1 Timothy 4:4

Timothy was leading the church in Ephesus, where Paul had left him to stop those who were teaching other doctrine (1 Timothy 1:3–4). Paul has set out how the household of God should be ordered and led (1 Timothy 2–3), and he has called the church “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Now he turns to the threat that will come from inside the church, from people who undermine that truth.

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly” gives the warning its weight. It comes from the Holy Spirit, clearly and with authority, and Paul passes it on to prepare the church. The word for Spirit, pneûma, means breath or wind, and by extension a spirit of any kind. Here it is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth whom Jesus promised would guide his people into all truth (John 16:13). He tells the church ahead of time what deceptions are coming, so that it can recognise them when they arrive.

“The latter times” (hýsteros kairós) is the whole period from Christ’s first coming until his return, the same age that the New Testament calls “the last days” (Hebrews 1:2, Acts 2:17). It is the age in which God fulfils his saving plan in Christ, and it is also marked by deception and growing opposition to his truth. So this warning holds for the whole life of the church, and Timothy was already facing its beginnings. Paul writes to him again of perilous times in the last days (2 Timothy 3:1–5).

Ephesus was a great city of the Roman world, full of pagan worship, magic and schools of philosophy that blended with religion. The church there faced persecution from outside and false doctrine from within. Paul wrote this letter around AD 62–64, probably from Macedonia, at a time when speculation about secret knowledge, of the kind that later grew into Gnosticism, was beginning to appear. Teaching of that kind often called for strict self-denial, such as the bans on marriage and foods in verse 3, and it threatened the simplicity of the gospel.

Verse 2 describes the people through whom these spirits work. “Speaking lies” is one Greek word, pseudológos, meaning speaking falsely or lying. It is built from pseudēs, false, and legō, to speak. These people speak falsehood about God and his truth, and they do it knowingly.

“In hypocrisy” is hypókrisis, from a word for acting a part under a feigned character, and it means deceit or pretence. The false teachers put on an outward show of godliness and spiritual authority while hiding their true motives, often personal gain or influence. That show is what made them dangerous to believers who did not suspect them. The Lord Jesus exposed this same hypocrisy in his woes on the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23). His own words were the plain truth, and he could ask his hearers which of them could convict him of sin (John 8:45–46).

Verse 3 names two of the teachings that these liars spread, and both touch ordinary life. “Forbidding” is kōlýō, to prevent or hinder by word or act. The false teachers were making their preferences into rules, so that celibacy and abstaining from foods became requirements and a mark of higher spiritual standing. “Meats” is brōma, from a root meaning to eat. The KJV’s “meats” means foods in general, and the word is used especially of foods allowed or forbidden by a law. So the ban fell on certain kinds of food. These probably included foods counted unclean under the law of Moses or foods tied to pagan sacrifice, a question some early Christians wrestled with (Acts 15:29).

Ideas like these were common among the Gentiles. Many held that the material world, the body, marriage and food included, was evil or inferior, and that the spirit alone was good. People who thought this way sought purity by denying the body. Some Jewish Christians may also have pressed food laws on Gentile believers. Paul calls the rules that came from this thinking “doctrines of devils”.

Marriage is God’s own institution from creation (Genesis 2:18–24), and Scripture calls it honourable in all (Hebrews 13:4). Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19). Paul warns the Colossians against anyone who judges them over meat or drink, and he says that rules of that kind “have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body” (Colossians 2:16–23).

Paul’s answer in this verse goes back to creation: “which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving”. God made food for his people to receive, and the right response to it is thanks. The word is eucharistía, gratitude or grateful words spoken to God as an act of worship, and the English word Eucharist comes from it. Those who receive in this way are “them which believe and know the truth”: people who trust Christ and understand the gospel, and who therefore know these things as gifts from a generous Creator, to be enjoyed within the bounds of his will.

Verse 4 states the truth that answers these rules. “Creature” is ktísma, a thing that has been made, from the verb to create. Here it means chiefly food, and by extension anything God has brought into being. “Good” is kalós. Paul echoes the verdict God gave over his work all through Genesis 1: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The goodness of what he made reflects the goodness of the One who made it. He made it through his Son: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3), and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16–17).

“And nothing to be refused” follows from that. If a thing is good because God made it, believers may receive it freely and without guilt, and no human rule has the right to forbid it.

“If it be received with thanksgiving” turns to the one who receives. The gift is already good, and thanks is the fitting way to take it. Giving thanks acknowledges God as the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), and it makes an ordinary meal an act of worship. Paul says the same to the Romans: “He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:1–6). Jesus himself looked up to heaven and blessed the loaves before he fed the five thousand (Matthew 14:19).

The Lord’s own teaching runs the same way. He set aside burdensome readings of the law, saying that the sabbath was made for man and that the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath (Mark 2:27–28). He turned attention from food to the heart: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:11).

Verse 5 explains how these good things become fit for holy use. “For” is gár, which gives the reason for what has just been said. “It” is every creature of God, especially the foods in question.

“Sanctified” is hagiázō, to make holy, consecrate or hallow. The food is good already, as verse 4 has said. To sanctify it is to set it apart for God’s purpose, so that his people use it in a way that honours him. Common things are taken up into a holy use.

“By the word of God” is lógos, something said, with theós, God. It is God’s revealed truth, his own declaration in Scripture that what he made is good and may be received. After the flood God gave every moving thing that lives to be food for man (Genesis 9:3), and his word calls marriage honourable (Hebrews 13:4). God’s word settles the goodness of these gifts and frees believers from rules that men have made.

“And prayer” is énteuxis, which means an interview, a coming to someone to speak with them, and so supplication or intercession. In prayer the believer comes to God, owns him as the giver, thanks him as verse 4 says, and gives the use of the gift back to him. Scripture joins prayer and thanksgiving in the same way when it tells us to make our requests known to God with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6).

Every lie in these verses is answered in Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He is the Word who was with God and became flesh (John 1:14), so the goodness of creation and the word that sanctifies it both lead back to him. His offering of his own body once for all sanctifies his people (Hebrews 10:10), and he lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25), so their prayers at the table come to the Father through him.

The false teachers laid burdens on the body in an attempt to reach holiness by human effort. Christ fulfilled the law and set his people free from it. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), Paul calls us to stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made us free (Galatians 5:1), and Jesus says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

These five verses show the care of God for his church from two sides. The Holy Spirit gives his warning in plain words, long before the danger arrives, so that his people can know a lie when it comes dressed in holiness. And the Creator who made the world good keeps giving it: bread on the table, marriage between a man and his wife, every good thing that lies within his will.

The false teachers made people anxious about God’s gifts and proud of refusing them. God gives his gifts so that they may be received with thanks. A meal received with thanksgiving, set apart by his word and by prayer, is worship. Those who believe and know the truth can enjoy what he has made with a clear conscience, and every time they thank him they confess again that he is good and that all of it comes from his hand.