June Roundup: Deconstructing Faith and Sound Doctrine (Part 3)

Written By Kerry & Becky

Holding Faith Up To the Light

I have begun reading an interesting book about the current religious phenomenon of deconstruction (Invisible Jesus, McKnight and Phillips, 2024). We are probably all hearing a lot about people, especially young adults, who are in the process of deconstructing their faith, of reevaluating what they believe about the church and doctrine, and dismantling long held beliefs. Like me, I am sure you have talked to quite a few people over the last several years who are in this confusing, difficult place in their lives.

Generally, I think it is an important process for young adults to make their faith their own.

It is important for them to determine what their faith will be like and how they will live their lives rather than having blind allegiance to their parents’ faith. However, even though I applaud their rationale, I do admit it is uncomfortable talking to those who are in the throes of shedding elements of their faith that do not make sense to them. I think we all fear that their personal faith appraisal undertaking will result not just in leaving the church but in leaving God!

I have some good news for you! The Invisible Jesus authors quote a HarperCollins 2022 study which I found different from my assumptions. Surprising, actually.

The study reveals that 86% of those in faith deconstruction have not left the Lord, and, in fact, they were still in their churches!

They had not walked away from religion, were still attending church, but they have lots and lots of questions. One of the main concerns these young questioners are disclosing is that they go to church seeking Jesus and they don’t find him there. Sadly, I know this happens. I recall a church we attended years ago whose minister could preach for weeks without mentioning Jesus!

I believe we can learn a lot from these young thinkers. It is healthy to review and evaluate the state of our faith and belief system! We, too, need to continually be sorting through our faith system making sure the central component of our faith is Jesus. I fear that our young faith builders have a viable faith concern. Jesus simply cannot be minimized, marginalized, undervalued, and subsequently lost in our disagreements, differences of opinions, and politics!

I pray God will help us to be good, thoughtful, kind listeners. And maybe we should be asking some of the same questions as well.

—Becky

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What Is “Sound Doctrine”? (Part Three)

If you are new to this blogpost series, you might want to know the why behind it.

I set on a path to identify what the Apostle Paul meant by “sound doctrine,” during a study of Paul’s letter to Titus.

I wanted to ascertain what he believed constituted“sound doctrine.” I suppose I’m learning that the answer to the question, “What is sound doctrine?” is not as clear to me as I once thought it was.

To answer the above question I’m examining the four times Paul used that phrase in the Pastoral Epistles. His first use of this term is found in 1 Timothy 1:10, and I shared some of my thoughts from a study of that passage in Part Two of this series.

In this post I want to examine Paul’s second reference to “sound teaching” in the Pastoral Epistles. It’s found in 2 Timothy 4:3.

Here is that passage:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

—2 Timothy 4:3-4, NRSV

From these two verses, and if I only examined these two verses, I might conclude that for Paul, “sound doctrine” was equivalent to “truth.” Why do I write that? Because my first impression upon reading and rereading those two verses was that Paul seems to be equating “not putting up with sound doctrine” and “turning away from listening to the truth and wandering away to myths”?

In other words, perhaps what Paul is predicting in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 is that people would not put up with sound doctrine and would demonstrate their unwillingness to do so by turning away from truth and wandering away to myths.

But, that brought up another question for me.

To what “truth” does Paul refer? Is he referring to truth in general? Is he forecasting that people would turn away from any and all truth, no matter the subject matter? Or, does he have in mind a specific truth regarding a specific subject?

Regarding something akin to the former option, that Paul is referring to truth in general, Burton Coffman, gospel preacher and author of a commentary on 2 Timothy, seemed to believe that Paul was referring generally to the Scriptures. Regarding the phrase, “they will not endure sound doctrine,” he wrote:

The thought here is that, as the future unfolds, Christians will more and more despise and hate the doctrine taught by the apostles of Christ, preferring their own philosophies, systems and devices to those of the sacred Scriptures.

