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The New Daily Study Bible

New Testament
WILLIAM BARCLAY
LINDA FOSTER (EDITOR)
All titles £8.99

‘The only commentaries that I’ve used consistently are those written by William Barclay. They are absolutely fantastic and I wouldn’t give up my set for anything.’ Steve Chalke, Oasis Trust

‘William Barclay’s “magnum opus” is now able to delight and serve a new generation of Bible students and preachers.’ Ministry Today World-renowned for his thought-provoking Daily Study Bible series, William Barclay is one of the best-loved commentators on the Bible. His brilliant communication, down-to-earth approach and sheer enthusiasm inspire spirituality and faith among his readers. Over 7 million people worldwide have bought The Daily Study Bible series, in many languages.

New readers will find Barclay’s wide-ranging insight readily accessible in The New Daily Study Bible series. Barclay’s language has been sensitively updated, and out-of-date references have been removed. Readers familiar with his work will find it enhanced throughout with explanation of contexts, sources for quotations and other details. The revision involved William Barclay’s son Ronnie at all stages.

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EXTRACT
ERROR AND HERESY i Timothy 1:3-7

I am writing to you now to reinforce the plea that I already made to you, when I urged you to stay in Ephesus while I went to Macedonia, that you might pass on the order to some of the people there, not to teach erroneous novelties, nor to give their attention to idle tales and endless genealogies, which only succeed in producing empty speculations rather than the effective administration of God's people, which should be based on faith. The instruction which I gave you is designed to produce love which issues from a pure heart, a good conscience and an undissembling faith. But some of these people of whom I am talking have never even tried to find the right road, and have turned aside out of it to empty and useless discussions, in their claim to become teachers of the law, although they do not know what they are talking about, nor do they realize the real meaning of the things about which they dogmatize.

It is clear that behind the Pastoral Epistles there is some heresy which is endangering the Church. Right at the beginning, we should try to see what this heresy is. We will therefore collect the facts about it now. This passage brings us face to face with two of its main characteristics. It dealt in idle tales and endless genealogies. These two things were not peculiar to this heresy but were deeply ingrained in the thought of the ancient world.
First, the idle tales. One of the characteristics of the ancient world was that the poets and even the historians loved to work out romantic and fictitious tales about the foundation of cities and of families. They would tell how some god came to earth and founded the city or took in marriage a mortal woman and founded a family. The ancient world was full of stories like that.
Second, the endless genealogies. The ancient world had a passion for genealogies. We can see this even in the Old Testament with its chapters of names and in the New Testament with the genealogies of Jesus with which Matthew and Luke begin their gospels. A man like Alexander the Great had a completely artificial pedigree constructed in which he traced his lineage back on the one side to Achilles and Andromache and on the other to Perseus and Hercules.
It would be the easiest thing in the world for Christianity to get lost in endless fables and stories about origins and in elaborate and imaginary genealogies. That was a danger which was fundamental to the situation in which Christian thought was developing.
It was peculiarly threatening from two directions.
It was threatening from the Jewish direction. To the Jews, there was no book in the world like the Old Testament. Their scholars spent a lifetime studying it and expounding it. In the Old Testament, many chapters and many sections are long genealogies; and one of the favourite occupations of the Jewish scholars was to construct an imaginary and inspiring biography for every name in the list! People could go on doing that forever; and it may be that that was what was partly in Paul's mind. He may be saying: 'When you ought to be working at the Christian life, you are working out imaginary biographies and genealogies. You are wasting your time on trivia when you should be getting down to life and living.' This may be a warning to us never to allow Christian thinking to get lost in speculations which do not matter.
© William Barclay
 

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