2 Timothy, Part Eight
A Third Challenge - Teach Apostolic Doctrine
2 Timothy 1v13-14
3rd July 2026
Paul has given two challenges. He's urged him to to "fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you" (verse 6) and "Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel" (verse 8). As motivation, he's reminded Timothy that "Christ Jesus... has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Nothing is more important than the truth about God, about Jesus Christ and about salvation. Now Paul gives Timothy a third challenge:
2 Timothy 1v13-14
What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and
love in Christ Jesus.
Paul had instructed Timothy thoroughly in Christian doctrine. He now charges him to hold to the truth as Paul had explained it to him. The truth doesn't change.
We now, 2,000 years later, must also keep the apostles' teaching, which we call the New Testament. It is the pattern of sound teaching. We have no right to deviate it in any way. If we teach something else, we're not teaching Christianity. If we leave parts of it out of our teaching programme, we're teaching less than Christianity. Pastors and teachers must teach the Bible, all the Bible, and nothing but the Bible.
You may be surprised that I think this ranks as a challenge alongside the previous two. However, through the history of the church, pastors and teachers have been manipulated into to deviating from New Testament teaching. Governments, pressure groups and denominational hierarchies have told them what they can and can't say. Theological colleges and books have taught them false ideas. Congregations have demanded comfortable teaching, and people have either left their church or agitated for their pastor to be removed from office because they don't like what he's telling them. Also, it's very difficult to protect ourselves from adopting the attitudes and beliefs of the society around us.
Today, many English churches broadcast their Sunday morning meetings on social media, or on their own websites. Fear of what social media sites, and members of the public who happen across these recordings, might do if they find something to which they object in these meetings, have caused many churches to restrict their sermons to "safe" subjects. They're doing their members, and God, a grave disservice. God didn't give us the Bible so we can pick and choose what parts of it we think are acceptable to our non-Christian neighbours. As we will read later in this letter:
2 Timothy 3v16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
We may need to choose not to record everything that's said in our meetings. We must not choose to neglect to teach our church members all of the Bible.
Every pastor needs courage. Otherwise he'll choose to depart from the apostolic pattern of teaching. But Paul has already encouraged Timothy with the words, "the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline" (verse 7).
Every pastor also needs some theological training. Otherwise he will unwittingly depart from the apostolic pattern of teaching. But theological training is readily available. Anybody can buy some of the standard theological works, such as Louis Berkhof's "Systematic Theology" or John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion". These books are not easy to read but, if you want to be a pastor, you really should make the effort. Find somebody who is experienced and knowledgeable in theology and ask him to help you.
When Paul told Timothy in his previous letter to him, "Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands" (1 Timothy 5:22) he was telling him not to appoint anybody to office before that person is ready. A man is not ready to be a pastor until he until he has learnt to be courageous in the face of opposition, and he is thoroughly versed in sound theology – Biblical theology.
Paul tells us to teach apostolic doctrine with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Courage and knowledge – profound, accurate theological knowledge, as taught in the New Testament – are essential for pastoral and teaching work, but they're not enough. A pastor or teacher must approach the Bible with faith, believing what he reads there is truly the word of God, truly inerrant. When he teaches, he must not merely impart facts; he must grow faith in his hearers. Christian teaching, Biblical teaching, is not a dry, dusty, academic exercise; it exists to draw people closer to God. A pastor or teacher must be characterised by love: love for God, and love for the people he serves. Love must be his motivation for teaching:
1 Corinthians 13v2
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing.
Paul then writes:
2 Timothy 1v14
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of
the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Paul then writes, "Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you". I don't believe it's possible to be certain what Paul means here. The "good deposit" might be the "pattern of sound teaching" that Paul has just written about; he might be repeating the same thought in different words for emphasis. It might be "the gift of God that is within you". It might be "the Gospel" for which Timothy has been challenged to suffer. It might be the ministry of being a pastor which Timothy was exercising in Ephesus. It might be everything God had put within Timothy, all the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit, all the teaching, all the experience, all the encouragement, that enabled him to discharge his responsibilities well. Whatever God has given you, guard it well.
And Paul urges Timothy, "guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us." Whatever God has given us, we should guard. Whatever we guard, whatever we do, whatever ministry God has entrusted us with, we should rely on the Holy Spirit, not on our own strength or our own wisdom. As Paul said elsewhere:
2 Corinthians 12v10
… when I am weak, then I am strong.
Thank God for His Holy Spirit who lives within us!
Pray for your pastors. Faithfully delivering all that the New Testament has to teach us, while caring for God's people, refuting false teaching and resisting the devil, is an arduous task and many pastors burn out, or go soft on the doctrine, or fall into sin.