In 1st Timothy chapter 1 Paul wrote to Timothy about the Church and its message, in chapter 2-3 Paul wrote about the church and its members but in chapter 4 Paul writes about the church and its ministry.
It’s never pleasant to talk about false teaching but Paul had warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28-31 that false teachers would invade the church and based upon this verse they had arrived. Saints, satan tried to beat the church but the blood of the saints only birthed more believers. So he changed strategies and decided to join the church and seduce it into indifference and indulgence.
Listen up dear ones “doctrines of demons” don’t just stop at the door of the church, there are plenty of false teachers behind pulpits today. Paul starts off this next section with a dramatic phrase, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving head to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.”
Paul says that during these seasons “some will depart from the faith” and John describes this in his letter of 1 John 2:19 saying, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
Saints, any and every teaching that seeks to lessen our need for and dependence upon the person and work of Jesus is a false teaching and a departure.