What are the endless genealogies in 1 Timothy 1:4?

The prophecies, which reveal that in the seed of Abraham should all the nations of the earth be blessed, and that the Messiah was to be of the royal line of David, made it needful that the genealogies of both these lines should be preserved, as we find them given in the N.T. In the future possession of the land there will be the twelve tribes, and some of each of the twelve will be sealed for blessing. Ezek. 48; Rev. 7:3-8. God, who is guarding them for future events, can also preserve their genealogies.

It is probable that in 1 Tim. 1:4 and Titus 3:9 reference is not made to Jewish genealogies, which could not be called 'endless,' nor were they fabulous; but that reference is made to the aeons of the Gnostics which reach back to eternity, three of which were represented to be Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Tertullian quoted the above passage in Timothy when confuting the Gnostics.

The special warning is against fables and interminable genealogies. From the Greek word "muthos," translated fables, we have our English word "myths." The warning is undoubtedly aimed at the Gnostic emanations, the invention of "aeons" and the list of their successions. Like the church in Colosse, the church of Ephesus was also invaded by the false teachers of Gnosticism. It was not yet fully developed. That came during the post-apostolic days in the second century. These speculations were not according to sound doctrine and the truth of God. Neither are the present-day myths of evolution, the derivation of one thing from another in an interminable chain, the myths of destructive criticism, of spiritism, theosophy, Christian Science, and other vagaries. Jewish teachings on the perpetual obligation of the Mosaic law, genealogies, and other matters, are likewise included in this warning. They all lead not upon the sure foundation of the dispensation of God, (the dispensation of the grace of God (Eph. 3:21) which is in faith, but to questionings in which there is no profit, but which open the way to a complete rejection of God's truth and God's grace made known in the gospel.

It would be easy to add other difficulties to this already long list. What has been said already should be sufficient to warn Christians who, when they attempt to study the genealogies, stumble over apparent contradictions at every step. Not that the subject in itself does not edify, as for that matter the entire Word of God does, but it is useless to enter upon it simply with one's own intelligence, as the rationalists have so often done. Moreover, we would hasten to point out that these are not the genealogies which the apostle warns us not to give heed to (1 Tim. 1: 4; Titus 3: 9); he was warning against a certain philosophical system that sought to establish endless degrees in a hierarchy of spirits.

It would be easy to add other difficulties to this already long list. What has been said already should be sufficient to warn Christians who, when they attempt to study the genealogies, stumble over apparent contradictions at every step. Not that the subject in itself does not edify, as for that matter the entire Word of God does, but it is useless to enter upon it simply with one's own intelligence, as the rationalists have so often done. Moreover, we would hasten to point out that these are not the genealogies which the apostle warns us not to give heed to (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 3:9); he was warning against a certain philosophical system that sought to establish endless degrees in a hierarchy of spirits.

(V. 4). Letting go the truth, we become occupied with fables and interminable genealogies which may appeal to reason, but only occupy the mind with questions and do not lead to godly edifying which is in faith. “Endless genealogies” are as pleasing to the natural mind as to religious flesh, for they shut out God and make much of man. “Interminable genealogies” assume that all blessing is a process of development handed down from one generation to another. For this reason, the religious Jew made a great deal of his genealogy. So, too, the man of the world, with his science falsely so-called, seeks to shut out faith in a Creator by speculative theories which view everything in creation as a gradual and genealogical development of one thing from another. Human speculations, appealing to reason, can only raise “questions” which leave the soul in darkness and doubt. Divine truth, appealing to conscience and faith, can alone give certainty and godly edification.

The apostle urges him to remember that he had besought him to abide in Ephesus for the express purpose of charging some that they taught no other doctrine. The danger of this is plainly intimated; and in Paul's address, as we find it in the Acts, to the Ephesian elders, it is fully realized. Thus already the tendencies are manifest which were so soon to have such terrible development. It was all in the germ at present, but there is, alas, a kind of life in these germs of evil which leads to development of their own kind, just as faith of necessity will develop itself upon the other hand. That which he warns of here is the giving heed to fables and endless genealogies: things which, whatever they might be, did not spring out of the truth which God was declaring, and which thus brought in all the uncertainty that of necessity attaches to what is of man. These endless genealogies might be of very different kinds from the genealogies of the law upon which men might still build themselves, or the genealogies of heathenism such as afterwards manifested themselves mystically in the teachings of Gnosticism. In fact, all that men can think of naturally is the derivation of one thing from another, as we see manifestly in the science of our own days. Where God is to come in they are at fault, and there tends to be the resistance of this need of God, and the substitution of natural laws and material developments in place of the Creator. We shall find in this epistle that in the apostasy of the last days, of which the apostle speaks, it is the Creator who is in the first place set aside. For the proper intelligence of God and of His ways there must be revelation. Here reason cannot lay the foundations, although it may be summoned to approve of the foundations laid. Here is where Scripture is of the first necessity for all the foundations of science, and because men have not faith, science becomes, for lack of a foundation, a mere "opposition of science falsely called such."

