:5, 19) and “pure” conscience as opposed to a “seared” one (NLT, “dead”).

dead. Lit., “seared” (so NLT mg; kaustēriazō [TG2743, ZG3013]), from which we get our English word “cauterize.” The perfect tense (kekaustēriasmenōn) denotes an unfeeling state resulting from the repeated branding of the conscience with the red-hot iron of false teaching. Some translate the perfect “branded with Satan’s mark.” But the alternative “deadened” or “anesthetized” is an apt description of what can happen to the conscience, when it is continually bombarded by Satan’s lies.

4:3 They will say. This is present tense in Greek; it is not a future happening but the current situation at Ephesus. False teachers are not just saying that marriage and non-kosher foods are wrong but are forbidding (kōluontōn [TG2967, ZG3266]) such practices.

foods. Lit., “meats.” This may reflect kosher laws about meat preparation and restrictions. It could also reflect an attempt to return to the pre-Fall vegetarian menu of the Garden of Eden.

by faithful people who know the truth. The single article with two nouns connected by kai [TG2532, ZG2779] forms a single unit: “by those who believe and know the truth.” The verb “know” with the preposition epi [TG1909, ZG2093] means “to recognize.” Believers must not only believe the truth but recognize it when they see or hear it. The corollary is that they also recognize what is false when they see or hear it.

4:4 everything. Pan [TG3956, ZG4246] without the article emphasizes “each and every created thing.” There are no exceptions. Paul could also be alluding to foods considered unclean because of their cultic associations. See, for example, cooking a kid in its mother’s milk to ensure the herd’s fertility (Deut 14:21). Whatever the meat’s former association, gratitude to God as Creator puts the food squarely in the realm of all things made “good.”

good. The Greek word kalos [TG2570, ZG2819] describes what is “lovely,” “beautiful,” “attractive.”

receive it with thanks. The participle lambanomenon [TG2983, ZG3284] is a neuter singular and likely conditional: “It is not to be rejected if it is received with thanks” (NLT, “but receive it”).

4:5 it is made acceptable. Or, “set apart for [God],” “made sacred” (see NLT mg).

prayer. The Greek word enteuxeōs [TG1783, ZG1950] refers to a petition made by one on behalf of another (see 2:1).

COMMENTARY [Text]

Paul enters the ring for round two with the false teachers. The opening verses are prophetic in tone: “Now the Holy Spirit tells us.” This is not Paul’s usual way of introducing a revealed or prophetic word. The closest is his command, “Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies” (1 Thess 5:19-20). “The Spirit says” is more characteristic of Luke, who uses it as shorthand for prophetic activity (Acts 1:16; 10:19; 15:28; 28:25-26; see note on 4:1).

God’s Spirit directed the early church through the prophetic word of one or more of its members. Some directives were congregational. Prophecy was to be exercised in an orderly way in the local church (1 Cor 14:33). It was to be a team effort: “two or three people prophesy” and “the others evaluate what is said” (1 Cor 14:29). And prophecy was under the prophet’s control the entire time: Those “who prophesy are in control of their spirit and can take turns” (1 Cor 14:32). Other directives of the Spirit were missiological. The Spirit chose missionaries (Acts 13:2): “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Appoint Barnabas and Saul for the special work to which I have called them.’ ” He also sent them out. “The Holy Spirit told [Peter] to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles” (Acts 11:12; cf. Acts 13:4). The Spirit opened doors for evangelism: “Paul felt compelled by the Spirit to go over to Macedonia and Achaia before going to Jerusalem” (Acts 19:21). And the Spirit closed doors: “The Holy Spirit had prevented [Paul and Silas] from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time” (Acts 16:6). The Spirit directed their way (Acts 20:22). When Paul and Silas came to the borders of Mysia, “they headed north for the province of Bithynia, but again the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there” (Acts 16:7). And the Spirit warned missionaries of what was to come (Acts 11:28; 20:23; 21:11).

The Spirit’s warning in 1 Timothy is about “the last times” when “some will turn away from the true faith.” The “last times” is the final epoch of world history. It is during the last times that some claiming the name of Christ will apostatize (apostēsontai) or “turn away from” their orthodox profession. The word’s meaning is comparable to treason or defection. In the Greek Old Testament it is used of Israel’s turning from worship of Yahweh to worship of Canaanite idols. In the New Testament, “to apostatize” is to disavow the faith, which is the common confession of the early church regarding Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection, vindication, good news of salvation, kingdom expansion, and glorification to the status of “Lord and Messiah” (3:16; cf. Acts 2:22-36). The idea that God’s people can turn their back on him is explicit in Jesus’ calling the Pharisees “children of your father the devil” because they “love to do the evil things he does” (John 8:44).

Although Satan has been active throughout human history, it is during the last times that he will make a last-ditch effort to subvert the gospel and regain kingdom territory he lost through Christ’s first coming. His weapons are “deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons” (4:1). The language is quite close to that of 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10, where it speaks of “the man of lawlessness,” who reveals himself through Satanic-empowered miracles, signs, and wonders that deceive many. The Essenes similarly believed that “at the end of the days, blasphemers will arise” (1QpHab).

