Hey, everybody, welcome back.
As we start a new week,
thanks for being here as we continue through
2 Timothy.
Today, we’re in the third chapter,
moving into the 10th verse,
kind of a new section,
what my study Bible calls
Paul’s charge to Timothy,
which is sort of
in keeping with the whole theme of both of these letters, but in this
passage, kind of more specific.
So,
a lot of, I think a lot of really good word stuff in the next few
days that we’ll look at,
but let’s go ahead and read through a few verses before we come
back and talk about them.
So, verse 10 here,
“Now you’ve observed my teaching,
my conduct, my aim in life,
my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,
my persecutions, and my suffering, the things that have happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.
What persecutions I endured.
Yet the Lord rescued me from all of those.
Indeed, all who want to live a godly life
in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” So,
why don’t we stop there,
Michael?
Just a couple verses.
But in some ways it may seem odd to us,
but Paul is very comfortable using himself as an example.
He does this in a few places in the New Testament,
and it’s not,
although I suppose you could argue
that there may be arrogance in it,
and some would make that case,
I think most of us don’t read it that way.
Paul has a great deal of confidence in what Jesus has done in him.
Paul has a great deal
of confidence in his ministry.
Paul has a great deal of confidence in his path as he follows Jesus.
And therefore, he’s not reluctant to say to people,
“Do what I do.
Listen to me.” Paul is a leader,
and he understands that
in that role,
part of his task is to lead.
And that means telling people,
“Go where I go.
Do it the way that I do it.” And to some extent,
maybe, Michael, that makes us uncomfortable,
but I think it’s sort of built into the role.
And Paul doesn’t lean into it all the time,
but there are places,
and I think we see a glimpse of it here,
where he’s comfortable doing so.
He does that, Clint, in the breadth of everything that he’s writing.
And, you know, I don’t want to bore you.
I’m sure that you know this,
but it’s a reminder to everybody with us here today
that the downside, if you allow me to use that language,
it’s certainly a thing to be aware of.
When we study scripture in this kind of
piece by piece,
slower sort of method is, as we look
down into the text and we see it in these smaller sections,
we can dig deeper into some of the
language, some of the context,
some of the culture stuff.
What we miss is the context.
We forget this would have been read in one sitting.
It would have been read,
and all of it would have been
heard together.
And that’s often in mind as a writer comes to it.
So today,
you know, I’m struck by this language,
as Paul does use himself as a lens,
like you’re saying, Clint,
I’m struck by the fact that he chooses to use suffering as the example.
He chooses for that to be the
interpretive touch point by which he wants to say that’s going to be a part of the shared
Christian experience.
And if you think to yourself,
wow, Paul, that’s kind of a weird place to dig in,
to say that this is a thing that Christians should expect.
I think a lot of Christians,
especially modern Christians, would say that we don’t particularly like suffering and would like
to minimize that if at all possible.
And I would just encourage you,
this would have been read just
a few paragraphs earlier.
So I’m just here at the beginning of chapter three,
and I’m looking here specifically verse four.
I’m struck by,
as he critiques those opponents,
Paul says,
they are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Isn’t it interesting,
as he defines the opponents as
being the ones who love pleasure,
they like the good stuff in life.
He comes to then define himself
and he says that Christians will suffer.
As they seek to live into the gospel,
they are going to
find persecutions, which I think most of us would agree are not pleasant.
They’re not pleasurable.
I think what we see happening here in that larger argument,
as he references himself as the antidote
to the opponent he’s arguing about,
we begin to see that this isn’t Paul,
I don’t think, at least I don’t read Paul as sort of pointing the finger at himself and saying, look,
supreme Christian leader.
I think what he’s saying is that look at someone who’s tried to live the faith as faithfully as possible.
I’ve hit major persecutions and suffering along the way.
I hear Paul saying,
I don’t count that as a proof that I’m doing it wrong because my life hasn’t been pure 100%
pleasure.
I actually count that as being faithful.
And if you’re willing to go with me there,
I think this makes sense.
Yeah, and I also think I’ve put this in conversation with the broader context of
many other places.
He says things like,
I’m the least of the apostles and I got it wrong.
I hid in this basket.
I did this thing.
It’s not as though he’s
always inconsistently patting himself on the back.
But Michael, this same, probably the best example of this,
2 Corinthians 11, what is sometimes called the fool’s boast,
Paul starts off and he kind of does a mini version of
the same thing here,
my teaching, my conduct,
but then he moves towards suffering.
Paul is,
I don’t know if I would say proud,
but he is certainly aware of the connection between his
faithfulness and his persecution.
And so he points to his suffering as a confirmation
that he has been faithful as a witness of Jesus Christ.
And we see it here explicitly,
indeed,
all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
Paul assumes that to be fact.
Paul understands that our following Jesus will put us at odds with the
world and will cause some backlash.
