1-2 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3-5 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. 6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 1 Timothy 4:1-6 English Standard Version

Paul told Timothy to have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths which some professing Christians were preaching. In Chapter 1 he had warned that focussing on (Jewish) genealogies and myths only led to controversial speculations, rather than advancing God’s work. But are the false doctrines that plagued the Church in Paul's days, and ours, merely the result of some misguided believers? (vs 1-2)

Paul said the problem was deeper than that. He attributes, what we today call 'a heresy', to the activity of deceiving spirits and demons. Those are strong words which will be scoffed at by many people, even some theologians, in our modern culture. But Paul says this revelation regarding the source of heresies came from the Holy Spirit. The 'later times' he refers too needn’t be seen as meaning hundreds of years later, or in 2024, because the false teaching was already happening when Paul wrote this letter some thirty years after Christ ascended. What is the evidence that servants of Satan are behind such heresies? (vs 3-5)

I'd say it's because many heresies reject things that God created, and which He called good. In the example Paul gives, marriage was one such thing being attacked. It wasn't a case like when he wrote to Christians at Corinth, and said there were advantages in being single, and that some Christians might choose not to marry so they were more free to serve God. The demonic teachings appear to have put a stigma on marriage and forbade it. This was one of the problems with Roman Catholic teaching that led people like Martin Luther to want to bring people back to what the Bible teaches, rather than what men had added.

In the matter of forbidding certain foods, it's likely because false teachers were saying that Christians must obey all the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. Jews weren't allowed to eat the flesh of pigs, and a number of other creatures. But those laws were likely given as a means of teaching the Israelites to discern between clean and unclean things. However, early in the days of the New Testament, God gave the apostle Peter a vision of a large sheet coming out of heaven with all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. A voice said: “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter replied: “Surely not, Lord! I've never eaten anything impure or unclean.” And the voice said to him: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:9-15)

Paul stated what a Christian’s understanding should be concerning marriage and foods when he said “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” Sadly, he also says that those who belittle what God created as good, and to be received with thanksgiving, “have departed from the faith”. This means that professing Christians today who reject God's pattern for marriage as being a faithful relationship between a man and a woman, have been deceived. So too, any Christians who insist that veganism is something all Christians must embrace. What was Paul's prescription to Timothy for countering the demonic doctrines that we see even today in the attacks made on marriage? (vs 6)

He was to pass on to the Christians in Ephesus all the things that Paul had been writing about in this letter, including that marriage and foods were God's creation, and should be received with thanksgiving. Blessed is the man or woman who is in a Church today that hasn't been led astray by the doctrines of demons, but teaches the faith as it was passed on to us by the apostles.