Paul's Greeting and the Purpose of the Law Against False Teaching
1 Timothy 1:1-11
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,2to Timothy, a genuine child in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.3As I pleaded with you to remain in Ephesus when going toward Macedonia, so that you might order certain persons not to teach heresy,4nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which furnish speculations rather than the management of God that is in faith.5Now the goal of the order is love that comes from a clean heart and a good conscience and genuine faith.6Some persons, having deviated from these things, have turned aside toward babble.7They desire to be teachers of the law, yet they do not understand either what they say or the matters about which they make confident assertions.8Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully,9knowing this, that law is not laid down for a just person but for lawless and insubordinate people, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and profane, and for murderers,10for sexual sinners, for sodomites, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for whatever else is opposed to sound teaching.11This is according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I was entrusted.