And he has lived that out enough in order to be able to
encourage Timothy with those words.
You have seen me,
you have watched me live the faith,
and you know where it led.
So don’t be surprised if you get some backlash as well.
Almost take that as a confirmation that you’re doing some good things.
You know what strikes me,
Clint, I’d be interested in your thought on this.
There are certainly, if you read Acts,
if you read some of the other pastoral letters,
we’ll get some references to these moments where Paul finds himself in position
where he is finding himself to be persecuted.
There are cases of that, Clint,
where Paul is actually being sought out,
he’s being impacted by the world.
But a majority of those,
if you’ll let me say it,
are actually moments in which Paul is being persecuted by the religious community,
by the Jewish church that he has been worshiping in.
That should be striking for us.
We shouldn’t read persecution as the church is against the world.
I think that’s a misreading of Paul.
I think
the church is often persecuted by its own misinterpretation of the gospel,
and I do think that matters, Clint.
Yeah,
Paul is often targeted specifically by religious people,
not by pagans, not by outsiders.
He is often most in conflict with those who are inside the circle,
not outside of it,
and that’s worth remembering.
So let’s push on here because he kind of turns
the lens that way.
So verse 12,
“Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
and then he contrasts that.
But wicked people and imposters will go from bad to
worse, deceiving others and being deceived.
But as for you,
continue in what you’ve learned and
firmly believe, knowing from whom you learned it,
and how from childhood you have known the
sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
So yes, wicked people are out there,
imposters.
Again,
remember that Paul is talking about hypocrites.
He’s not talking about the Romans.
He’s talking about those who
portray themselves to be followers of Jesus, but are not.
They deceive others.
But as for you,
and this is where we move to this language of charge to Timothy,
continue in what you’ve learned.
It is amazing how often,
Michael, that Paul references the Christian life
as continuing,
as pressing on, as pushing forward,
as keeping at it and not sliding back,
not changing course, not switching lanes,
but continuing in what you know.
Paul, I think, assumes that growth is in
front of us if we continue to move forward.
And it’s very striking to me,
this language, and how often he uses it,
of just keep at it, persist, endure,
and persevere.
Those are favorites among Paul’s words of counsel for believers,
and I think that’s really instructive.
I find these words here particularly interesting, Clint.
Continue in what you’ve learned,
firmly believed,
knowing from whom you learned it,
and how from childhood you’ve known the sacred writings
that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
I’m not going to suggest to you that this is some formula that the church needs to try to adopt.
I find it
instructive, the idea that we should remember the core of the gospel,
that thing that was taught to
us in its beautiful simplicity,
and it should matter who taught it to us.
There’s an insight in that, Clint.
We should be careful who we allow to interpret the scriptures in our lives.
I’m going to download this.
I realize there’s a cacophony of voices coming to the scriptures to
interpret them, and I hope you do bring a substantial measure of
discernment to those conversations.
I hope that you take very seriously who you allow to open the scriptures and help
shape your imagination, because we should.
We should remember who taught them to us,
because that does matter.
The church has gotten that wrong historically.
It’s easy to do.
We hear someone who’s compelling,
or passionate, or charismatic,
or whatever the case might be.
But friends,
who we allow to open the scriptures for us will radically transform what we hear in
them.
I think there’s great wisdom being offered here to a younger pastor.
I know as someone who
considers myself young myself,
I think having wise counsel,
someone who can help you see some
of the boundaries on the road,
is unbelievably helpful, because there are times when,
if left to your own device,
you might wander off.
You might find yourself in a totally different place,
and you wouldn’t do so intentionally.
That’s the danger of it.
I think let’s have those wise men
and women of the faith who have something to teach us.
Let’s listen to them.
Let’s weight their words differently than we weight any other word we stumble across,
and I think that’s good wisdom.
I think we really see that in these last couple verses,
Michael.
Let me read 16 and 17.
All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,
for rebuke,
for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient,
equipped for every good work.
There are a couple of fascinating things in these verses to me,
and these are very popular verses, I suspect.
Maybe you’ve heard them.
In the church, they are used to support our understanding of the Bible, of scripture.
Keep in mind here that Paul
probably is referring to what we call the Old Testament,
but regardless, I think the principles hold.
All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching.
Now, what is that, as you just said, Michael, what does that depend on then?
It depends on the teacher.
It depends who is
the one instructing those who are being led in what the scripture means,
and what is it
useful for?
For correction,
for rebuke,
and for teaching,
and for training in righteousness.
And we can sometimes get into this idea where learning the scripture,
we think, is about our doctrine,
and that’s ultimately very,
very important.
But notice where we go in verse 17,
that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient
and equipped for good work.
So for Paul,
the idea of knowing scripture is always related to the idea of living out the faith,
of doing the work of Jesus Christ.
It’s not knowledge just for knowledge’s sake.
