Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, once again Paul, writing from prison, reminds Timothy that Jesus’s grace is the source of power, and following Jesus is not easy. In this chapter, Paul gives Timothy metaphors of the jobs and the roles as examples of what it is like to follow Jesus. 2 Timothy chapter 2: Four Professions in One. If you’re just joining us, welcome to Share the Word, where we explain the New Testament’s biggest ideas chapter by chapter. Currently, we’re working our way through what are called the Pastoral Epistles.

These are letters from the Apostle Paul to younger men he had won to faith in Christ and who, because of their outstanding character and spiritual gifts, he had mentored to succeed him as leaders of the Christian movement. We are in the last of those letters, as far as the order in which Paul wrote them goes, 2 Timothy, and year is 67 or 68 A.D. This was a letter Paul penned at the end of his life in the Mamertine Prison, a dungeon in Rome where he is awaiting almost certain spiritual death. The Emperor Nero’s government had declared Christianity an illegal religion, and the first Roman persecution of Christians was raging. It was sent to Ephesus, where Paul’s lieutenant and son in the faith, Timothy, was then a pastor overseeing early churches.

Its tone, we noticed last time, is heavy, and understandably so, considering the circumstances, and Paul’s deep concern for Timothy’s emotional and spiritual well-being, as well as for the future of the Christian movement as a whole. Its continued expansion would now depend to a large extent on the performance of a second generation of spiritual leaders like Timothy. If you’re just joining us, you may want to hit the pause button and go back to the previous episode, number 200, which covers chapter 1 and explains the background of 2 Timothy more thoroughly. If you do, you will get a more complete understanding of what Paul wrote to Timothy at this critical time and why he wrote it. The episode was called Last Words. But now, chapter 2, it begins like this.

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. It does sound as if Paul is concerned about how Timothy is going to hold up under the weight of his growing responsibilities, and especially the pressure and danger of rising persecution. Paul has already urged him to fan into flame the spiritual gifts his responsibilities will require, which sounds like Paul is concerned that Timothy may be shrinking back a little.

Whether he has somehow heard that, or whether he just knew Timothy’s personality and disposition well enough by this time that he suspected it, he reminded him that the Holy Spirit is definitely not the author of any fear he was feeling, but the one who will supply him with the power, love, and discipline he needs to carry on with the courage and the faithfulness that will be required of him. Timothy was not Paul, who in the world could be, but Timothy was a young man Paul had great trust in, whom he had taught and modeled spiritual leadership to for now 15 years or so. A big part of his letter is expressing his love for and confidence in Timothy. But also, challenging and encouraging him to, as here, be strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace meaning the spiritual enablement that will allow him to do what he needs to do.

The instruction, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, is the reminder to Timothy that the process of preparing more leaders for Christian churches must continue. In Paul’s earlier letters, he has spent a lot of ink on what qualified leaders look like, both in character and abilities, and how essential good leaders who can model what it looks like to be a Christian are to the success of any church. We discussed this in detail in the episode Pass It On from Titus chapter 1. Paul believed it was critical to identify and train good leaders for the next generation. That’s what Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 2 are all about. Now he is giving Timothy one more pointed reminder to do this on purpose.

What I have taught and modeled to you over the years you’ve been with me, Timothy, it’s time for you to do with others now. I don’t know this through any scientific study, but my impression is the contemporary church is pretty weak in this area of intentionally identifying and preparing good spiritual leaders for the years ahead. We too often wait for people to kind of volunteer or for them to decide they are called, rather than intentionally being on the lookout for men with the qualities and gifts good spiritual leaders have and challenging them to consider this track for their lives.

I wonder how many younger Christians never even consider a life devoted to ministry because, like Timothy, they are a little timid by nature, don’t see themselves as a leader, but who may very well consider it and respond positively if someone they respect says, Hey, have you ever considered becoming a pastor or spending your life in some kind of Christian service? I see many of the qualities in you and the necessary gifts in you, and I admire the seriousness with which you take your faith. Really? Me? That literally may be all it takes, though, for the Holy Spirit to prompt someone toward a life of service with Christ. My twenty-something-year-old son came by to talk with me about something recently, and it turned out to be that the senior pastor of his church had approached him about this very thing, with this very challenge.

Now he’s really thinking about it, seriously praying about it. Identifying, inviting, setting up mentorships and leadership training programs on purpose is the biblically modeled way to prepare the best leaders for the next generation. I want to say that again. Identifying, inviting, setting up mentorships and leadership training programs on purpose is the biblically modeled way to prepare the best leaders for the next generation. Doesn’t it make sense to be intentional about this, as Jesus was, as Paul was, to enlist and prepare the best leaders possible for the most important work that gets done in this world? Okay, four professions in one.

