For our time of study in the word this morning. for those of you that are visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to, 1 Timothy 5 and the very end of verse 20. I have to tell you guys that the message I'm preaching today At 11:59 last night, I had no clue I would be preaching this message, but ended up, I was planning on covering verses 21 to 25, but things developed differently and I want to spend the entire morning at the end of verse 20. And if you want to give a title to the message, it would be this, a fear of sinning.
A fear of sinning. If you'll notice in verse 19 just to set the stage for what we're going to be talking about, Paul is telling Timothy how to deal with accusations that are against a leader in the church, and he says that if, if an unsubstantiated accusation is brought against an elder in the church, don't formally entertain that accusation. But if there is an accusation brought against an elder in the church and There are 2 or 3 witnesses, then the the right thing for you to do, Timothy, is to formally entertain those accusations. And if upon formally entertaining those accusations, having the elder present and the accusers present, if it can be determined that the elder is in serious sin, a serious breach of trust, then here's what to do, verse 20.
Those are those elders who are sinning. And it could mean continuing sin in the sense that they won't repent, or even a sin that they have repented of, but it's such a significant breach of trust. That it still needs to be publicly rebuked. Those elders that are found to be or continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all.
That certainly means in the presence of the accusers, in the presence of the other elders, and many would suggest that it also means in the presence of the entire congregation, make this. A public rebuke obviously for the benefit of the elder who is being rebuked, but I'm really intrigued by the last clause of verse 20. Look at Paul's rationale, so that the rest, in other words, the rest of the elders and the rest of the congregation who are present, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. Paul is anticipating the impact of such a situation, and he sees the impact being that God's people who are present would be left fearful of sinning....
