²⁰Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.

Paul had detractors who flatly contradicted his teachings. Some might frame this situation as a typical theological feud, with the party in power excommunicating his opponent when the tide of public opinion turns against him. But this is an apostle writing, whom the apostle Peter called “our beloved brother” and whose writings were on the level of “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15–16). Paul was in complete fellowship with the original twelve apostles, who extended to him “the right hand of fellowship” (Gal. 2:9). He is an “apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of  God” (1 Tim. 1:1).

Among the teachers who have rejected the faith and good conscience (1 Tim. 1:19) are two named individuals. We note that Paul was not reticent to publicly name those who teach error, nor did he fear the modern cynicism: “Religious leaders are all arguing about who is right or wrong” or “They are excommunicating people because of minor differences.”  To be sure, the Spanish Inquisition of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries looms in our historical memory, where “heretics” (those who defied the established religion of the day) were rooted out and burned at the stake. The apostle saw serious error disrupting the early church, and his antidote, when other means failed to quell the false teaching, was to remove it—that is, to remove the false teachers.

This removal was not a physical or legal maneuver but a spiritual one, and it involved perpetual offenses. Hymenaeus is mentioned again in 2 Timothy 2:14–18 (along with Philetus), described as being loose with his words and arguments, one of those who “wrangle about words” that lead people to spiritual ruin. Their theological reasoning was like “worldly and empty chatter” that spreads like “gangrene” They even contradicted Paul’s teaching about the future resurrection of believers, saying it had already happened. Alexander, identified as a coppersmith by trade in 2 Timothy 4:14–15, vigorously opposed Paul’s teachings. So their teachings were not just mistakes or misunderstandings; their motives were nefarious, intended to undermine Paul’s authoritative teaching. Thus, in the same vein that he taught the Corinthian believers to deal with unrepentant confessing believers, Paul (1 Cor. 5:5) turns over to Satan these men as a last resort, removing them from the loving, joyful fellowship of believers so that they would realize the cost of their behavior. He refers to this as turning them out into Satan’s realm, away from the believing community.

Lord, help me to stand up to false teaching before it causes spiritual damage.