“Sound teaching strengthens, while sick teaching weakens…sick teaching leads to sick holiness.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Sick Teaching, Sick Holiness
Gordon Fee argues that the primary purpose of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles is not to establish church order or provide a “church manual” for church governance. Rather, Paul’s purpose in writing to Timothy is to thwart the false teachers that have gained sway in the house churches of Ephesus.
Paul can hardly go a chapter without writing about sound teaching/doctrine. The Greek word for “sound” that Paul uses is hygiano. Timothy is to devote himself to hygienic teaching, or teaching that is healthy and leads to health. The false teachers are unaware of the fact that they are promoting what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls a “sick teaching” that “leads to sick holiness.” In Paul’s words, it is a teaching that “spreads like gangrene” (2 Tim. 2:17).
The difficulty is that Paul calls out the problem of sick teaching without really spelling out the nature or the content of such teaching. The reason is obvious. The letter was written to a lifelong companion, who would not have needed such instruction. Timothy is Paul’s “child in the faith” so the entire truth of Paul’s gospel (as we see it in Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans) is taken for granted.
We have to pay close attention to see the marks of what Paul considers sick teaching and sick holiness.
Marks of Sick Teaching
What are some of the signs Paul gives to be on alert for to spot sick teaching? How do we spot gangrene?
* An addiction to controversy and vain speculations (1 Tim. 1:4)
* Legalism/Moral rigorism (1 Tim. 4:3)
* Their teaching is driven by fear not motivated by love (1 Tim. 1:7—8, see St. John Chrysostom’s second homily on 1 Timothy)
* Conceited (1 Tim. 6:3)
* Quarrelsome and argumentative (1 Tim. 6:3)
* Abusive/harsh language (1 Tim. 6:3)
* An unhealthy attachment to their own opinions (1 Tim. 1:4, 1 Tim. 6:3—5)
* Sincere (1 Tim. 4:2)
The heart of the difference between sick and healthy teaching is a theme that is never far from Paul’s mind when he mentions these characteristics we’ve just listed. It comes down to freedom, fear, and love.
In 2 Tim. 3:6—8 Paul a comparison to the false teachers at Ephesus and two out of the way characters from the book of Exodus. He writes,
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth.
Jannes and Jambres are names given to two of the magicians in Pharaoh’s court that match Moses blow for blow with magic. Aaron throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a snake, but the magicians can match it. Moses turns the waters into blood, but again Pharaoh’s magicians mimic the sign.
In the Old Testament the magicians are not named, but it is a part of the tradition of Jewish midrash to give names to the nameless. By “at least 150 B.C. the Egyptian magicians had been narrowed to two brothers and given the names Jannes and Jambres. By the time of Paul this tradition had become common stock.”
This was a battle of power and authority; the authority of Moses, given him by God, and the authority of the magicians. But there is a stark difference in the way the two are wielding this power. Moses used his authority for the sake of liberating the Hebrew people while Jannes and Jambres used their’s to keep the people enslaved.
As Chris Green once put it, “How do I know whether I’m speaking so that it’s God’s authority happening or merely my own authority? When I speak with God’s authority you are freed, but when I speak on my authority you are bound to me.”
This is the heart of what makes the false teachers teaching so sick: its end goal is enslavement and subjugation to the false teachers. This is not always the easiest thing to discern, but the question has to always be this: is this teaching freeing me or is it dominating me?
The Swiss theologian Karl Barth is famous for saying that all of God’s commands are actually permissions, they are “musts” in service of a “may.” And this, Barth says, is what sets God’s command apart from all others: God’s commands are always liberating not enslaving.
Think of all God’s creation commands in Genesis 1. “Let there be light” is a command but it is also permission. By the command it permits the light to do what it does. It is a command that gives rise to freedom.
God does not dominate, we dominate. God liberates. God doesn’t want slavish obedience, he wants the free obedience of his Son to come out of us in the power of the Spirit.
Sick teaching is always driven by fear, the fear of enslavement and domination, and ultimately the fear of death (remember, they are “lovers of money”). But healthy doctrine births love in the hearts of those who hear it because it sets free.
