Paul's Letter to You

2 Timothy 3:13-4:5New International Version (NIV)

13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:² Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. ³ For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵ But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist,discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Paul’s letters to Timothy are filled with so many great instructions because of how personal they really are.  If we take these words as personal correspondence between teacher and student, between mentor and apprentice, between travel companions and friends then we are given the opportunity to see these letters written on a very personal level.  We often think of Timothy as a name of the Epistles but do we stop and think about Timothy the person very much?  I often wonder about the other half of these corresponding letters.  Did Timothy completely agree with all of Paul’s teachings?  Were there some theological debate in Timothy’s letters back to Paul?  How did Timothy choose to interpret and teach some of Paul’s more controversial instructions?  Was Timothy frustrated by those who wouldn’t listen to his teachings because of his youth?  And that is why Paul said, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” (2Tim4:12)  Again, we often forget about Timothy the individual when we read these awesome and inspiring words of Paul’s in response to Timothy but this week I found myself wondering a lot about what Timothy’s Letter to Paul might have said.  What did Timothy say in a correspondence that spawned these words in response from Paul?

I am sure an entire dissertation could have, and probably has been, written on Timothy’s responses to Paul so I won’t do that today but it is something to think about for this reason: what if we looked at Paul’s letters to Timothy as letters written directly to us?  When we do this we are able to draw some great conclusions as to how Paul envisions our role in the Church.  “...Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of...”(3:14)  In other words, follow your convictions.  Seems easy enough... that is until you get a group of convicted Christians together and realize just how different those convictions can be.  Your convictions and passions are going to be different than mine.  That is the beauty and the difficulty of the many differing opinions in a church.  Time and circumstances can alter the meaning words.  These differing convictions may lead each of us down differing paths but they all end at the same place: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and kingdom.”(4:1)  In the perfect world, our individual faiths would be continually checked against the Gospel of Christ and we would all be so willing to leave our pride behind that we keep growing and progressing closer and closer to the Will of God together.  This may seem impossible given today’s climate but I challenge you think differently.  Being a follower of Christ is difficult.  That difficulty grows exponentially given the polarization and rhetoric used in today’s world but we must rise above it.  Don’t be so set in your ways that you are unwilling to challenge yourself.  Finding truth is a pursuit that takes an entire lifetime.  The minute we think we have something completely figured out, something comes along and challenges that belief.  That is when we get to decide if we are going to be stagnant or continue to grow.  Growth comes from the pursuit of truth.

The next piece of instruction that Paul offers us is this: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage -- with great patience and careful instruction.”(4:2)  These instructions aren’t just for preachers, ministers and priests.  We are all charged with the duty of preaching the word in some way.  While some stand in front of congregations, others preach through teaching, coaching, farming, nursing, playing music, or any number of other ways.  Every single one of our words and actions is a form of preaching the word.  We often correct and rebuke those who disagree with us but how often do we encourage?  We must practice great patience and careful instruction in order to effectively correct, rebuke and encourage.  Again, we are doing the kingdom of God no favors by simply calling out those who disagree with us.  That is a simple rebuke.  Where is the encouragement and correction?  Where is the great patience and careful instruction?  We cannot become so set in our version of truth that we only rebuke those who disagree with us.  We must also encourage and correct with great patience and careful instruction.  

I said last week that Paul’s words could have been set in modern times and the same rings true today as we read through Paul’s letter to us: “...the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”(4:3)  I don’t always agree The Message translation but in this instance it provides a simple way of saying what Paul says here: “You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food -- catchy opinions that tickle their fancy.”  So much solid teaching has been thrown out the window.  We all can recall one of those preachers who made the news with their prediction that the world was going to end.  The only reason they were on the news is so we could all poke fun at their prediction.  Not a solid teaching by any stretch of the imagination for no one knows when Christ will return.  We laugh at them when the day they predicted comes and goes and think how crazy they must be.  We ridicule, poke fun and think without hesitation that they are lunatics.  And yet, here we are 22 days from the election, and how many times have we heard that this election is the most important such election of our lifetimes?  How many times have we heard that America as we know it will end if person X is elected president?  Now compare that to the many claims of the lunatic ministers I was just talking about?  The same rhetoric and language is used to scare us into voting against person X.  We have lost our stomach for solid teaching and are filling ourselves up with junk food.  We are filling ourselves up with catchy opinions that tickle our fancy.  We are gathering around us a great number of teachers who say what our itching ears want to hear.  

You should read Paul’s letters to Timothy as if they were addressed directly to you if you get a chance this week.  Don’t read them thinking, “Boy, I wish, so and so would hear this.”  Read them with conviction.  Read them as if they are a meant to correct, rebuke, and encourage YOU with careful instruction and great patience.  Take these words to heart as Paul’s instructions to each one of us : pursue truth, preach the word, and do not surround yourself with only those opinions that itch your ears.