The Goal of Christian Teaching
D. Scott Meadows
The author of a certain self-help book advised readers that “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” He also urges to “keep the end in mind.”1 Who can disagree with such common sense? In real life, however, it is human nature to become distracted from the main thing and to forget why we are doing whatever it is we are doing, and whether we should be doing something else. These truisms should be remembered and applied throughout our lives.
The apostle Paul warned against distraction in the spiritual realm where the stakes are much higher than everyday productivity. Souls are always threatened by religious teachers that are side-tracked themselves and side-tracking others, forgetting the main thing and the true goal of Christian teaching in the first place. Paul charged Timothy, in the first epistle to him, with a timeless mission to reestablish spiritual priorities in churches subject to disastrous derailment (1 Tim 1.3-7). Some there were teaching “other doctrine” besides that which should have occupied their attention (v. 3). “Tell them to stop it,” Paul wrote. They had a perverse curiosity about “fables and endless genealogies.” These subjects only produced “questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith” (v. 4). The multiplication of pointless questions and the absence of godly edification was damning evidence of their evil influence. They had “swerved” and “turned aside unto vain jangling” (v. 6). This wonderful old word “jangling” sounds like what it is —useless noise! These teachers of distraction wanted to be “teachers of the law,” but, Paul insists, they understand “neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (v. 7). Their ignorant mouths exposed their dark, cavernous minds. These misguided teachers were driven to make a name for themselves or to make a buck or to achieve some other unloving goal. What a blight on the churches!
Paul strongly implies that the main thing Timothy and all Christian teachers should aim to accomplish is the godly edification of our hearers. Admittedly, Scripture teaches that the supreme goal of all things is to glorify God, but edification is an important element of glorifying Him (n.b. 1 Cor 10.31; Rom 14.19; 1 Cor 8.1; 14.12, 26; 2 Cor 12.19; Eph 4.12, 29). True theology is inherently practical theology. To know God and His works as we should—indeed, as Holy Scripture genuinely reveals Him—will illumine our minds and reform our conduct to the glory of God. From these considerations, we see an important biblical truth with major ramifications.
The goal of Christian teaching is godly edifying.
With forthrightness and elaboration, Paul says in verse five, “Now the end of the commandment [alt., the aim of our charge] is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
Godly Edifying Exalted
This exalts godly edifying to a place of great importance as the goal of Christian teaching. “The end” or “the aim” is forceful, not quite excluding any other aim, but certainly stressing this is an important one. The noun means “the purpose of an event viewed in terms of its result—‘purpose, intent, goal’” (Louw-Nida 89.55). In this way, Paul reminds Timothy to keep the main thing the main thing, and never to forget the intended result of Christian teaching. It is not a self-referential goal—gaining a great reputation, or making a living, or convincing others that you are right about everything. Rather, it is a goal in reference to those who hear you teach—not amusing them, nor gratifying their curiosity, nor filling their head with information for its own sake or for parading their doctrinal knowledge before others. Their spiritual good must remain a priority. Godly edifying must always be a prime goal of Christian teaching. This applies no matter the setting, whether in the church, the home, or the seminary.
Godly Edifying Explained
Paul proceeds to clarify the results of godly edification. Fundamentally, it fosters love or charity in and from the hearers. The term charity helps us appreciate that what is in view is an ethical love. Christian love toward others is the kindness, compassion, and self-sacrificial benevolence that truly blesses them. In this verse, it seems that love of neighbor (rather than God) is especially in view (but cf. 1 John 4.20, 21). Without such love, we are nothing (1 Cor 13.1-3).
How, then, does sound Christian teaching promote love of neighbor? Paul teaches that this love comes from a sinful soul improved by grace. Other translations read “love that issues” or “springs from” such a soul, that is, a soul edified by Christian teaching. Three particulars of inner edification are listed.
First, a pure heart. Our hearts as unconverted sinners are polluted, not pure. Sin has made us morally filthy in the sight of God. When He first saves us, then and only then, His work of our spiritual purification begins, and the gospel alongside the whole counsel of God in Scripture is a chief means of our progressive sanctification. As the inner person is cleansed, so is the outer—that is, our speech and conduct.
True grace will make head[way] against the corruptions of the heart, as well as against the excursions of the feet; it is as willing and desirous to be rid of a polluted heart, as it is willing and desirous to be rid of a polluted hand. It would fain [gladly] have, not only sinful acts, but also sinful dispositions, and not only irregular actions, but also inordinate affections, mortified and subdued. O friends! heart sins are root sins; they are the springs that set all the wheels a-going, the fountain that sets all the streams a-running, the fire that sets the furnace a-smoking, the bellows that sets the fire a-burning (Thomas Brooks, Works 3.314).
Second, a good conscience. William Perkins observed, “The sanctification of the conscience is an aptness to testify always truly that a man’s sins are pardoned and that he preserves in his heart a care to please God” (Works 4.35). By Christian teaching, we learn the gospel of Jesus Christ that promises the forgiveness of our sins through faith alone (e.g., Rom 4.6-8). Christian teaching is also an instrument of our spiritual maturity and increasing discernment about good and evil, so that we may grow in the virtue and practice of true Christian love and moral consistency (Heb 5.13, 14).
Third, a sincere faith. “Faith unfeigned” means faith that is genuine, not merely professed before others. True believers struggle against remaining hypocrisy. Our old preference remains within us for being praised over being truly praiseworthy in God’s sight. Christian teaching is designed by God to mortify these wicked tendencies. As we embrace the truth, our hearts are purified, our consciences are made good, and a sincere faith is made more complete.
Oh, what a beautiful thing it is when Christian teachers deliberately aim to further these spiritual blessings in their hearers, and the hearers are the beneficiaries of such a ministry! Keeping this the main thing makes teaching ministries more spiritually useful and advances the public glory of God. Amen. Ω
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The following books by D. Scott Meadows are available at Trinity Book Service and Cristianismo Histórico:
Ebook: A Call to Pure Worship | D. Scott Meadows
Ebook: God’s Astounding Grace | D. Scott Meadows