Do you dislike controversy?
The sick love of controversy — or the “unhealthy craving for controversy,” as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4. The question is from a podcast listener named Brett. “Pastor John, hello! We live in an age of controversy. And that controversy-loving spirit has come into the church.
The Apostle Paul clearly warns us against people in the church who have a ‘diseased’ (nosōn) or ‘unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.’ That’s 1 Timothy 6:4–5. I wonder if you can lay out principles for what this ‘diseased craving for controversy’ looks like in the church today.”
I’ll try to do that in just a moment — namely, lay out some principles to try to avoid what Paul’s denouncing in these verses. But first, let me say a word about what Brett calls our “age of controversy.”
He’s right, of course, but we probably shouldn’t forget that even in our own country, the bygone centuries have been just as, if not more, given to vitriolic language and controversy. And I say that because it’s on my front burner because I’m reading biographies. In the last six months, I’ve read biographies of John Marshall (the first Supreme Court justice), Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams. And what you can’t help but notice in these really detailed, excellent scholarly biographies is how outrageous the defamation of character was in the political writings of that time. The language is as vitriolic and lewd as the language we might be appalled at today.
So, that’s the first thing to say. The age of controversy is not new.
Age of Unreality
What gives this age, our present age, a new flavour is, first, how ubiquitous social media is, so that we have immediate access to as much vitriol as we would like.
And second, the excesses of sexual sin in our day are, in American history, unprecedented and outrageous, like so-called “gay marriage” and so-called “transgenderism” and so-called “health care” as we cut our babies in pieces. And I put the term so-called in front of those phrases because they don’t exist and we should not even dignify them, as Christians, with language that gives the impression they do exist. I get really worked up about this. Some of my good friends have caved on the language issue.
There’s no such thing as a marriage between two men or two women; it does not exist. There’s no such thing as a man becoming a woman or a woman becoming a man; it does not happen. There’s no such thing as health care that consists in killing unborn children. Those are simply not realities. Naming them “marriage,” “transgender,” “health care” does not make them what they aren’t. And these are just some of the kinds of sins that are rampant in our day — not to mention the love of money, which has probably sent more people to hell than all the sexual sins combined, and racial sins, and nationalistic and ethnocentric sins, and epidemics of the misuse of drugs, and on and on and on for our age.
So, every local church — I am getting to the issue of controversy in the church — needs to affirm its biblical stance against these sins. For example, at our church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, the elders laboured long and hard in recent years over two extended statements regarding race and sexuality. And in my judgment, they produced two valuable documents that our church and our school, Bethlehem College & Seminary, happily embraced as where we stand. In other words, the church's leadership shouldn’t leave their people wondering, “Where does the church stand regarding these controversial things in our day?”
Six Traits of Controversy Lovers
But now comes the rub. Within our churches — even the clearest and the most forthright churches that have driven a stake in the ground — people have different dispositions and different instincts and different personalities that incline them in different directions concerning how frequently and how fervently and how forcefully and how harshly and how crudely cultural issues should be talked about, should be foregrounded inside and outside the church.
“There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed.”
Some of these differences are manageable, and we just need to have forbearance, patience, and forgiveness to get along with each other in love. But Paul, in these verses, in 1 Timothy 6, says there’s a limit. There’s a limit to how you talk about these things. There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed. Here’s what he says.
I’ll try to do that in just a moment — namely, lay out some principles to try to avoid what Paul’s denouncing in these verses. But first, let me say a word about what Brett calls our “age of controversy.”
He’s right, of course, but we probably shouldn’t forget that even in our own country, the bygone centuries have been just as, if not more, given to vitriolic language and controversy. And I say that because it’s on my front burner because I’m reading biographies. In the last six months, I’ve read biographies of John Marshall (the first Supreme Court justice), Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams. And what you can’t help but notice in these really detailed, excellent scholarly biographies is how outrageous the defamation of character was in the political writings of that time. The language is as vitriolic and lewd as the language we might be appalled at today.
So, that’s the first thing to say. The age of controversy is not new.
Age of Unreality
What gives this age, our present age, a new flavour is, first, how ubiquitous social media is, so that we have immediate access to as much vitriol as we would like.
