Confronting & Correcting Error

Satan is relentless in his opposition to Jesus Christ. He therefore opposes and attacks the Body of Jesus Christ, the Church. He attacks from outside the Body as well as from within. One of his schemes to attack from within is by infiltrating the local church with counterfeit Christians.

These counterfeits introduce genuine believers to error and false teaching in an attempt to confuse and deceive them. When they are tolerated and allowed opportunity to become "convincing" even the believers can begin to think and teach in error. No matter who, or what, the source of false teaching is it must not be tolerated.

In this letter Paul is advising Timothy that God is the ultimate judge of the false teacher's salvation. The church's responsibility is to rid the church of false teaching. To carry this out he gave three commands: 1. disassociate from the false teachers; 2. flee from youthful lusts and be pursuing righteousness; and 3. refuse and avoid having debates and arguments about the tenants of the false teaching.

What becomes clear from Paul's counsel is that the issue at hand isn't to prove the false teachers wrong and win the argument - but to call for them to repent.