20”O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21 (ESV)
The following transcript is by Dr. J. Ligon Duncan. He preached this November 14, 2004. The message is entitled Guard What God has Given You.
I. Retain the truth.
In verse 20, Paul says, “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you….” There Paul says, ‘Timothy, retain the truth which I have entrusted to you.’ He’s telling Timothy that he has the responsibility to value, and protect, and defend, and retain the truth of the Christian faith. Paul is serious about orthodoxy. He’s serious about us holding on to those great truths of the Christian faith which have been expounded through Jesus and His apostles, and have been enscripturated in the word of God.
What is this…the fifth or sixth time in this letter that Paul has stopped to exhort Timothy to hold fast to sound teaching, and to oppose false teaching in the church? But you know, there’s another way you see how serious Paul is about retaining hold of the Christian faith, and it’s in the very way he addresses Timothy. You notice how he speaks to Timothy? He speaks the little word “O” in front of “Timothy”. “O Timothy…” he has picked up the pen himself now.
This isn’t the secretary transcribing Paul’s words; this is Paul himself: “O Timothy.” It’s filled with emotion and exhortation, and command. He’s exclaiming, and repeating his concern that Timothy would hold fast to the truth, and he says to him, “Guard what has been entrusted to you.”
Immediately what comes to your mind is the question, “Well, what has been entrusted to Timothy? What is this deposit that Timothy is supposed to guard?” Well, of course, in this book already Paul has talked about the gifts of the Spirit that had been entrusted to Timothy. He’s been given certain abilities; those things have been entrusted to him, but that doesn’t seem to be what Paul has in view here. Instead, Paul has clearly in view here Timothy holding fast to the truth of the Christian faith, not merely to his spiritual endowments, but to the very truth of the Christian faith.
Let me demonstrate that for you. Turn forward just 14 verses in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 1:13, and look at what Paul says there: “Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”
You see the same language that is being repeated there in II Timothy. Paul is calling on Timothy to hold fast to the sum of religion and sound doctrine, to the standard of sound words that he had received from Paul; to hold fast to the total truth content of the Christian faith summarized in the preaching of the apostles. And Paul is saying, “Timothy, value that truth. Protect that truth. Defend that truth. Retain that truth.”
You see, Timothy didn’t invent this faith. He received it. It was first passed on to him from his grandmother and from his mother, and Paul taught this truth to him. Timothy didn’t invent this as he was going along. He had received a message. He had received truth from God, and Paul is saying, “Timothy, hold onto it.”
One of the early church fathers, in commenting on this passage and teaching the church from it, asks the question, “What is meant here by ‘the deposit’; what has been entrusted to you?” And he answers this way:
“…That which is committed to you, not that which is invented by you. The
deposit is that which you have received, not that which you have devised. It is
not a thing of your wit, but of your learning. It is not a thing of private
assumption, but a public teaching. It is not a thing brought forth from you,
but a thing brought to you. You are not its author, but its keeper; you are not
its leader, but a follower.”
You see, the Christian message is not something which the church’s minister works out for himself, or is entitled to add to. It is a divine revelation which has been committed to his care, and which is his bounden duty to pass on unimpaired to others. And Paul is saying, ‘Timothy, you didn’t invent this message, but your job is to guard it. Hold onto it; retain it,” Paul says.
And notice how he tells him to treat it. “O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.” The word deposit, or that which has been entrusted to you,
meant in Paul and Timothy’s Day something that was a treasured possession
entrusted to someone else.
Can you imagine a scene on a battlefield, where two buddies who have been fighting side by side are speaking to one another. One of them is dying; he has been mortally wounded. From his pocket he pulls a watch, a family heirloom which has been in his family for five generations, and he says to his friend, “If you get back home, take this to my mother. This watch has been in my family for five generations, and I cannot take it home to her. This is an entrusted heirloom, a possession–take care of it.”
Paul is saying to Timothy, “You have been entrusted with something far more precious than a family heirloom. You have been entrusted with the word of salvation, with the word of truth, with the very revelation of God; so, Timothy, value it; protect it; defend it; retain it; hold on to it.” I want to say, my friends, it is easy for us to shortchange the significance of our having been entrusted with the truth of God from a series of faithful ministers and elders in this congregation for 170 years, and we should not undervalue it, because until the truth is deeply valued by each one of us, we will not protect it.
If we do not protect it, it will not be in danger, we will be in danger.
God’s truth will endure. It is truth unchanged and unchanging. It is
unconquerable truth. It will endure when the worlds are not more. But if we do not value it and protect it, we are in danger of losing it. And so, Paul says not just to Timothy, but to you and to me, we have to value, and protect, and defend and retain the truth of the Christian faith, which has been entrusted to us.
II. Refrain from World Talk.
But Paul doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say in verse 20 that we are to refrain from something. He says, “Timothy, you’re to guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and opposing arguments of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’.” He tells Timothy, in other words, that he is to refrain from being entangled in empty and speculative theological chatter. He’s to avoid this kind of empty and speculative teaching. He’s to avoid this kind of vain speaking, theological or otherwise.
Now, it’s very interesting: the people who were propounding this ‘new and deep and spiritual teaching’ in the Christian church do doubt thought of themselves as exceedingly wise: wiser than Timothy; wiser than Paul; and, certainly, wiser than mere Christians in the congregation. They were intelligent! They had insights that none other could grasp! They knew truth that nobody could understand, and yet….
Do you notice the four qualities that Paul uses to describe what they no doubt thought as profound teaching? He calls it worldly, empty, contradictory, and false. He says, ‘Let me tell you about this ‘wisdom’, this ‘knowledge’ that is being taught by false teachers. It’s worldly. It doesn’t come from God, it’s worldly. It comes from this world. And it’s not only worldly, it’s empty. It claims to be profound and weighty, but it’s a vapor–it’s vain, it’s empty. There’s nothing to it, and it’s contradictory. It contradicts the clear teaching of God’s word.
More to come. May the Lord’s truth and grace be found here.
Soli deo Gloria!
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