The expression “deceptive spirits” is unique to the Pastorals and 1 John. The reality, however, was already present eight years earlier in Paul’s Corinthian correspondence. One can speak by a spirit other than God’s Spirit. The difference is in the content. “No one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). The difference is also in the listener’s response. “Those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception” (1 John 4:6). Paul identified these alternative spirits as demons—evil spirits who are at Satan’s beck and call (v. 1). Demons are what empower a pagan idol. “Food offered to idols . . . these sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God” (1 Cor 10:19-20). The teachings that come from demons aim to “cast an evil spell on” those who believe (Gal 3:1) and to blind “the minds of those who don’t believe” (2 Cor 4:4). The end for both believer and nonbeliever is the same: to be “held captive by [Satan] to do whatever he wants” (2 Tim 2:26).

Just as Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, demonic teachings can have a reasonable and attractive appearance. Eve “saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her” (Gen 3:6). “[She] was deceived [by Satan], and sin was the result (2:14). So too Paul warns the Corinthian church: “I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent” (2 Cor 11:3). This is why Paul instructed Ephesus and the Lycus Valley churches several years earlier to “put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil” (Eph 6:11).

The prophetic source of the Spirit’s warning is commonly taken to be Paul’s parting words to the leaders of the Ephesian church. Paul had warned of “vicious wolves,” who would “come in among you . . . not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29). From among their own members some would “rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following” (Acts 20:30). Yet Paul’s words are far from original. Jesus had already warned his followers about a time when “many will turn away” and “betray and hate each other.” And “many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people” (Matt 24:10-11; cf. Mark 13:22).

What permits ongoing deceit in the Ephesian context is a cauterized (NLT, “dead”) “conscience”—a conscience seared with a red-hot branding iron that makes it unfeeling and unable to distinguish between truth and a lie. In the case of the false teachers at Ephesus, they claimed superior knowledge (6:20). But they let their seared conscience be their guide. So, in reality they had no idea what they were talking about (1:7). As a result, their words were the words of “liars” and their deeds the deeds of “hypocrites.” They not only spoke what was false, but also did not live what they spoke. They gave the impression of having good motivations, when in reality they had nothing of the kind (6:5).

The “lie” in this case was a teaching that claimed, “it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods” (4:3). The lie aimed at two basic appetites of the human body—sex and eating (particularly eating meat). It is ascetic at core and dualistic in its worldview. The spiritual is good, and the physical is flawed at best and evil at worst. From the standpoint of the dualist, sex and meat are evil because they pollute the spiritual good. Withdrawal from the world was therefore considered preferable. Abstinence from meat and sex was thought to keep in check the physical impulses (cf. Rom 14:2; 1 Cor 7:1).

A realized eschatology was likely behind these prohibitions. “This kind of talk,” Paul states, “spreads like cancer, as in the case of Hymenaeus and Philetus,” who “have left the path of truth, claiming that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred” (2 Tim 2:17-18). Salvation is fully realized; the end has come. Jesus taught that “marriage is for people here on earth. But in the age to come, those worthy of being raised from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (Luke 20:34-35). “In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matt 22:30). What Jesus taught about the future, the false teachers were claiming as a present reality.

Abstaining from “certain foods” may have in view Jewish dietary laws regarding what is clean and unclean (Lev 11). However, the Greek word is specific to “meat” (brōma [TG1033, ZG1109]) so the Greco-Roman culture of the readers is probably in view. “Their god is their appetite” was a prevailing cultural mentality (Phil 3:19), and animal sacrifice was the standard practice. Because there was no separation of religion and society, every meal was a religious one, involving meat that had been sacrificed to an idol. The pre-Fall situation was a vegetarian one (Gen 1:29). The false teachers may well have considered meat to be part of a fallen creation or hedonistic society and hence not a necessity. The spiritual route would be to give it up. After all, “food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food” only until the resurrection/transformation, when “God will do away with both of them” (1 Cor 6:13). An ascetic dualism was also behind Paul’s instructions to a neighboring church in the Lycus Valley. The advocates commanded “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!” “Such rules,” states Paul, “may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires” (Col 2:21-23).

Paul’s approach in 1 Timothy was to appeal to creation order as overriding particular Jewish or Greco-Roman religious scruples. His argument is presented in the form of a syllogism:

Undergirding this is the understanding that with Jesus’ coming “every kind of food is [now] acceptable in God’s eyes” (Mark 7:19; cf. Acts 10:9-15). Any teaching that would distinguish and exclude is thereby false.

Paul gives no restrictions or qualifications on what can be eaten except one: The food must be eaten “with thanks” by people who believe and recognize the truth through God’s word and prayer (4:5). A word of thanks was commonplace at the first-century Jewish, Greek, and Roman dinner table. However, “made acceptable [or holy] by the word of God and prayer” places Paul’s words in the context of Judaism. It was Jewish practice to read Scripture and offer a prayer of blessing at mealtime (4:5). Jesus himself reflected this custom. At the feeding of the 5,000, he “took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them” (Mark 6:41), and at the Last Supper, he “took some bread and blessed it” (Mark 14:22).

In placing an emphasis on “everything God created is good” (4:3-4), Paul may also have been thinking of God’s pronouncement of “very good” on the sixth day of creation: “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good” (Gen 1:31; see note on 4:4). Gratitude to God as creator puts food squarely in the realm of all things made “very good.” To Grecian believers, Paul said, “If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it?” (1 Cor 10:30) To Jewish believers Paul said, “Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God” (Rom 14:6). This makes gratitude more than a perfunctory blessing; it is an attitude toward life and all its blessings.