1 Timothy 4:3

‘Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from certain types of food, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.’

Here we get to the heart of their false teaching. They forbid marriage and command men to abstain from certain foods. This may well be connected with Judaisers. The abstention from certain foods, in accordance with Leviticus 11:0 was important to them, while the forbidding of marriage was certainly known among the Essenes, the aim in both cases being to maintain ritual purity. In the Old Testament sexual relations were often seen as causing ‘uncleanness’ (Exodus 19:15; Leviticus 15:16-18; 1 Samuel 21:4-5).

The majority, however, relate these abstentions to an early form of Gnosticism where the purpose of the abstention was to avoid fleshly things so as not to tarnish the new ‘spiritual’ experience that had been enjoyed through gaining certain kinds of religious ‘knowledge’ that in their view had brought them nearer to God as pure spirit. This would tie in with the emphasis on the positive participation by Christians in eating earthly creatures, and possibly the teaching prevalent at Colossae (see Colossians 2:16-18 which also, however, suggests Jewish connections). By partaking in fleshly things with gratitude to God they are thereby demonstrating the falseness of this incipient, possibly Jewish, Gnosticism. However, we could equally say that he was demonstrating the falseness of a certain kind of Judaism. Whichever way it is Paul decries it. He declares that God provided these physical things to be received with thanksgiving. There is nothing wrong in them, or even slightly shady. Rather they are good and to be received with gratitude from God. Any idea that flesh in itself is bad and spirit is good is therefore rejected. Compare how in 1 Timothy 3:16 Jesus came in flesh and was justified in spirit. Spirit and natural flesh are both therefore to be seen as parts of the Christian experience.

‘By those who believe and know the truth.’ He is not by this excluding unbelievers from partaking of what God has provided, but simply bringing out the right attitude and therefore subsequent blessing of the true people of God. The difference being that the unbelievers do not genuinely receive it from God with thanksgiving, because their attitudes of heart are wrong, while those who believe do. They recognise that it is the provision of their Heavenly Father (Matthew 6:32).

We learn elsewhere that some were teaching that the resurrection was past already (2 Timothy 2:18). Thus they probably considered that some kind of mystical experience, possibly as resulting from esoteric knowledge, had made them spiritually out of this world (misinterpreting Paul’s teaching in Ephesians). Thus like the angels they now neither married nor gave in marriage, and only ate angel food, whatever they considered that to be.