Bible Talks - Sunday Night Church
Series: Guard the Gospel · Talk No. 2
The charge to suffer for the gospel
Sunday, 17 December 2006
I. HANDING ON THE TRUTH (verses I, 2)
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
The first chapter of 2 Timothy that Chris spoke about last week, ended with Paul's sorrowful reference to the widespread defection among Christians in the Roman province of Asia. Onesiphorus and his household seem to have been the outstanding exception. Now Paul urges Timothy that he too, in the midst of the general landslide, must stand his ground. It is the first of several similar exhortations in the letter which summon Timothy to resist the prevailing mood. Timothy had been called to responsible leadership in the church not only in spite of his natural diffidence but in the very area where the apostle's authority was being repudiated. It is as if Paul says to him: 'Never mind what other people may be thinking or saying or doing. Never mind how weak and shy you yourself may feel. As for you, Timothy, be strong!'
Of course if his exhortation had stopped there, it would have been futile, even absurd. He might as well have told a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as command a man as timid as Timothy to be strong. But Paul's is not a summons to Timothy to be strong in himself—to set his jaw and grit his teeth—but to 'be inwardly strengthened' by means of 'the grace that is in Christ Jesus'. Another translation puts it: ‘Take strength from the grace of God -which is ours in Christ Jesus.' Timothy is to find his resources for ministry not in his own nature but in Christ's grace. It is not only for our own salvation that we are dependent on God’s grace but also for our lives of service also.
The Apostle Paul indicates the kind of ministry for which Timothy will need to strengthen himself by Christ's grace. In Chapter 1 Paul had exhorted him to hold the faith and guard the Gospel. He must do more than that, however, he must also pass it on.
If the disloyalty of others made it imperative that Timothy should guard the truth with loyalty, the approaching death of the Apostle Paul made it equally imperative that Timothy should make arrangements for the handing down of the truth intact to the next generation. In this transmission of truth from hand to hand Paul envisages four stages:
· First, the faith has been entrusted to Paul by Christ. This is why he has called it 'my deposit'. It is his by deposit from God, not by invention. As an apostle of Jesus Christ he insists that his gospel is 'not man's gospel', whether his own composition or somebody else's. Nor is he relying purely on human tradition. On the contrary, he could write: 'I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ'.
· Secondly, what has been entrusted to Paul by Christ, Paul in his turn has entrusted to Timothy. So 'my deposit' becomes 'your deposit', and 'what has been entrusted to me' is now 'the truth that has been entrusted to you'. The reference to the many witnesses shows that the apostolic faith was not a secret tradition handed on privately to Timothy.
This statement of Paul's became important in the following century when Gnostic heresy had grown and spread. For example, in chapter 25 of his Prescriptions against Heretics written around AD 200, Tertullian of Carthage was particularly writing against Gnostics who claimed both to have had private revelations of their own and to possess secret traditions handed down from the apostles. Tertullian would not allow that the apostles had 'entrusted some things openly to all and some things secretly to a few'. For in Paul’s appeal to Timothy to guard the deposit 'there is no hinting at a hidden doctrine, but a command not to admit any but the teaching which he had heard from Paul himself and openly before many witnesses.
This is still an important issue today. When you go to Bible College, such as Moore or SMBC you don’t learn secret Christian stuff that isn’t available to anyone else. You do learn the scriptures more thoroughly, you are equipped with the skills to teach them, but there’s no secret knowledge available only to the ordained.
· Thirdly, what Timothy has heard from Paul he is now to 'entrust to faithful men', of whom there are evidently some left among the many deserters of Asia. The men Paul has in mind must be primarily ministers of the word, whose chief function is to teach, Christian elders whose responsibility it would be to preserve the tradition. Such Christian elders are 'God's stewards', as Paul called them in Titus 1:7, because both God's household and God's truth are committed to their trust. And the fundamental requirement in stewards is trustworthiness. They must be 'faithful men'.
· Fourthly, such men must be the sort of men who 'will be able to teach others also'. The ability or competence which Timothy must look for in such men will consist partly in their integrity or faithfulness of character and partly in their ability to teach.
The four stages in the handing on of the truth, which Paul envisages are: from Christ to Paul, from Paul to Timothy, from Timothy to 'faithful men', and from 'faithful men' to 'others also'. This is the true 'apostolic succession'. This is what we refer to in the Nicene creed when we say we believe in ‘the one, holy, apostolic church.’ This apostolic tradition, 'the good deposit', is now to be found firstly in the New Testament and secondly in those who faithfully teach it. ///
In the rest of this second chapter of this letter Paul enlarges on the teaching ministry to which Timothy has been called. He illustrates it by using six vivid metaphors. Tonight we’re going to look at the first three of these which are favourite images with Paul —the soldier, the athlete and the farmer. He has made use of them several times in other letters to reinforce a wide variety of truths. They all emphasize that Timothy's work will be strenuous, involving both labour and suffering.
METAPHOR 1: THE DEDICATED SOLDIER (verses 3, 4)
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. *No soldier on service gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to satisfy the one who enlisted him.
