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1 Timothy 4:1-5 (HCSB)
Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, since it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.
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Paul now takes aim at both the Judaizers and others who were trying to move people in the Church back toward a legalistic righteousness based on personal effort and on observing all the requirements of the Jewish law. These teachers opposed the idea of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus and genuine transformation of the heart by the action of the Holy Spirit, leading to true, internal righteousness.
Paul saw in the rise of these legalistic teachers the fulfillment of prophecies about the Messianic Age, that some would be led out of the true way by deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. Such language might seem harsh, but Paul, a formerly legalistic Jew, knew very well that legalistic righteousness, in addition to being completely unattainable, was the antithesis of the true righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus. And if someone is persuaded to abandon the latter to pursue the former, the result will be the shipwrecking of their souls and their ultimate turning away from the true faith and being lost.
Some of these false teachers, swayed by Greek Stoic philosophies, were persuading believers that the desires of the body were evil and sinful, especially sexual desire, and that those desires had to be resisted and eliminated. They insisted that the pure state of humans required absolute celibacy, abstinence from sexual expression, so that marriage should be avoided. But Paul saw this as denying what God had created for good, provided that it was practiced as God designed it: within the bounds of a one-man, one-woman marriage covenant.
Even though Paul himself was celibate because he was unmarried, and even though he highly recommended that those who were unmarried remain unmarried so that they could focus their lives entirely on the work of the kingdom (1 Corinthians 7:32-35), he did not see sexual expression within marriages sinful, and even saw it as obligatory for those who were married to keep sexual tension within the bounds God had set for it (1 Corinthians 7:1-7).
Some of these false teachers, mostly Judaizers, also forbid eating of food categorized as “unclean” under the law. But Paul understood that Jesus had negated the categorization of foods, as recorded in Mark 7:17-19, making all foods clean, as long as they were received with thanksgiving as coming from God’s hand and consecrated by prayer.
Pray with Me
Father, I appreciate Paul’s attitude of not imposing his own choices, such as lifelong celibacy, onto others as a requirement, when Your word does not impose them. He could explain why he chose that lifestyle, and he could even recommend it without implying that it was the only truly righteous choice, as the false teachers did. I don’t know if Paul was completely kosher in his diet, but whether he was or not, he wasn’t willing to impose that dietary regulation on others when Jesus himself did not. In fact, even the Jerusalem Council limited their dietary restrictions for the Gentile believers to avoiding eating blood and the meat of strangled animals (Acts 15:19-20). They did that because after the flood You permitted the eating of all animals, and your commanded Noah and his descendants to not eat blood (Genesis 9:4). That preceded the law by hundreds of years, and thus applied to all mankind, not just the Jewish people. Lord, help me to never impose more restrictions or requirements on the people I have been given to lead than You do. And help me to never confuse my own preferences with Your requirements. Amen.