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1 Timothy 1:3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. 5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
So Paul is writing to Timothy who is in Ephesus. There were problems in the church at Ephesus. There were people there who knew the "law" which is to say they had been taught the Law of Moses from birth.
Have you ever been in a church that was full of people who had been going to the church for the majority of their lives? In some of those churches the people wander away from teaching the gospel and they get lost. The church may not even realize what is happening. They stop bringing their Bibles. They teach from their brains instead of their hearts.
According to the commentary that I've been using lately, Jesus taught that the heart was the center of faith. Jesus instructed us using the Old Testament, to love one another.
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
a.Matthew 22:37 Deut. 6:5
b.Matthew 22:39 Lev. 19:18
I once attended a Sunday School class at a Methodist church. The class was taught by a Nazarene who later went on to start a Church of the Nazarene. I learned a lot from this man. He was teaching from Corinthians. We all used an NIV and he taught from a Greek Translation. That is where I learned that in the Bibles that we use, what looks like a duck and quacks like a duck may not be a real duck.
That's what's going on in the church at Ephesus. The teachers were teaching errors. They had the credentials and they knew the Law of Moses so they claimed to have "knowledge". But they were teaching things that were just not true to the gospel. Then they would argue over who was teaching the right thing when two teachers were in conflict. Then they would use their genealogy to show they were right. This was dividing the church.
Paul charged Timothy with making it stop.
