Page 55 - Pastoral Epistles student textbook

the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without
deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God.
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Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
A few years ago, I began to understand those verses in a whole new way. In one sense, I could say
that faith and works are the same thing.
 What we believe (in our heart) will always – (over the course of time) be revealed in how we live.
 If we believe church is important, we’ll be there.

 If we believe reading the Bible is important, we will read the Bible.
 If we believe that praying for missionaries is important then we will pray for missionaries.

 If we believe that husbands should love their wives and wives should love their husbands, then we
will do so.
And in the same way that what we believe will be revealed in how we live – we can also say that …
how we live (on the outside where everyone is watching) reflects what we believe.
Luke 6:45. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart,
and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the
mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

In chapter four (4) Paul warns Timothy and us … to be prepared for bad teachers and bad
teaching. There are people who may from time to time make unintended errors in what they say –
but there are also false teachers who teach false doctrine to lead people away from the grace and
truth of the Gospel by adding rules and regulations to God’s grace.
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow
deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through
2
hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
When Paul wrote about deceiving spirits and things taught by demons, he was not necessarily talking
about full-blown Satan worshipers. There is a wide variety of ways in which Satan sells his twisted and
mixed-up inventions. All deceptions come from Satan’s world and realm, but he uses many ways to
design and fashion his lies.
1 John 4:2-3. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that
2
acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that
3
does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which
you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
Remember – it is one thing for a false teacher to come into our community and begin teaching false
doctrine without ever claiming to be a Christian or a part of Christianity. But it is something else
entirely when someone comes into our church or our community and after claiming to be a Christian
or claiming to be part of a Christian group and they begin teaching false doctrines.
We need to be spiritually mature because there are people in both groups in
our communities.

We need to be on our guard always and yet at the same time I do not want
to give Satan credit for things he is doing when he is in fact not doing it!

1 Timothy 4:6-16.
6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of
Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you
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