THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus
Message One—God’s Economy in Faith
Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 1:3-4, 18; 6:3, 12
I. God’s economy is God’s household administration, which is to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen and redeemed people that He may have a house to express Himself, which house is the church, the Body of Christ—1:4; 3:15: (2004 WT, msg. 1)
A. God’s economy, as His household administration, is to produce and constitute a Body for His Son—Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 16; 5:30. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
B. The central subject of the Bible is the economy of God, and the entire Bible is concerned with the economy of God—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:10: (2004 WT, msg. 1)
1. The governing and controlling vision in the Bible is the divine economy—Prov. 29:18a. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
2. In our reading of the Bible, we need to focus our attention on the divine economy for the divine dispensing—Eph. 3:9. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
3. Unless we know God’s economy, we will not understand the Bible—Luke 24:45. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
C. Christ is the element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God’s eternal economy; He is everything in God’s economy—Matt. 17:5; Luke 24:44. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
D. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into our being that our being may be constituted with His being; this can be accomplished only by God dispensing Himself into us as the divine life—Eph. 3:16-17a; Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
E. The economy of God is that God became flesh, passed through human living, died, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit to enter into us as life and dispense God into us that we may be transformed for the producing of the church, which is the Body of Christ, the house of God, the kingdom of God, and the counterpart of Christ, the ultimate aggregate of which is the New Jerusalem—John 1:14, 29; 12:24; 20:22; 14:2; 3:3, 5, 29-30; Rev. 21:2. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
F. God’s economy is God becoming man that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to produce the organic Body of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4; 12:4-5; Rev. 21:10. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
G. According to the desire of His heart, God’s eternal economy is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues—John 1:12-14; 1 John 3:1a, 2; 2 Pet. 1:4. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
H. The divine economy is to produce the new creation out of the chaotic old creation—Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17: (2004 WT, msg. 1)
1. The history of the universe is a history of God’s economy and Satan’s chaos—Gen. 1:1-2, 26; Rev. 20:10—21:4. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
2. Both in the Bible and in our experience, the satanic chaos always goes along with the divine economy—Eph. 3:8-10; 4:14-16; 6:24. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
3. The Lord needs the overcomers, who will be one with Him to conquer the destructive satanic chaos and to triumph in the constructive divine economy—Rev. 2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
I. The Lord’s recovery is for the carrying out of God’s economy—Eph. 3:2. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
II. God’s economy is initiated and developed in the sphere of faith—1 Tim. 1:4: (2004 WT, msg. 1)
A. On the negative side, to exercise faith is to stop our work, our doing; on the positive, to exercise faith is to trust in the Lord—Heb. 11:6. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
B. Faith is a proclamation that we are unable to fulfill God’s requirements but that God has done everything for us and that we receive all God has planned for us, all God has done for us, and all God has given to us—John 1:16. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
C. God’s economy is carried out not by our doing in ourselves but by our believing into Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God—3:15-16. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
D. Faith is a matter of seeing a view of the contents of God’s economy—Heb. 12:2:
1. Because we have seen a revelation regarding the contents of God’s economy, we spontaneously believe in what we see—Eph. 3:9. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
2. The ability within us to believe is a product, a result, of having a proper view of God’s economy—Heb. 11:6, 9, 23-26; 12:2. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
E. The Christian life is a life of faith, a life of believing—Gal. 3:2, 14. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
III. God’s economy in faith is versus differing teachings—1 Tim. 1:3-4: (2004 WT, msg. 1)
A. Differing teachings refer to teachings that are not in line with the economy of God—6:3. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
B. The differing teachings in 1:3-4, 6-7; 6:3-5, 20-21 and the heresies in 4:1-3 are the seed, the source, of the church’s decline, degradation, and deterioration. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
C. Teaching differently tears down God’s building and annuls God’s economy; even a small amount of teaching in a different way destroys the recovery. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
D. For the administration and shepherding of a local church, the first thing needed is to terminate the differing teachings of the dissenting ones, which distract the saints from the central line of God’s economy—Titus 1:9. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
E. Paul charged Timothy, his faithful co-worker, to fight against the differing teachings and to fight for God’s economy—1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 2:3-4. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
F. To war the good warfare is to war against the differing teachings and to carry out God’s economy according to the apostle’s ministry concerning the gospel of grace and eternal life for the glory of the blessed God—1 Tim. 1:18; 6:12. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
G. We must avoid differing teachings and concentrate on God’s economy concerning Christ and the church—1:3-4; 3:9; Eph. 5:32. (2004 WT, msg. 1)
H. The crucial point of the healthy teaching of the apostolic ministry concerns the Triune God processed to dispense Himself as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit into His chosen ones so that they may be brought into an organic union to receive the divine transfusion and thereby become sons of God and members of Christ; as a result, they can become the Body of Christ to express Christ, the One in whom the fullness of God dwells—1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17; 12:12-13, 27. (2004 WT, msg. 1)