And second, the excesses of sexual sin in our day are, in American history, unprecedented and outrageous, like so-called “gay marriage” and so-called “transgenderism” and so-called “health care” as we cut our babies in pieces. And I put the term so-called in front of those phrases because they don’t exist and we should not even dignify them, as Christians, with language that gives the impression they do exist. I get really worked up about this. Some of my good friends have caved on the language issue.
There’s no such thing as a marriage between two men or two women; it does not exist. There’s no such thing as a man becoming a woman or a woman becoming a man; it does not happen. There’s no such thing as health care that consists in killing unborn children. Those are simply not realities. Naming them “marriage,” “transgender,” “health care” does not make them what they aren’t. And these are just some of the kinds of sins that are rampant in our day — not to mention the love of money, which has probably sent more people to hell than all the sexual sins combined, and racial sins, and nationalistic and ethnocentric sins, and epidemics of the misuse of drugs, and on and on and on for our age.
So, every local church — I am getting to the issue of controversy in the church — needs to affirm its biblical stance against these sins. For example, at our church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, the elders laboured long and hard in recent years over two extended statements regarding race and sexuality. And in my judgment, they produced two valuable documents that our church and our school, Bethlehem College & Seminary, happily embraced as where we stand. In other words, the church's leadership shouldn’t leave their people wondering, “Where does the church stand regarding these controversial things in our day?”
Six Traits of Controversy Lovers
But now comes the rub. Within our churches — even the clearest and the most forthright churches that have driven a stake in the ground — people have different dispositions and different instincts and different personalities that incline them in different directions concerning how frequently and how fervently and how forcefully and how harshly and how crudely cultural issues should be talked about, should be foregrounded inside and outside the church.
“There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed.”
Some of these differences are manageable, and we just need to have forbearance, patience, and forgiveness to get along with each other in love. But Paul, in these verses, in 1 Timothy 6, says there’s a limit. There’s a limit to how you talk about these things. There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed. Here’s what he says.
This is 1 Timothy 6:4–5. The person he’s concerned about is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy [literally sick] craving for controversy and for quarrels about words [or word fights], which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions [or conjectures about other people], and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
Now, what I think will be useful as a diagnostic tool — first for ourselves, lest we fall into this, and a diagnostic tool for others — is to take the traits he just described of this controversy-loving person and state the positive alternatives. And in that way, we can have something to pray toward and run away from, and we may be able to see the problems of others and ourselves more clearly. So, let me do that just briefly.
There are six traits of this lover of controversy that we can name and strive to avoid.
Now, what I think will be useful as a diagnostic tool — first for ourselves, lest we fall into this, and a diagnostic tool for others — is to take the traits he just described of this controversy-loving person and state the positive alternatives. And in that way, we can have something to pray toward and run away from, and we may be able to see the problems of others and ourselves more clearly. So, let me do that just briefly.
There are six traits of this lover of controversy that we can name and strive to avoid.
PROUD
He’s “puffed up with conceit,” Paul says. The positive alternative, of course, is humility — or more specifically, a readiness to confess our limitations of knowledge and our willingness to go on learning. If a person comes off as cocky and acting like he has infallibility (as if he never makes any mistakes), you know you’ll have a problem.
“There are people who have a morbid need to fight to feel significant, to feel justified, to feel safe.”
We need to cultivate in the church the profound belief that a person can be rock solid, unwavering on matters of clear biblical truth and justice and purity while maintaining a humble demeanour. There are people, a lot of people it seems today, who don’t believe that. They think the only way to be a person of backbone is to be brash. I don’t think that’s true.
He’s “puffed up with conceit,” Paul says. The positive alternative, of course, is humility — or more specifically, a readiness to confess our limitations of knowledge and our willingness to go on learning. If a person comes off as cocky and acting like he has infallibility (as if he never makes any mistakes), you know you’ll have a problem.
“There are people who have a morbid need to fight to feel significant, to feel justified, to feel safe.”
We need to cultivate in the church the profound belief that a person can be rock solid, unwavering on matters of clear biblical truth and justice and purity while maintaining a humble demeanour. There are people, a lot of people it seems today, who don’t believe that. They think the only way to be a person of backbone is to be brash. I don’t think that’s true.
