Stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer. (1 Tim. 1:3)
Expanded Passage: 1 Timothy 1:1-7
When Paul wrote to Timothy, Nero sat on the throne of Rome and Christians were persecuted mercilessly. The Roman historian Tacitus told of Christians being burned alive as human torches to light Nero’s evening parties. Later, Nero would execute both Peter and Paul.
The church of the first century was painfully aware of the threat posed by outside persecution, but the New Testament also warns about the threat posed by false teachers within the church. Historically, persecution has almost always resulted in the growth and expansion of the church. Tertullian, writing about AD 200, famously reminded the faithful that the blood of the martyrs is seed, spreading the faith. False teaching, on the other hand, can rob the church of its power by corrupting its message. The issue is not differing interpretations of Scripture so much as it is a denial of its authority.
The false teachers in the church Timothy pastored were promoting doctrines that sound strange to us—obscure Jewish myths, contrived genealogies (perhaps to create a family-tree connection to Old Testament heroes), extreme forms of self-denial, and even self-abuse. We’re more familiar with modern examples of pastors and scholars who reduce Jesus to no more than a great teacher and the Bible to no more than a human book.
The threat is the same, and so is its source. Beware the enemy within.
Pray for the persecuted church and for misguided churches closer to home.
Bob Black is a third-generation Wesleyan minister and professor emeritus of religion at Southern Wesleyan University (SC).
© 2026 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
