Introduction
One of Aesop’s fables tells the story of a donkey. As the donkey was wondering about he came upon a lion skin. Apparently some hunters had killed a lion and let it’s skin out to tan and dry in the sun. The donkey had a terrific idea, he decided he was going to put on the lion skin and pretend he was a lion. So he put on the skin and went around to where he lived and all of the animals fled—both animals, and even humans were terrified at the donkey and fled at the very sight of him, not realizing he was a mere donkey in a lion skin. The donkey was filled with delight as he watched everything run away, and he was proud of his newfound power and authority. He was so overjoyed at the events that took place that he let out a loud long bray. At once everyone knew him and came running back, realizing he held no threat to them. The moral of the story is this: Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.
Words are important. We all know the necessity of choosing your words wisely. If you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, it can have serious repercussions! But many times in our efforts to choose just the right words to say we might forget that before we choose the words we say we need to choose the kind of words we are going to say—are we going to say good words or bad words? Happy words or sad words? Helpful words or hurtful words? The type of words we prepare to say can make a huge difference in our relationships!
As we come to our text today in II Timothy 2:14-19, Paul has a discussion about words. There are certain words that we ought to be careful of and stay away from, and there other words that we ought to give ourselves to. And as we open this text this morning Paul helps us to understand which words are worth our time and effort and which words are a total waste of time. So as we prepare to read this text, let me give you one big idea to take home today:
Big idea: words matter!
So let’s read together to unpack this text, I’ll be reading from my own translation:
14 These things remind them, solemnly charging them in the presence of God, not to fight about words, in which is nothing beneficial, and leads to the ruin of the ones hearing. 15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker having no need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of the truth. 16 But avoid pointless chatter, for it will lead to much ungodliness. 17 and their talk will spread as gangrene, among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus. 18 who deviated from the truth, saying the resurrection already has taken place, and they are ruining the faith of some. 19 Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God has stood, having this seal: The Lord knows the ones who are His, and everyone who names the name of the Lord shall abstain from all wickedness.
Transition: Two pitfalls to avoid with how we use our speech:
1) Don’t debate with words (vs. 14)
Example: the first pitfall to avoid is simple—don’t debate with words. Boys and girls, you can draw a debate. Look at how he describes it in verse 14—These things remind them, solemnly charging them in the presence of God, not to fight about words. Notice the command here—it’s actually given to Timothy—first and foremost, given the context of this passage, it is for pastors. Teaching men in ministry how to use words, but I think there’s also application for us as well. And the word here it is an imperative—there are three main imperatives in the text, all given to pastor Timothy. So Paul tells Timothy to remind his church—to not fight about words, and today as your pastor, I’m going to share that reminder with you today.
Let me point out a few facets of this text:
• Remind them—put into their mind
This is the idea of keeping something in the forefront of someone’s mind. Why? Because we so easily forget! We forget and we get involved in these things that we are told not to.
• Solemnly charging them—Paul tells Timothy to do this while solemnly charging them—this is a warning! It’s one word in the Greek, that means to warn or firmly assert something. The sense of this word is to bear witness or offer firsthand authentication. This matches with the next phrase Paul gives—solemnly charge them in the presence of God. A pastor’s responsibility first and foremost is to speak for God—to be his herald declaring His message from His Word. There is weight to what Timothy was to tell his audience. This is a serious thing. God sees if you’ve been given this charge, and God sees if you follow it.
• Them—this leads to the question of who—who is this charge to go to? Paul simply says “them?” Who are the “them?” Several thoughts have been given on this, could be the church as a whole, could be false teachers, or could be the “faithful men” that Timothy was instructed to train in II Timothy 2:2—entrust to faithful men who will each others also.” I think strictly speaking Paul was likely talking about Timothy’s ministry to these faithful men, but I think there’s more than one level here. This certainly applies to the church as a whole as well as false teachers who might be in the church.
• THE CHARGE: Not to fight about words—and so we get to the charge—not to fight about words.
Explanation: The NASB translates it not to wrangle about words. This is the only time this word is used in the New Testament, so Paul is navigating new ground here with this word.
Literally it is a “word fighter” or the idea of having a war about words. This is a person who makes words their battleground. It is the idea of a fight—two people locked together pushing, shoving, grappling about words.
Application: Practically speaking, this is someone who has an unhealthy desire for quarrels or arguments. They are in every fight; they are trying to win every argument; there is this unhealthy desire for controversy. Paul tells Timothy—keep this in the front of the mind of the people to whom you minister—don’t do this!