IGNORANT
The second trait of this lover of controversy is ignorance. Paul says he doesn’t understand anything. Now, I take that to mean that when our heart is infected with this sickness of the love of controversy and with pride, even the facts that we get right will be skewed in a negative direction, so that it can be said we really don’t understand anything. We don’t get anything right. We turn everything in a harmful direction.
The second trait of this lover of controversy is ignorance. Paul says he doesn’t understand anything. Now, I take that to mean that when our heart is infected with this sickness of the love of controversy and with pride, even the facts that we get right will be skewed in a negative direction, so that it can be said we really don’t understand anything. We don’t get anything right. We turn everything in a harmful direction.
UNHEALTHY
Third, Paul says this person has a kind of sickness. The ESV translates it as an “unhealthy craving for controversy” and word fights. Some people have a morbid need to fight to feel significant, justified, and safe. We need discernment to recognize this kind of person. One way is to test whether there is as much praising, thanking, and rejoicing as criticizing and complaining. Does the person love to see the beauties of God and Christ and salvation and heaven and speak of them with joy and marvelling? Or does his need for a fight hinder all of that? If so, he’s not well; he’s just not spiritually well. He needs help.
Third, Paul says this person has a kind of sickness. The ESV translates it as an “unhealthy craving for controversy” and word fights. Some people have a morbid need to fight to feel significant, justified, and safe. We need discernment to recognize this kind of person. One way is to test whether there is as much praising, thanking, and rejoicing as criticizing and complaining. Does the person love to see the beauties of God and Christ and salvation and heaven and speak of them with joy and marvelling? Or does his need for a fight hinder all of that? If so, he’s not well; he’s just not spiritually well. He needs help.
ENVY-STIRRING
Fourth, this person stirs up envy. This can happen in different ways, but one way is that lovers of controversy like to show off their verbal prowess — clever put-downs, shrewd analyses of other persons’ stupidity, ready wit, and nimble use of culturally hip allusions. All of this intends to show off, which tends to make other immature people wish they could do that. That’s called envy.
Fourth, this person stirs up envy. This can happen in different ways, but one way is that lovers of controversy like to show off their verbal prowess — clever put-downs, shrewd analyses of other persons’ stupidity, ready wit, and nimble use of culturally hip allusions. All of this intends to show off, which tends to make other immature people wish they could do that. That’s called envy.
CARELESS
Fifth, this controversy-loving person is careless with the truth. Paul uses “slander, evil suspicions” (or conjectures). This usually means he’s ready to believe the evil of others with very little evidence. His anger at a viewpoint, which may be totally justified, causes a bias so strong it ceases to need truth but only needs to show the insanity of the viewpoint. In the process, holding one correct position can easily be used to justify saying other things that are not true. We need to love the truth through and through, with great earnestness.
Fifth, this controversy-loving person is careless with the truth. Paul uses “slander, evil suspicions” (or conjectures). This usually means he’s ready to believe the evil of others with very little evidence. His anger at a viewpoint, which may be totally justified, causes a bias so strong it ceases to need truth but only needs to show the insanity of the viewpoint. In the process, holding one correct position can easily be used to justify saying other things that are not true. We need to love the truth through and through, with great earnestness.
MONEY-LOVING
And then finally, sixth, Paul says that this lover of controversy “imagines that godliness is a means of gain.” In other words, deep down, he loves money, which Paul says later is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) — which I take to mean that the heart that values this world, what money can buy, over Christ is the kind of heart from which all evils come. It is. Money is just the lever that such a heart pulls to get what it wants, which is not supremely Christ.
If we mainly seek to be the opposite of this lover of controversy in these six ways, we will probably be in a good position to recognize the error when we see it and avoid it ourselves.
And then finally, sixth, Paul says that this lover of controversy “imagines that godliness is a means of gain.” In other words, deep down, he loves money, which Paul says later is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) — which I take to mean that the heart that values this world, what money can buy, over Christ is the kind of heart from which all evils come. It is. Money is just the lever that such a heart pulls to get what it wants, which is not supremely Christ.
If we mainly seek to be the opposite of this lover of controversy in these six ways, we will probably be in a good position to recognize the error when we see it and avoid it ourselves.
John Piper
