VERSE 4―One reads “Fables and endless genealogies, which minister discussions rather than the saving dispensation of God in the faith.” Another has it, “Nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than God’s administration, which is in faith.” You will observe that they substitute “the saving dispensation of God,” and “God’s administration,” for the words in the English version, “godly edifying,”―thus pointing us to a different word in the Greek from that which was before our translators. The word translated “edifying” would be this―oikodomian; the right word which means administration or dispensation is oikonomian; and the transcriber in copying it had mistaken the d for the n. See in this the importance of the most minute attention to the very letters of Holy Scripture—for the change of a letter may (and does, as here) entirely change the sense.
“Fables and endless genealogies” are styled “Jewish fables” in Titus 1:1414Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. (Titus 1:14). They were not direct heresies, but stupidities of the human brain, endlessly spun out, and being useless and vain, being unfavourable to moral earnestness, were dangerous “to the administration of God in faith,” and grace. Anything that pre-occupies the Christian mind with trifles, fables, genealogies, questions and discussions is unfavourable to faith, holiness, and growth in grace; and therefore the apostle left Timothy at Ephesus to forbid the teaching of this “other doctrine,” the spoiling of the saints by this fable food! All that was of the nature of fables was sure to injure the constitution of the saints, and was what Paul enjoined Timothy to prevent, and to continue to keep up the solid dietary regime at Ephesus which he so fully established. It is very remarkable how little care people have about injuring their spiritual health. They would not be so careless with regard to injuring their bodily health. Suppose you were at some well-appointed dinner, and a number of preliminary dishes came round, looking auspiciously like that which might prove injurious, you would allow them to pass, and wait patiently for the appearance of hat fare which had proved physically “edifying” in the past, and which you anew would do you no injury; you would take it when it appeared, and enjoy the strength it ministered, and you would have no reflections on yourself for allowing the suspicious-looking dishes to pass you by. Paul would have the saints warned against taking in teachings hat would spoil their relish for the great substantial verities of Christianity; and purely we ought to be as careful regard what we hear as we are as to what we eat. Paul besought Timothy to abide still at Ephesus that he might discountenance all unedifying things in religious teaching, in order that the Christians might be kept in a good state pf health; and that they might show by a life of active piety and goodness that they were living on Divine food.
In Titus 1:14,14Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. (Titus 1:14) “fables” are opposed to “the faithful word,” and are connected with the “commandments of men;” and in 1 Timothy 4:7,7But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. (1 Timothy 4:7) “fables” are opposed to “words of faith,” and becoming teaching―that is, such teaching as became the gospel system, and led to godliness. They are called “profane and old wives’ fables” (1 Tim. 4:11Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (1 Timothy 4:1)); but they were connected with religion. This fable-teaching has come to perfection in the Church of Rome―they have “fables” in great abundance about the virgin, saints, and relics, but they are not confined to Rome. “Genealogies” is well as fables were things of a Jewish character and origin― not as some would have it, the aeous of the Gnostics. By “endless genealogies” are meant those things that may be spun out to an endless extent. There is no end out man, when he gets on notions of his own brain―he will spin away till he makes his race proceed from the monkey, a from some ultimate cell by some self-elective process! The reason why Paul warns against fables and endless genealogies is, that they minister questions, or questionings and discussions, rather than God’s administration―they lead the mind away from God and Christ―the gospel and holy living.
“Godly edifying, which is in faith.”―This should be read, “God’s administration, which is in faith.” Man’s notions present or minister questions rather than God’s administration which is in faith. God’s economy is one of facts, not questions, and these facts are for faith to take up, and mold our lives by them. The faith-system of the mystery of godliness comes out at the end of the third chapter. One says truly, “What else can be understood by the administration of God, than that which ought to be the import of all Christian doctrine, namely the dispensation of God for salvation, which has its means and its realization in faith.”
In Christianity, we are not edified by what we have discussed, but only by what we have believed. The Church is not a lecture-room, or a debating society, but a faith-formed and a faith-nurtured assembly. The land groans under religious discussion; but we want only the real facts of God simply stated, and clearly illustrated. The apostle Paul is a model as to this in his preaching to sinners (Acts 13), and also in his epistles to the saints. Galatians was written to show that the Christian life was to be conducted not by adding law or ordinances, after faith in Christ, but by living on day by day by the faith of the Son of God. Romans shows that he Christian life begins in faith; Galatians that it is maintained and carried on “in faith.” So here, “in faith” refers to our living as Christians before men in the world. The apostle tells Timothy to get them to avoid questions, mt rather set forth the dispensation of God which is in faith.
“The dispensation of God.”— The word here employed (ὀιχονομια) occurs elsewhere in Scripture in the following Places: ― In Luke 16:2-42And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. 3Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. 4I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. (Luke 16:2‑4) it is translated “stewardship;” in 1 Corinthians 9:17,17For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. (1 Corinthians 9:17) “dispensation;” and also in Ephesians. 1:10, 3:2, and in verse 9 it should be, translated, “what is the administration of the mystery;” in Colossians 1:25,25Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; (Colossians 1:25) “according to the dispensation of God which was given to me to fill out the Word of God.” God’s administration consequently means God’s display of Christianity, as embodied in what Paul calls “our gospel” ―or as in 1 Timothy 1:11,11According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. (1 Timothy 1:11) “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” This is the subject which always engrossed his thoughts, and which should be the all-absorbing one for all saints.
The expression “which is in faith,” evidently stands in opposition to “questions.” As long as a subject is a matter of question, it is not possible to be in faith regarding it, for faith only begins at the cross, where all human questions end, where every question has been settled, and only faith called for. Christianity is a pure faith-scheme. What a sight does Christendom present at this hour! Teachers of Christ have thrown everything loose; all is question and discussion; and faith in God’s administered gospel, revealed and delivered to us once for all, is nearly out of date; and those who adhere to the kind of action Paul here enjoins, are regarded as unphilosophical and old-fashioned. One would like to see Paul down here among us for a year or two, knocking all this modern skepticism and questioning on the head. But a greater than Paul is here―the Holy Ghost in Person; and He is constantly witnessing against it by His Holy Scriptures, containing His economy for man’s faith and life, even when the Church gives such witness no longer; and we who see these dreadful things are bound to give a more decided personal testimony against them, and for “God’s administration which is in faith” than we may have been doing. Man’s inventions, or the evolutions of his own nature, are diametrically opposed to God’s holy Word, and faith in it. All undue valuing of man’s ideas, and depreciation of the great truths of Christianity, indicate that a person is not “in faith,” just as a man is not “in health” when he does not make a good substantial meal. “A sermon,” whose first and last fruit is strife and dispute, instead of the promotion of the Divine way of redemption, is thereby self-condemned; and a hearer who likes the historical, philosophical, or literary part of the discourse, but not the great things of God’s salvation, is not “in faith.” “That’s a bad sermon,” Duncan Matheson used to say, “that edifies an unconverted man.” Whenever we feel our imagination or mental nature gratified, or the intellect informed and satisfied, but our moral nature not moved, there is the absence of “faith.” Faith, when in living power, gets solid truth down on the conscience and the heart, and there is a moral moulding of us into the image of Christ. “Faith” is all-important as a receptive condition of the soul. “Faith” occurs about 245 times in the New Testament Scriptures, showing its great prominence in “God’s administration.” It is the mouth of the soul by which every morsel that is to nourish us must enter. Then: “open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psa. 81:1010I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. (Psalm 81:10)).