**Cutting Room Floor – One of the very rewarding aspects of being a Pastor, is getting to study scripture fairly in depth each week. One of the real challenges I face fairly often is learning something that, while interesting, just does not fit with the rest of the sermon. Sometimes it would be too far off point. Other times it may be cut in the interest of time. So, I thought it might be interesting to write up a quick blog post on some of the different things I learned studying for a sermon that were left “on the cutting room floor.”**
I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith. But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.
1 Timothy 1:3-7
I knew that John Hagee wouldn’t repent for his blood moon teaching, nor admit he is a false prophet, but it’s still kind of disappointing.
1 Timothy 1 begins with Paul’s instructions to Timothy to stay in Ephesus in order to counteract some false teaching that was going on in the church. One of the stated issues is found in verses 3-4 involves people “occupying themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations.” According to Dr. Philip Towner suggests the possibility that people were speculating about early biblical characters and genealogies both from within and outside of the bible. Towner writes, “We can go little beyond deducing that these early stories were somehow mined for (or reshaped to yield) clues they contained about the deeper sort of piety the false teachers laid claim to.” (p. 111) The obsession with these things promoted controversial speculations. These false teachings distract from the real building of faith – which results in “love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.”
In reading through this, I was struck by a couple of things. First, there were endless speculations, which seems to suggest the inability to arrive at any solid conclusions. Instead, they just had “speculations.” Second, these people most likely used their speculations in such a way that benefited them and seemed to give them some authority. Third, the speculations were a distraction from the heart of faith, which Paul gets into more fully in the verses that follow.
This sermon on 1 Timothy was given in early September, and it occurred to me that it had been one year since the craze of the “Four Blood Moons.” John Hagee and others taught all about the Four Blood Moons and how the beginning of the end was definitely coming in the Fall of 2015. They sold books and preached sermons. I think there was even a movie. I did not ever see an apology or an admission of being a false prophet.
We must beware of these “endless speculations” that arise. These may not have been based on any genealogies. Instead, they were speculations on the end of the world (something Jesus told us not to do). Just as in Timothy’s day, the speculations were used in order to benefit the false teachers and grant them some authority. Finally, this sort of thing only serves as a distraction from the Christian faith. Every time John Hagee gave his selective history of lunar happenings and how God was giving a vague sign for national Israel about something significant, he was not pointing to Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes only through him.
I have no interest in being a policeman of pastors, but there are people teaching things so out of bounds, that they need to be called out. Here we are, over one year after Hagee’s Blood Moon hysteria, and he continues to lead and mislead people with endless speculations and other distractions.
If you missed the sermon from 1 Timothy 1, you can listen to it here.