Paul's prison experiences had given him ample opportunity to watch Roman soldiers and to meditate on the parallels between the soldier and the Christian. In earlier letters he has referred to the warfare with principalities and powers in which the Christian soldier is engaged, the armour which he must put on and the weapons which he must use. But here the 'good soldier of Christ Jesus' is so called because he is a dedicated man, who shows his dedication in his willingness both to suffer and to concentrate.
Soldiers on active service do not expect a safe or easy time. They take hardship, risk and suffering as a matter of course. These things are part and parcel of a soldier's calling. That guy Tertullian again, wrote 'No soldier comes to the war surrounded by luxuries, not goes into action from a comfortable bedroom, but from the makeshift and narrow tent, where every kind of hardness and severity and unpleasantness is to be found.' Similarly, the Christian should not expect an easy time. If he is loyal to the gospel, he is sure to experience opposition and ridicule. He must 'share in suffering' with his comrades-inarms.
The soldier must be willing to concentrate as well as to suffer. When on active service he does not 'get himself entangled in business'. On the contrary, he frees himself from civilian affairs, in order to give himself to soldiering and so satisfy his superior officers or 'be wholly at his commanding officer's disposal'.
As Christians, we are meant to live in the world and not opt out of it, so we cannot avoid ordinary duties at home, at work, school, and in the community. Indeed as Christians we should be outstandingly conscientious in doing and not dodging them. Nor should we forget, as Paul reminded Timothy in his first letter, either that 'everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving' or that 'God . . . richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy.'
So all 'secular' activities are not forbidden to the good soldier of Jesus Christ, but rather we should avoid 'entanglements' which, though they may be perfectly innocent in themselves, may hinder us from fighting Christ's battles. This applies specially to the Christian minister or pastor. He is called to devote himself to teaching and tending Christ's flock, and there are other Scriptures besides this one to say that if possible he should not have the additional "burden of having to get his living in some 'secular' employment.
In the ordination service for ministers, the Bishop instructs the candidates:
“because you cannot perform the difficult task of leading men to salvation without the doctrine and guidance of the holy scriptures, you should read and study them well, and shape your life and the lives of those for whom you are responsible, according to their teaching. And for the same reason you should put away, as much as possible, all worldly preoccupations and pursuits.”
The application of this verse is not just to pastors. Every Christian is in some degree a soldier of Christ, even if he is as timid as Timothy. For, whatever our temperament, we cannot avoid the Christian conflict. And if we are to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must be dedicated to the battle, committing ourselves to a life of discipline and suffering, and avoiding whatever may 'entangle' us and so distract us from it.
METAPHOR II: THE LAW-ABIDING ATHLETE
An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules,
Paul now turns from the image of the Roman soldier to that of the competitor in the Greek games. In athletic contests, whether the ancient Greek games or modern events such as the Olympics the competitors don’t just giveg a random display of strength or skill. On the contrary every sport had its rules and every event has its prize. But you don’t get the prize if you don’t follow the rules.
The Christian life is regularly likened in the New Testament to a race, not in the sense that we are competing against each other but in the strenuous self-discipline of training, in laying aside every hindrance and in keeping the rules.
We are to run the Christian race 'lawfully'. The Christian is under obligation to live 'lawfully', to keep the rules, to obey God's moral laws. True, he is not 'under law' as a way of salvation, to commend him to God, but he is under law as a guide to conduct. So far from abolishing his law God first sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us 'in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us', and now sends his Holy Spirit to live in us and to write his law in our hearts! Further, there is no crown otherwise, not of course because our law-abiding could ever justify us, but rather because without it we give evidence that we have never been justified. James said, “you want to see my faith. Look at my works.” The way we live must reflect the faith we have.
Again competing 'according to the rules' has a wider application than to our moral conduct. Paul is describing Christian service, not just Christian life. He is saying that rewards for service depend on faithfulness. The Christian teacher must teach the truth, building with solid materials on the foundation of Christ, if his work is to endure and not be burned up. So Timothy must faithfully pass on the deposit to faithful men. Only if, like Paul, he perseveres to the end, so that he too fights the good fight, finishes the race and keeps the faith, can he expect on the last day to receive that most coveted of all prizes, 'the crown of righteousness'.
METAPHOR III: THE HARDWORKING FARMER (verse 6)
It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops:
If the athlete must play fair, the farmer must work hard. He 'toils' at his job. Hard work is indeed indispensable to good farming. This is particularly so in developing countries before mechanization arrives. In such circumstances successful farming depends as much on sweat as on skill. However poor the soil, how lousy the weather, or disinclined the farmer, he must keep at his work. Having put his hand to the plough, he must not look back. Unlike the soldier and the athlete the farmer's life is totally devoid of excitement, remote from all glamour of peril and of applause. (Unless of course he’s a NZ sheep farmer and his dog wins the National Sheep Dog Trials).