Application: I think this is for us too. Friends, remember—keep it in the front of your mind—don’t wrestle about words! Don’t be the type of person who is always fighting; who always has an argument to win; who is always pushing an agenda and has to stomp on those around in order for you to win.
Going back to the text, Paul gives us two realities of those who fight about words:
A. Fighting about words can produce unprofitable relationships
Explanation: we get the reason given to us here—why is it so dangerous to fight about words? Paul tells us—in which is nothing beneficial—it produces unprofitable relationships. There’s no benefit that comes from to fighting about words!
Application: Here’s what Paul is saying—you might think you can get ahead by arguing or disputing—you might think you can gain something by digging in and entrenching in your position or your point of view, but some things just don’t matter! Some things just aren’t worth it. Some things just have no benefit or no valid function or use for arguing about them! I like how one man put it:
There are some arguments you lose simply by entering them.
Wrangling with words has NOTHING beneficial! It doesn’t lead to spiritual growth and edification and so we are not to engage in them.
B. Fighting with words can produce damaged listeners
Explanation: Not only does fighting with words produce unprofitable relationships, but it also produces damaged listeners. Not only does fighting about words have no value for those who fight about them, it also produces damage for those who might hear them.
Illustration: in our world today we use the term “collateral damage”. It refers to unintended damage that is a byproduct of a certain action or actions—the unintended consequences if you will. For instance, in relationships, the decision to dissolve a marriage and divorce not only impacts you and your spouse, the collateral damage extends to your children, grandchildren, other family, friends etc.
Explanation: There is collateral damage when it comes to how we use our words. It doesn’t just affect us, if affects others as well. Paul says this clearly in the text when he says it leads to the ruin of the one’s hearing. The Greek word here for ruin is καταστροφή, from which we get our word catastrophe. When you get involved in senseless arguments about words you lead others to catastrophe in their spiritual lives.
Application: well this brings a whole new element to our arguments and fighting, doesn’t it? Now it’s not just about me—now it’s about others too! I need to be careful not to cause catastrophe in the life of someone else by the words I use and how I use them!
And this is so important because it can be so easy to let our words get out of hand. And when we do that, we are allowing ourselves to be used as a tool of Satan. Revelation 12:10 calls Satan the accuser of the brethren. And when we get involved in gossip and harmful speech against another believer we are allowing ourselves to be used as a tool of Satan to accomplish his desires! If we only realized that!
Now Paul doesn’t give us examples of the scenarios he’s talking about, so I believe he may be being intentionally vague because there are a lot of ways to fight over words. To wrestle about who’s right, or whose interpretation is correct, there are so many ways that this can creep into our lives and we destroy people with our carnal desire to fight—to win! I wonder, who might you have destroyed with your words? Churches, unfortunately, are often hotbeds for this type of talk—nothing beneficial talk; ruining people talk. Our words have power, and we need to think about them before we use them! What are some common areas that this might come up:
• Could come up when there’s change in a church—new program, new initiative, even a new building program. Don’t destroy someone by fighting about your view or your way! If something isn’t the way you like it, it like to say:
“Anyone can point out what’s wrong with something; it takes a leader to fix it.”
• How about politics? Do people fight about politics? Don’t be so dogmatic in your own views that you destroy others who might see things differently—there’s little benefit to those types of debates.
• COVID—there’s been a lot of fight about this—the vaccine, and masks, and people who have the vaccine but still fell like they need a mask. Let me be very clear about this—we ought not to fight about these things! Nothing beneficial comes about from a conversation about that! You only destroy people! Decide what you are going to do and do it, but don’t destroy someone else in the process.
• Theology/doctrine—we can fight over those things to. Now let me make a disclaimer: it’s not wrong to have an opinion or even express one. Paul is cautioning us about how we express them—don’t fight! Don’t destroy people just so you can boast in your own knowledge! Some things aren’t worth fighting over. Certainly, we ought to fight for core doctrines of the faith like the Trinity and the deity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith, but other things are less important. Well pastor, I need to know, are you and infralapsarian, sublapsarian, or postlapsarian? And most of you are like “what?” Pastor, what’s your view on the origin of souls? Do you believe in trichotomy or dichotomy? Dichotomy if you really want to know, but we don’t need to fight about things like this! Certainly, yes, we have view on those, but be careful! Paul reminds us here, don’t debate about words or ideas or things that just generally are not helpful!
