1 Timothy 6 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: 1 Tim 6:1,2

1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2 Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves. These are the things you are to teach and insist on.

A. Find Out:

1. Who does Paul speak about now? v.1a
2. How should they think of their masters? v.1b
3. Why? v.1c
4. What’s the danger of having a Christian master? v.2a
5. How instead are servants to respond to them? v.2b
6. Why? v.2c

B. Think:

1. How may God’s name and Christian teaching be slandered by attitudes and actions of Christian employees?
2. What, therefore, in practical terms, should be the attitude or action of a Christian employee towards their employer?

C. Comment:

      In New Testament times there were still slaves and masters, but we can change that to employers and employees as we seek to see how the principles may apply to us today.

      First, Paul requires respect for employers, and note he doesn’t say, “ IF they are good employers”. The danger in modern life is to see the abuse of employees by employers and speak unkindly and unpleasantly about them. For the Christian though, that grieves the Spirit of God within. Masters were far more abusive of slaves than modern day employers, so we have no excuse. Respect the employer, says Paul, and you will break the heart of slavery, which is abject submission. Don’t rail against it but rise up to have something much greater: God inspired respect!

      Not only that, he continues, be careful if you have a Christian employer, that you don’t demean them in any way because you think of them as brothers in Christ (which they are) and esteem them less as an employer. They are still that, so maintain respect.

D. Application:

1. It is too easy to speak ill of employers, but that is not the way of Christ.
2. Respect cannot be demanded of you, but it can be given by you.   Determine to give it.

Passage: 1 Tim 6:3-5

3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

A. Find Out:

1. What errors do some fall into? v.3
2. What is the attitude of the false teacher? v.4a
3. Where is his interest? v.4b
4. What does this result in? v.4c,5a
5. What has happened to men of corrupt mind? v.5b
6. Why do they pursue godliness? v.5c

B. Think:

1. How is study shown not necessarily to be good?
2. What sort of study is wrong?
3. Why is it wrong?

C. Comment:

     Paul is very much aware of those who have gone astray and left the true faith for various forms of error. We have seen this already in 1:3-6, 1:19 ,20, 4:1-3, and 4:7. It is clearly a problem area that he wants Timothy to be aware of, and we need exactly the same warnings for today.

     Note first the NATURE of these false teachings: they are contrary to the teachings of Jesus, they are contrary to the teachings of God in Scripture, they are unclear and debatable (controversial), and they are all about meaning of words rather than about truth and life.   

     Second, note the RESULTS of these teachings: they simply stir up trouble between people. Instead of bringing peace and joy and unity, they bring upset, disharmony and division.

     Third, note the PEOPLE affected: people of corrupt mind, people whose minds have been distorted, who have had the truth stolen from them and replaced with untrue beliefs, people who have been led to believe that the truths of the Gospel (as they see it) are there to bring them financial or material gain. Yes, the worker is to be paid ( 5:18 ) but that is not to be the focus for teaching. Beware wrong teaching!

D. Application:

1. Error is that which is contrary to the truth found in the Bible.
2. Error quenches life and simply brings division and brings upset . We need to reject such teaching that comes to us.

Passage: 1 Tim 6:6-10

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

A. Find Out:

1. What is great gain? v.6
2. What should we remember? v.7
3. With what should we be content? v.8
4. What does wanting to be rich produce? v.9
5. What is the love of money? v.10a
6. What has happened to some people? v.10b

B. Think:

1. What desire is being warned against here?
2. Why?
3. What attitude is Paul advising?

C. Comment:

     Before we say anything else we need to note that this passage doesn’t say it is wrong to be rich! What Paul is speaking about here is heart desire.

    First, note the DESIRE WARNED AGAINST: to get rich, to get and have lots of money. It is the desire that will be the motivating force that can throw you off course. Christians so often concentrate on external acts that they denounce, but Jesus warned that it was what went on inside a person that was all-important.

     Second, note the CONSEQUENCES WARNED AGAINST: because internal desires soon turn into outward actions, it soon produces a letting go of the faith to concentrate on getting money, and indeed frequently uses wrong methods to get it, which in turn causes hurt and spiritual death.

    Third, note the COUNSEL GIVEN: ensure your godliness is accompanied by contentment. Contentment means you are quite happy and at rest with what you have NOW. As long as you have food and clothing, that is enough for life, but to constantly want more and more, leads us to take our eyes off God and put them onto possessions and how to get more and more of them.

D. Application:

1. The inward desire is the thing to be checked! Have I a yearning to get more, have more, to keep up with everyone else?
2. Contentment means I rest in what I have now. This means I am free from the stress of constantly wanting more and more.

Passage: 1 Tim 6:11-16

11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time – God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might for ever. Amen.

A. Find Out:

1. What is Timothy to pursue? v.11
2. What command does Paul give? v.12,14
3. How is God described? v.13,15,16
4. When did Timothy make confession? v.12
5. When did Jesus make confession? v.13
6. When will Jesus return? v.14,15

B. Think:

1. For what purpose does Paul make reference to God twice here?
2. How does Paul use a reminder of Timothy’s past?
3. What is the main point of this passage?

C. Comment:

     Paul has just been warning about those who go astray from the faith to chase after material possessions. So, he says to Timothy, run from all that in your own life, and fill it instead with the good things that God gives to believers. Then, as if to go on from there and firmly seal this exhortation, Paul charges Timothy in all seriousness to really go on in faith. First, he challenges him to fight for the faith, which means to actively and aggressively pursue the Christian life. Second, he says enter into that eternal life which became yours when you testified to your salvation at your baptism (that’s probably when that would have been).

     In bringing this charge to Timothy, Paul refers to God in different ways. First of all (v.13) he refers to the Lord as witness to what he is saying, and he reminds Timothy that it is the Lord who gives life, and who therefore is the provider of the eternal life that Timothy was experiencing then and there. Second, (v.15,16) he refers to God in a closing anthem of praise: God who is supreme ruler, God who is unending, God who is mysterious and cannot be approached. This wonderful God is worthy of our praise AND our obedience; this is the implication.

D. Application:

1. We need a reminder from time to time to go on in the faith.
2. God is Lord of all. Worship and obey Him.

Passage: Tim 6:17-21

17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, 21 which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith.

Grace be with you all.

A. Find Out:

1. What shouldn’t the rich do and why? v.17a
2. What should they do? v.17b
3. What was Timothy to command them? v.18
4. What would be the result? v.19
5. What was Timothy first to do? v.20a
6. What was he also to do? v.20b

B. Think:

1. How can the rich have a wrong goal and what can it lead to?
2. What approach to life may they have instead which is likely to be better for them?
3. What, from this passage, appear to be the two main worries Paul has for the church there?

C. Comment:

     Paul recaps in closing, two particular areas that need Timothy’s attention. First, obviously, there were in the church there in Ephesus, people who were well off, who were possibly business men, but members of the church. These particularly needed Timothy’s help in overcoming the dangers of being a rich Christian.

     Successful business people have to have drive in the world, and it is very easy for them, even if Christians, to have an attitude of arrogance, of self-achievement and self-determination. They may also put their trust in their wealth. Both are dangers to overcome. The way to deal with it, Paul counsels, is to have a generous heart, doing good and blessing others.

      Finally, Paul reminds Timothy to hang on to what God has given him and to reject the speculative intellectualism that was there. Some had fallen into that and had lost the true flow of life that comes from knowing the Lord. Timothy, as a leader, had to resist the temptation to go the same way.

D. Application:

1. Possession of wealth and many goods needs us to pay particular attention to our attitudes.
2. Life comes from knowing God, not from intellectualism.