Yet the first share of the crops goes to the hardworking farmer. He deserves it. His good yield is due as much to his toil and perseverance as to anything else. That is why a sluggard never makes a good farmer, as the book of Proverbs insists. He always loses his harvest, either because he is asleep when he ought to be reaping, or because he was too lazy to plough the previous autumn, or because he has allowed his fields to become overgrown with weeds.
To what kind of harvest is the apostle referring?
First, holiness is a harvest. True, holiness is 'the fruit of the Spirit', in that the holy Spirit is himself the chief farmer who produces a good crop of Christian qualities in the believer's life. But we have our part to play. We are to 'walk by the Spirit' and 'sow to the Spirit', following his promptings and disciplining ourselves, if we would reap the harvest of holiness. 'Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap'.”No gain without pain” applies in the spiritual realm as much as on the sports arena.
For example J.C.Ryle in his famous book “Holiness” wrote:
'I will never shrink from declaring my "belief that there are no "spiritual gains without pains", I should as soon, expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible-reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sundays. Our God is a God who works by means, and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them.'
Secondly, the winning of converts is a harvest too. 'The harvest is plentiful,' Jesus said, referring to the many who are waiting to hear and receive the gospel Again in this harvest it is of course 'God who gives the growth'. But again we have no liberty to be idle. Further, both the sowing of the good seed of God's word and the reaping of the harvest are hard work, especially when the labourers are few. Souls are hardly won for Christ, not by the slick, automatic application of a formula, but by tears and sweat and pain, especially in prayer and in sacrificial personal friendship. Again, it is 'the hardworking farmer' who can expect good results.
So far, then, we have looked at the first three metaphors with which Paul illustrates the duties of the Christian worker. By them he has isolated three aspects of wholeheartedness which should be found in Timothy, and in all those who like Timothy seek to pass on to others 'the good deposit' they have themselves received: the dedication of a good soldier, the law-abiding obedience of a good athlete and the painstaking labour of a good farmer. Without these we cannot expect results. There will be no victory for the soldier unless he gives himself to his soldiering, no wreath for the athlete unless lie keeps the rules, and no harvest for the farmer unless he toils at his farming.
5. THE WAY TO UNDERSTANDING (verse 7]
Think over what I say, for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything.
If Timothy is to know and understand the truth, as expressed in these metaphors, two processes will be necessary, the one human and the other divine. Timothy himself must 'think over' or 'reflect on' the apostle's teaching, listening to it carefully and applying his mind to it. For then the Lord will grant him understanding in everything. If we are to receive understanding from the Lord, we must consider what the apostle is saying. This is a good example of Paul's self-conscious apostolic authority. It is clear evidence that Paul believed his teaching to be not his own but the Lord's. Indeed, in the following verses, he equates 'my gospel' with 'the word of God'.
Some Christians never get down to any serious Bible study. The reason may of course be purely laziness. Or it may be some sort of misunderstanding and they believe that the Holy Spirit will reveal all to them without their having to put in the hard yards.
The error that comes from falling off the other side of the plank is to put your mind to grappling with the text of Scripture, comparing translations, consulting concordances and pouring over commentaries, but forgetting that it is the Lord alone who imparts understanding, and that he imparts it as a gift. This is a particular trap when you study at Bible College. You can get so engrossed in the academic aspects of learning from God’s word that you forget to actually let it speak to you.
So we must not divorce what God has joined together. For the understanding of Scripture is a balanced combination of thought and prayer. We must do the considering, and the Lord will give the understanding.
SUFFERING A CONDITION OF BLESSING (verses 8-13)
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel, the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
I fwe endure, we shall also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
The Apostle Paul reinforces his theme of “No pain, no gain” from experience—the experience first of Christ, then of himself as an apostle and lastly of all Christian believers.
Christ is to be remembered as the one who is both 'risen from the dead' and 'descended from David', these remind us both of his divine-human person and of his saving work.
Paul has suffered, is suffering at the time of writing, for the gospel. He is having to endure the painful indignity of wearing chains 'like a common criminal' although he is a Roman citizen and an innocent man. But, though he is chained, God's word is not. God's word was spreading through many others, and in particular Timothy.
Our common Christian experience (verses 11—13) Paul now quotes a current saying or fragment of an early Christian hymn which he pronounces reliable. The death with Christ which he mentions refers, to our death to self and to safety, as we take up the cross and follow Christ. Only if we share Christ's death on earth, shall we share his life in heaven. Only if we share his sufferings and endure, shall we share his reign in the hereafter.
It is this principle which took Jesus Christ through a lowly birth and a shameful death to his glorious resurrection and heavenly reign. It is this principle which had brought Paul his chains and prison cell, in order that the elect might obtain salvation and glory. It is the same principle which makes the soldier willing to endure hardship, the athlete discipline and the farmer toil. It is ridiculous, therefore, to expect our Christian life and service to cost us nothing.
We’ll look at the 3 other metaphors next time which will be the 14th January when SNC resumes after Christmas. Next Sunday there is no 6pm church. Instead we have the 11pm Christmas Eve service.