• I think this can even stem beyond a church setting—boys and girls, do you fight about words at home? Fighting with your parents over something? Mom, dad, husband and wife—do you destroy each other with words? How about at work, those of you in the workforce? Are you known as someone who just has to win an argument? College student, do you take debates in class too far?
Fighting over words can lead to unprofitable relationships and damaged listeners! Words matter! Be careful! Be Careful!
Paul reminds us here, don’t debate about words or ideas or things that just generally are not helpful!
Big idea: words matter!
2) Don’t destroy with words (vs. 16-18)
Explanation: Going on in our text we find a second caution relating to our speech. Paul says don’t destroy with words. Boys and girls, you can draw someone destroying with words. I’m doing something different here, I’m jumping to the end of the text. Because I believe Paul’s main point is sandwiched in the middle of these two cautions that he gives us, and so we’re going to deal with the two pitfalls to avoid before we go back and look at the solution. But Paul says in verse 16 avoid pointless chatter. This again is a command to Timothy as the pastor—Timothy be careful! Don’t get involved in this! But I believe that this is something important for us as well—avoid pointless chatter! Paul uses the same Greek word in I Timothy 4:7—to speak of old wives tales. Could be any sort of worthless talk—gossip, backbiting, whispering, telling secrets, whatever.
Explanation: Look at the text—what ought to be our approach to dealing with this pointless chatter? Avoid. The word means very literally to go around. Go around. Stay away. Take the long way around because we understand the significance—we are playing with fire when we play with words!
Illustration: growing up in Pennsylvania we had the privilege of being about an hours drive from the Appalachian Trail. And every so often we would go out for a hike on the trial—there was a trail shelter there and a few times we stayed in that. But we would go hiking on the trails, and it was mountainous country so lots of hills and rocks, and also lots of rattlesnakes. You had to be careful when stepping over logs or rocks because you didn’t want to step on one. On one occasion my dad and I were hiking on the trail and we heard the frightening sound of the rattle of a rattlesnake. We looked over and saw one next to the trail, stretched out, but it had a mouse in it’s mouth and was in the middle of digesting it. We knew it couldn’t bite us so we stopped and watched for a moment. But let me tell you, we stayed away. When we passed it on the trail we went way around into the woods on the other side because we didn’t want to take any changes—we recognized how dangerous this could be!
Application: this is the idea here in avoiding empty chatter—go out of your way to stay away from it. It is a serious thing! How about you? Have you been going out of your way to stay away from empty chatter? Mindless debate? Words that don’t build up or edify?
Explanation: Paul gives two reasons why we need to avoid this these types of words:
A. Destructive words produce unspiritual character
Explanation: look at it in the text—it will lead to much ungodliness. There is nothing worthwhile here, it only leads on to more and more ungodliness. Ungodliness breeds ungodliness. You can’t expect to live in an ungodly manner and all of a sudden turn out godly. It doesn’t work that way! Elsewhere in Scripture, we find this described as the law of the harvest—you reap what you sow. Empty words; destructive words can produce unspiritual character.
Application: sometimes we think we can get away with things in our spiritual lives—a little idle talk, a little gossip, just a white lie, a little of this or little of that. Here we are faced with the reality of it—if you’ve been giving into ungodliness in your spiritual life it is only going to produce more ungodliness. You can’t give into sin and expect that it’s not going to have an affect on you. Paul says it will eventually come out—sooner or later, you will reveal who you really are!
B. Destructive words produce widespread decay
Explanation: destructive words produce unspiritual character, but they can also produce widespread decay. Look at what the text says: their talk will spread as gangrene. If you give into empty words, your words will spread; their impact will spread; and it will be a destructive decaying spreading. Like gangrene! Something that starts off small and eventually destroys everything in its path!
Illustration: What is gangrene? We don’t have time to spend too much on it, but it’s an infection that affects the blood supply to the limbs and causes them to effectively die. I read that certain types of gangrene can spread so fast that in a matter of a few minutes you can literally see the skin changing coloration! But it really pictures the death of bodily tissue due to the loss of blood supply. Just like gangrene eats away at the physical body, so this type of talk eats away at the body of Christ. What a picture! Almost instantaneous affect! This fast-moving disease that totally destroys the body!
Application: that’s what your words can do if you give into this type of empty chatter in the church!