Similarly, R.C.H. Lenski, author of another commentary on 2 Timothy, wrote of those Paul is considering in 2 Timothy 4:4 that they would turn “from all the divine, spiritual reality, from that which is fact” (The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus and to Philemon, 855). He wrote that for these people, “good, healthy Scripture teaching” would be distasteful to them."

So, there are two commentators who seem to see “sound doctrine” as tantamount to Scripture, and perhaps, all Scripture.

On the other hand, another commentator, Gordon Fee understands the truth from which Paul predicts people will turn from as the gospel:

On the one hand, they will turn their ears away from the truth, that is, the gospel (see 1 Tim. 6:5; Titus 1:14; 2 Tim. 2:18; 3:7-8); on the other hand, they will turn aside to myths (see 1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; Titus 1:14).

So, thus far in my study of 2 Timothy 4:3,4 I came to see three options of what may have constituted sound doctrine for Paul: doctrine taught by the apostles of Christ, the Scriptures, and the gospel. That’s quite a range of options, don’t you think!

Then, I looked at the broader context of 2 Timothy 4:3. Studying the context of a passage is critical to sound biblical interpretation. Perhaps a more accurate word than “critical” would be “necessary.” We can’t understand what a passage means without it’s context.

For me, what precedes 2 Timothy 4:3 does more to identify what constitutes the sound teaching Paul has in mind than what follows. I believe, then, that 1 Timothy 4:2 should inform our understanding of what Paul means by “sound doctrine” in 1 Timothy 4:3.

Here is that important charge:

Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

—2 Timothy 4:2, NRSV


“Proclaim the message!”

That language may sound foreign to our ears. It’s not the language I heard growing up and in my early days as a preacher. I can still hear my dad—and will always remember his words and encouragement with fondness—encouraging me to “preach the word” when he knew I had a preaching appointment. (Now that I think about this, I wonder what Dad meant when he advised: “Preach the word!” I think I know, but I wonder if what I think he meant corresponds to what Paul meant.)

“Preach the word!”

That’s the way the King James Version translates 2 Timothy 4:2, as does the ASV, the NASB, and the RSV. My New International Version also translates, “Preach the word,” but it capitalizes “word.” (What do you think the NIV translators were trying to convey when they translated that word logon (a form of the Greek word, logos, meaning word, statement, or message) “Word” instead of “word”?)

I should note that my NRSV (“Proclaim the message!”) is not the only version that doesn’t follow the older versions. The New Living Translation renders it, “Preach the word of God” (“of God” is not in the original); the New Century Version: “Preach the Good News,” which is clearly more an interpretation than a translation; and The Message, which arguably is not a translation: “Proclaim the message.”

And, this was a surprise for me: One of my deeply-respected undergraduate college Bible professors, Hugo McCord published his own translation, McCord’s New Testament Translation of the Everlasting Gospel. I’ll bet you can’t guess how he translated keruxon ton logon. He translated it, “Proclaim the message!”

So, here’s my question after looking at the various versions of 2 Timothy 4:2:

Is Paul urging Timothy to preach Scripture, in general, or a more specific message?

Now you might be wondering how what Paul meant by “preach the word” in 4:2 should affect our understanding of what he meant by “sound doctrine” in 4:3?

For me, the answer is found in that little three-letter word that connects verses 1 and 2 to verses 3 and 4. It’s the word, “for.”

Why should Timothy “preach the word”? (v. 2) Because the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine (v. 3).

It seems to me very probable, then, that Paul understands “sound doctrine” to be the “word” or “message” that Timothy is to proclaim. “Preach the word, Timothy, because the time is coming when people will not want to hear it!” Paul seems to say.

The bottom line for me is that Paul views “the word” in verse 2 to be equivalent to “sound doctrine in verse 3.

If this is the case, it become very important for me to understand what Paul meant by “word” or “message” in 2 Timothy 4:2.

I’ll plan to go there in my next post in this series.

—Kerry

👉 Again, I would be pleased to hear your thoughts on these posts! Hit reply, or send me an email.

Kerry & Becky
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May Roundup: Sound Doctrine (Part 1 + 2), and Radical Faith