It’s not doctrine and theology
just for its own purpose.
It is always
a pathway to faithful living,
faithful service,
and faithful action.
And Michael,
there are times in the church where we’ve separated those ideas,
and I think when we do,
we’ve kind of struggled to really make the connection between
what we understand in scripture and how we live that out in the name of Jesus.
Well,
I want to be very clear here,
so hear me out all the way through here.
But it makes sense
that the later church,
as the church grew,
as we received 2 Timothy as a letter not just written
to the Ephesian church community,
but we began to understand that this is the word of God,
it makes sense that we zoned in or we focused in on verse 16,
and we became incredibly interested
in what does he mean by inspired?
You know, that for us became a real substantial question that
we could mine and reflect on,
and the inspiration of scripture became unto itself a very,
very deep theological subject of conversation.
That is interesting.
I think we can understand very
easily how the church gets to that place.
I want to be clear though,
as Paul’s writing this letter,
it is clear in context,
he’s not trying to settle the idea of what scripture is inspired to do and
how it’s inspired and to flush out a full theology of that.
If he had,
he would have said a lot more
and he probably wouldn’t have put it right here.
Well, what he’s doing in this moment is beautiful.
He’s suggesting,
yes, the Christian life is going to be filled with persecution.
It’s going to be
even filled with conflict as Christians try to sort through what is faithful theology.
In other words, what is faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ and what is outside the bounds of it.
Paul uses himself as an example of that,
but then notice what he does.
He instructs Timothy and says, “Timothy,
you can trust the teaching and be mindful of who teaches it,
but if it comes from the word of God,
that is useful for constructing a character which will lend us towards what?
Equipping for every good word.” It makes sense in the context if you read the letter.
I want to be
clear, there’s going to be interesting conversation that comes out of that idea of how does scripture
do that and how do we understand that?
That’s really outside the domain of today’s conversation.
As it fits in this letter,
I think it’s incredibly powerful to remember what the scriptures say,
have a way of forming the character of who we are.
Many Protestants, and I think maybe the main line,
chief among them, we should be honest with ourselves when we fail to take the scriptures
seriously, when we no longer give them place in our life because we don’t read them,
because we don’t take seriously the study of them,
because we don’t take seriously who’s teaching them.
In those moments when we miss an opportunity for the scriptures to form our deepest character, Clint,
those are moments in which I think we’re missing the point of what Paul is truly trying
to say to this young pastor.
He’s trying to say the scriptures will change us,
so take them seriously, take seriously who you let teach them,
and then you’ll see how that equips you to actually
serve in real meaningful ways.
It may not be explicit,
Michael, but I think it’s implied
through the broader context of the letter.
So what do we know about those who don’t live with a godly character?
We should not learn scripture from them,
right?
What is this letter about?
Warning Timothy about those people,
those men, who are teaching wrong things,
who are taking advantage of widows, who are using the gospel for their own ends,
who are building up portfolios
and money on the backs of other people.
And what, in looking at their character and examining how
they live their works,
what can we know about them?
We certainly
shouldn’t listen to them
in regard to how they teach,
because they don’t understand the scripture.
They don’t understand this useful, inspired word, and we know that because they’re not equipped to be proficient in good works.
And so for Paul,
this all fits together.
It’s all part of the bigger picture,
and I think that is helpful as we look at what he’s trying to accomplish throughout these two letters.
I think of the other very,
very popular, very famous illustration of scripture
that we have when the scriptures are called a sword.
I think sometimes the church thinks of
the scriptures as an offensive tool,
like a thing that we would use against the world or against
that other believer.
What I find striking about this,
Clint, is this is not about the church
going out and seeking out persecution or seeking out places of conflict.
This is about the church
understanding that the scripture transforms who we are.
By that, I mean church.
I mean our community,
our people trying to follow in the way of Jesus.
That is what the scriptures will do for us.
Now, will that have a kind of surgical blade to it?
It absolutely will.
It will prune stuff from our
community that does not belong.
It is not becoming upon those who are Jesus Christ followers.
But we should remember that the scriptures are, for us,
God’s tool and instrument for correction.
I think we should be very wary when we allow that inspiration to turn us as if the scriptures are a
thing that we wield against others.
I think that it’s not that it doesn’t have a footing,
but I do think it’s very tenuous when you put it in an argument like what Paul’s making.
I think it would be very difficult to make the case that the people that Paul are trying to
correct are not in the church.
The people that Paul is talking about scripture correcting
are church people, not outsiders.
He’s talking about insiders who subject themselves to scripture
in the hope of being proficient in good works in the name of Jesus Christ.
That very much is a word
to us, and I think we should read it as such.
Yeah, it’s a lot here today,
Clint, and we’re glad that you would join us for us.
Hopefully, there’s something that both encourages and maybe even
challenges today.
We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Until then, be blessed.
Thanks, everybody.