Explanation: Paul specifically describes this gangrene by comparing it with two individuals—Hymenaeus and Philetus. We don’t know who these are; a man named Hymenaeus is mentioned in I Timothy 1:20 for his blasphemy, we can only assume it is the same man. But notice Paul’s description of the men here—who deviated from the truth, saying the resurrection already has taken place. Their empty pointless talk led them to deviate doctrinally from the truth, and see the end result—they are ruining the faith of some. It’s the idea of to upset or overturn. Notice how I translated it there—in the present tense. This was still actively going on! They were still ruining the faith of some!
Application: The words of these false teachers in the church, who gave themselves to empty words and ungodliness, wreaked havoc on the faith of some. What an impact to have! What a legacy to be forever recorded in the pages of Scripture! And there are those in churches today, who whether they realize it or not, are actively ruining the faith of others all because of words. I like what one man said:
“Your irresponsibility eventually becomes someone else’s responsibility”
-Andy Stanley
Big idea: words matter!
3) Instead, give yourself to the only Word that matters! (vs. 15)
Explanation: So we come back to our text. And remember I told you we were skipping over a portion? We skipped over verse 15. So let’s go back in our text to verse 15, and here, sandwiched in the middle of the caution to avoid the two pitfalls of our words—don’t debate with words and don’t destroy with words, Paul gives the positive and godly approach to words—don’t give yourself to those words; give yourself to the only Word that matters. Timothy as pastor, and us as followers of God, need to heed these two cautions about our words, and give ourselves to the only Word that matters—the word of God!
Notice how verse 15 opens up—be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker having no need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of the truth. The King James uses the word study, probably not the best translation here. The Greek word here is not the word for study, it’s a word that means to be diligent, or be zealous, or work hard, or even be eager. It’s the idea of someone who is excited about this and hurries to give themselves to it diligently.
Now let’s keep in mind the context here—this verse is often misquoted and misused. I grew up hearing this verse used in reference to me as a child, and how God wants me to study His Word so I can be approved before Him. And while I don’t deny that God wants us to study His word—Scripture makes that abundantly clear, I was never given the true context of this passage. This passage first and foremost is about pastoral ministry—as a minister of the Gospel it’s a text that is near and dear to my heart—I think I’m going to preach on it in 2 weeks. It was written to Pastor Timothy about his ministry of the word and I believe it applies most directly to pastors today how to view their own ministry and what they should strive for in ministry.
That being said, I think there is ample application for us as well. Notice the contrast between these words that we aren’t supposed to use, and the word we are to give ourselves to. God wants us to be eager and diligent to approach his Word. It’s something we are excited to do—we can’t stay away from it and therefore we give ourselves to being a worker in this word. There are many words someone can master—we’ve already saw some of them and some of the damage they can cause, but God wants us to master this one!
Application: which types of words are you working in? Paul describes this individual as a workman—which words are you working in? He gives us various types of words in our text—I like to think of it as kind of a play on words with the concept of words. There are certain words that don’t matter, but there is one Word that does. Are you giving yourself to this word? In your daily life, do you give yourself to it? In your church life—do you come on Sunday? Do you pay attention? Do you come to Sunday school? Are you involved in Bible studies? Does your life show that you are giving yourself to this Word?
Donald Whitney, in his book Spiritual Disciplines, wrote this: If we settle for a poor quality intake of hearing, reading and studying God’s Word, we severely restrict the main flow of God’s sanctifying grace toward us . . . For those who use their Bibles little are really not much better off than those who have no Bible at all.
Do you do this? Or have you given yourself to other words? You’re the one who’s always talking. Who always has something to say; who’s always ready for a fight? Are you full of empty pointless words—words that are not helpful, they do not contribute to the unity of the body, or the good of the hearer? And they spread, like gangrene in our body, and you take others with you in your own foolishness and your are actively ruining other believers. Is that you? Here we have a necessary caution in our passage—Paul attempts to steer us away from the wrong type of Words in an effort to push us towards the right Word that we should be working in. Will you follow Paul’s admonition and give yourself to the one word that truly matters? Choose carefully:
Big idea: words matter!
Conclusion: The foundation has stood
As we finish out our text, Paul concludes with verse 19—Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God has stood, having this seal: The Lord knows the ones who are His, and everyone who names the name of the Lord shall abstain from all wickedness. Very simple and straightforward ending to our text—God knows those who are is, and everyone who is his should abstain from wickedness. God knows your heart!
Don’t use your words to harm and cut and fight and win! Abstain from that—you are his; you’ve been cleansed; you don’t need to live that way!
