Entrusted Doctrine

Just finished working through my summary of 1 Timothy.  The key to the book seems to be 3:14 – 16.  This is one of the places where an author explicitly tells you why they wrote the letter or book.  Paul’s objective, to tell his protégé how the church should run.

One of the major threads that runs through every chapter is sound doctrine.  Paul exhorts:
• That it be taught
• That it be received
• That any leaders should be able to teach it
• That its teaching will be resisted
• That it requires discipline and effort to sustain its teaching
• That those who labor in sound doctrine should be honored
• That there will be those who attempt to make money from teaching something other than sound doctrine – however I do not think they had televisions as yet in Ephesus.

For Paul it seems that the teaching of sound doctrine is the foundation for what he calls the household of truth.

The most interesting thing to me is the exhortation in 1 Timothy 4:11 – 16.  Paul strongly exhorts Timothy to work hard, to take pains, to pay close attention to this charge.  Later in 1 Timothy 6:12 to fight the good fight of faith.  The implication is that this role is not easy.  Laying a foundation of sound doctrine seems to be very difficult.

But that is what Paul entrusted to Timothy.