But when men begin to be teachers of strange doctrine, they ever venture into the region of the fabulous and give heed to myths and interminable genealogies. So did the love of the marvellous work early among Christians. Imagination is never faith, which, as it delights in knowing God and His will, so trusts in nothing but His word, however thankful for such as minister it. Imagination is the natural resource for those who know not the truth: the truth in Christ is the only perfect preservative from it. We are not distinctly told whether these faults here warned against had a Gentile or a Jewish root: if like those denounced in the Epistle to Titus, they were Jewish. From either side they issued in the Gnostic reveries and wickedness of a later day, which were especially opposed to the Old Testament, whereas these apparently made much though wrong use of it.

The "endless genealogies" were a vain effort to solve without Christ what is otherwise insoluble, and thus be lost in wandering mazes of the mind, apart from conscience the one inlet by grace into all truth. For conscience alone gives God His place and us our own effectually before Him. Without conscience the heart may be attracted, but can never be trusted till it find its rest in God's love and truth, the very reverse of a vain confidence in self. Then with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And the known grace which forgives every sin takes away all guile from the spirit: for there is no more to conceal, all being judged and gone. One can then pray and praise: one desires teaching and guidance, and can call on others for and in fellowship of joy in the Lord. How dismal the descent to human speculations with its shadowy myths, and endless genealogies! These are occupation for the restless mind which knows not the truth and which alas! now turns from it to these husks for swine.

Having saluted Timothy in verse 2, Paul at once reminds him of the responsibility resting upon him as left at Ephesus during his absence. Already some were beginning to teach things which differed from the truth as already laid down. These strange doctrines were of two kinds, "fables" (or "myths") and "genealogies." By the former term Paul indicated ideas imported from the heathen world, even though they were the refined speculations of Grecian schools; by the latter, ideas imported from the Jewish world in which genealogy had played so large a part. Timothy however was to abide in what he had learned of God and exhort others to do likewise, since the end of what was enjoined was love springing out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith. This was that which God desired to see in His people.

The certain result of turning aside to fables or genealogies is questionings (verse 4) and vain jangling (verse 6). Christendom has largely turned aside to the teaching of fabulous assertions in the name of science on the one hand, and on the other to genealogies connected with religious succession, apostolic and otherwise, with all the ritualism based thereupon, consequently the religious arena is filled with questioners and resounds with the uproar of vain jangling. What God aims at producing, and does produce where the truth holds sway, is love, and what is ministered is "God's dispensation which is in faith." The A. V. reads "edifying" but evidently the correct reading is "dispensation" or "house-law" — the alteration of one letter in the Greek word makes the difference. Love furthers all those things that God has ordered as the rule of His house.

That register, kept on high, of all those called with an heavenly calling, rendered it to such a matter of no importance to trouble further about preserving earthly family registers. In the Gospels we frequently find the father's name given, as in the case of Peter; but after Pentecost, even this was dropped. The surname Barnabas, given to Joses (Acts 4:36), was an evident departure from the rule almost invariably adopted in the case of Old Testament saints. As for Paul, he himself mentions quite incidentally that he was of the tribe of Benjamin; but we are no where told the name of his father. More than this, Paul by the Spirit, warned his beloved sons in the faith (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 3:9) against giving heed to "endless genealogies." For though a believer in Christ were in a position to prove his descent from David, or Aaron, this gave him no right to claim higher position in the church than that occupied by another member of the body, who happened to be descended from Ammon or Moab, or even the cursed Canaan. In the assembly therefore no distinctions of this character were to be observed, since all were one in Christ.

In the first place there were the would-be law teachers at work. All who fell under their influence were diverted to "fables and endless genealogies." 1 Timothy 1 and 1 Timothy 4 allude to this particular evil. In it we see an outbreak of "the leaven of the Pharisees" of which the Lord warned His disciples. Today it is perpetuated in the semi-Jewish and ritualistic line of things, which in its full-blown Romish form is simply full of grotesque fables and of the endless genealogies necessary to build up their "apostolic succession" theories.