Big idea: words matter!
CONCLUSION
Today we saw the negative—what God does not want us to do—the caution concerning how we use our words.
Next Steps
Practically, what are some next steps for us? What do we need to do based on this passage?
1. Take care of our pointless and empty chatter
Commit to cut it off; stop talking; stop fighting; stop leading people astray with our words. Spend 10 minutes this afternoon or tomorrow searching your heart—ask God to reveal how you might have placed your own words over his.
2. Take care of problems or issues you created by your words
If you’ve gossiped, take care of it—go to that person and seek forgiveness. If you’ve been leading others astray by giving them ungodly words, take care of that with them. If you’ve been listening to someone spread the gangrene of their unspiritual talk, go to them, confront them, and tell them you are no longer going to participate in something that is destroying the church.
Sometimes we just need to take care of our stuff! I’ve been in ministry now for nearly a decade, and one thing I noticed, if people would just learn biblical forgiveness it would solve a lot of the problems in the church. Because when we don’t practice Biblical forgiveness, we become bitter, and when we become bitter, we become trapped in time and personal spiritual growth is almost always halted until we take care of that issue. And often times it starts with forgiveness. What is Biblical forgiveness? Let me share with you 4 commitments of forgiveness that we make if we are to practice Biblical forgiveness—these are from Ken Sande’s book Resolving Everyday Conflict:
• “I will not dwell on this incident.”
• “I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.”
• “I will not talk to others about this incident.”
• “I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.”
This is exactly how God forgives us! But we are so poor at practicing it! And so many of our relational conflicts would just go away if we practiced this type of forgiveness in our church, and in our family, and in our workplace, and everywhere we interact with people!
Illustration: I think a great illustration of this is an interaction I had years ago where a couple came to my office with a grievance against me. Apparently unbeknownst to me I had offended them in some way—not a sin issue, just an offense, but it happened 6-7 months before this meeting and they were still hanging onto it. And we established that I had done nothing wrong or sinful, so I asked the question why we were having this meeting and started talking about Biblical forgiveness. The individual looked at me and said “but pastor, I have forgiven you!” Yet the individual felt like I needed to know how I made this person feel. Not-ah! You don’t get to play that card folks. That’s not how it works! There is no “I forgave you already but I needed to let you know what you did or how you made me feel.” That is not Biblical forgiveness! That is bitterness springing up defiling a person that they had to let it fester for months on end and finally couldn’t keep it inside and they just had to let it out. Those types of scenarios play out over and over again in churches today, and those types of circumstances only destroy churches. We are not skilled at taking care of things biblically! And so we let it fester and drag it out and get angry and upset and we don’t realize it’s destroying us! It’s hurting us! And it destroys churches! It’s kind of like this image I saw recently–it only hurts us!
So if you see yourself in this, your next step is to take care of the problem created by your words.
3. Commit to being diligent in the Word this week
If you don’t have one, create a plan. Start a Bible reading schedule, get a Bible study guide, pick a book of the Bible, whatever it might be Commit to giving yourself to the one word that really matters!
4. We need to run to Jesus
Because Jesus was someone who was meek, and tender, and kind. He did not fight about Words, though He did use words to defend truth and righteousness. He used words in an encouraging and uplifting way. If we are to use our words as God intends, let us look to the example Jesus Christ, who gives us our model use of words.
Here we have the clear teaching of the Word—just imagine what this church would be like if everyone here lived this text!
• The relationship problems and differences would be mitigated because people would not be talking, gossiping, fighting. And while that may still happen, people would be quick to recognize offenses and seek forgiveness.
• Issues would be taken care of as they should be—in the light, instead of people hiding in the darkness.
• People would no longer be controlled by their own words and attempts to win arguments, for now they are governed by the word that matters.
• People would be putting time into that word in their own personal lives, and they would be gathering around the word—coming to church, paying attention, and applying it to their lives.
• People would be participating in other opportunities to give themselves to the Word—Bible studies, even meeting with one another for these purposes.
• This would trickle into the area of discipleship where we have people using the Word to help other people and lead them in the faith, and it would carry over into evangelism, because as people of the book we couldn’t help but share the message about Jesus with those who need to hear!
Folks, this is how you set a church in the right direction! You stop focusing on words that don’t matter; you stop fighting about insignificant things and the people as a whole gather around the sacred Word of God that has the power to change them and make them more like Christ! Theres only one Word that truly matters! Let’s make sure this is the Word that matters to us!