What did I mean by that? Well, the apostle Paul, in the process of challenging and encouraging Timothy here, a young leader he prepared, wanted him to think about his role through four lenses. The first comes at verses 3 and 4, where he writes, Timothy, join me in suffering like a good soldier for Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. A soldier. The job of being a pastor, especially if you’re the leader of a small or medium-sized church, is really unlike any other job.

You can’t be very good at just one thing, have a narrowly focused skill set, like, say, a doctor, or a welder, or a photographer, or whatever. It requires many things. Paul tells Timothy he first needs to think of himself as a soldier. Why soldier? Well, a soldier has to be disciplined and also has to be willing to take orders. Timothy, like Paul, living in the Roman world, was very familiar with the disciplined soldiers of the empire.

The Roman legions, they’re legendary to this day. They conquered most of the known world because they were so well trained and so well disciplined. The carryover here is obvious. For Timothy to succeed, he had to remember and follow his training, all the things Paul had taught him, and his life had to stay personally disciplined. When you join the military, even in our day, you’re entering into something of a different world with some higher expectations and some more rules to follow than civilians have. The ministry is like that too.

There’s a higher standard that should be maintained. Sometimes you have to say no to things other people can do, to be careful, to be a good example. Sometimes you will be unfairly treated and feel unappreciated. Sometimes you’ll feel overwhelmed. There’s some suffering involved, and in some places in our world, a lot more suffering than what we go through here where I live. But soldiering is not easy.

By not entangled with civilian affairs, Paul means, in many ways, you must be willing to leave more mundane things behind, to turn away from meaningless distractions, and be prepared to fight the good fight. The ministry really does involve spiritual warfare, and that’s why this analogy is used by Paul often in his writings. Our allied enemies are the world, our flesh, and the devil. We can’t let the world press us into its mold, Paul has told us. We can’t let our sinful nature get the best of us and so disqualify ourselves by doing something stupid, something unacceptable for a man who is teaching and modeling godliness to others. And we must be spiritually alert to recognize the devil’s schemes and not get outflanked by him.

These are everyday battles when you’re in a ministry. Most importantly, just as in the military, there must be respect for and obedience to the chain of command to maintain good order and ensure success. A Christian minister is a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He is our commanding officer. Obeying Christ’s commands is demanding, but paramount. Pleasing Christ must be priority number one, not pleasing people.

Certainly not just pleasing ourselves. Paul had modeled all this to Timothy for years, and now he is challenging him to adopt the very same mindset. Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Next he says to him in verse 5, Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown unless by competing according to the rules. There aren’t any shortcuts, in other words. I remember a woman who apparently won the Boston Marathon years ago.

Until it was revealed, she had only jumped into the race near the end. Rosie Ruiz was her name. I thought of her when I read these lines from Paul. Yeah, Rosie checked in for the race, got her number, started the race with the pack, then at some point ducked out, rode the subway station to near the finish line, waited for a while, then jumped back on the course and looked remarkably fresh and not even sweaty as she crossed the finish line in first place. But there was no prize for Rosie. In fact, only shame.

She was disqualified, even from future races. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, All the runners compete in a race, but only one receives the prize. Run in such a way as to win the prize. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything they do it to receive a perishable crown. He’s referring to the wreath awarded to winners at the ancient games. But we an imperishable crown, referring to lasting rewards Christ will give us in heaven.

So he says, I do not run my race aimlessly. Instead, I discipline my body. I bring it under strict control so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified. What important counsel for anyone who decides to pursue the ministries of a vocation. It really is like a lifelong race, and you must have endurance to stay in it. There are ups and downs, unforeseen turns in the road.

There will be times you question, Is this worth it? There will be times and temptations that come at you out of nowhere, which, if you toy with them, can destroy you. We must recognize and decisively turn away from the traps. I don’t need to tell stories here about people who have started out in the ministry strong, but did not have the necessary endurance to finish well, or sad stories about those who have been disqualified because they did not keep the rules. There have been too many. When you’re in a position of spiritual leadership, you have to remind yourself daily, I am no exception.

I must keep the rules. The kind of rules we find clearly spelled out in these pastoral epistles, keeping our eyes on the prize, as we say. Again, Paul had modeled all this for Timothy so well, he could say at the end of his life, without any pride, without any wrong pride, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. So Timothy, he’s saying, conduct your life like a winning athlete. And then he said, The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to get a share of the crops.

Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Being a farmer is still very hard work. How important and valuable that work is, too. But try and imagine how much harder it was before cultivators and tractors and pesticides and combine harvesters. In Timothy and Paul’s world, farmers tilled and plowed by hand, back-breaking work. They planted by hand.

They weeded by hand. They harvested by hand. Ridiculously hard work by our standards. But that’s an analogy Paul holds out here before Timothy. To be good at the ministry is hard work. Not usually physically hard, but definitely mentally hard, emotionally hard, spiritually draining.

Yes. Paul had told Timothy a few years before, in the letter we call First Timothy, in chapter five, elders who lead well are worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. He was talking there about paying the kind of men Timothy would choose who were really gifted at leading in preaching and teaching and who worked hard at it. But he also wrote elsewhere that anybody who was in the ministry just as a job, just for the money, was unworthy of such a high calling. Money cannot be the motivation for this kind of work. The harvest referred to is not getting wealthy or flashing a Rolex or wearing $1,200 suits on Sundays.

No, the harvest is the good you will see produced in people’s lives through your hard work. That’s the return that matters to a real pastor: the souls that get saved, the lives that get changed, the Timothys you inspire and train up who will carry the work of the ministry on after you. That’s what makes it worthwhile here. And Christ’s well done, good and faithful servant is what will make it well done in the future. So, Timothy, keep plowing, keep planting, keep watering, and God will produce a rewarding harvest through your hard work. Maybe if you have a Bible open at this point, you are looking at this chapter and thinking, I thought you said this lesson was about four professions, Paul.

I’m only seeing three here: soldier, athlete, farmer. Well, we have to skip ahead several verses. There’s a lot of other things that come up in this chapter. This whole letter is chock full of important stuff Paul wanted to leave with Timothy, since he realized this would probably be their last communication. But staying with the theme we are on, look down at verse 15. It reads like this in the Christian Standard Bible: Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.

I know you may be thinking, I don’t get the connection, but I assure you, Timothy got the connection. The word translated correctly teaching in the translation I read, or accurately handling in several others, or rightly dividing in the old King James Version, is a technical term in Greek used for carefully cutting material, literally cutting it straight. It’s a term Paul would have used and Timothy would have understood because the trade Paul was trained in was leatherworking. He was skilled at making tents and other leather goods. At times throughout his ministry years, he had needed to work at that to fund the next phase of their ministry, to pay for travel or lodging or food. To this day, I hear the term tent making to mean a second job a pastor does to keep the bills paid while doing the ministry if it’s not paying him adequately.

Timothy no doubt worked as Paul’s helper in this trade, occasionally at least. So Paul was using a technical term here about cutting material carefully, measuring it, marking it, cutting it straight, which is absolutely necessary to stitching together a nice tent or creating a nice satchel for your customer or whatever a skilled workman was creating. My nephew has a business designing and creating leather goods at the highest level. It’s very precise. It takes time. It requires skill.

Timothy, you know how precisely we have to cut the leather when constructing a tent. That’s how precisely you ought to handle God’s Word. Be diligent in this. Committed to this, so you are sure you are teaching God’s Word accurately. Every Christian can read the Bible these days. It’s readily available, 50 translations or more, and anyone reasonably intelligent can get the general idea, get the author’s drift, as we say.

But a pastor-teacher entrusted to feed God’s flock has to be more skilled than that. He needs to have some good study tools. He must be able to understand the rules and apply the rules of interpretation. His mind must be saturated with God’s truth from his own personal study so he can accurately explain and apply God’s Word to his listeners. This is obligation number one for someone in the role of a pastor-teacher in a local church, or for someone presuming to teach God’s Word on a podcast like Share the Word. Consider what I say, Paul says.

May the Lord give you understanding in all these things. Think about these analogies, Timothy. The Lord will help you discern what I’m saying and understand how to apply it as you lead God’s people. I don’t have any idea where this podcast will travel in the weeks, months, years ahead. But we’re praying that someday someone will hear this episode in West Africa, and God will use it to challenge them to dedicate their life to ministry in their generation. And someone will hear it in India, and some listener will find it in Central America, and who knows, maybe my own son will actually click on my podcast someday and hear God’s call to ministry through Paul’s challenges to Timothy in this letter.

And I also hope existing church leaders will hear it and consider how important it is to identify, invite, mentor, and train the next generation of spiritual leaders on purpose. Every generation needs new spiritual leaders who will rise to the challenge, and man does our world ever need it. Need more disciplined, well-trained, hard-working, diligent students of God’s Word to lead the Church of Christ into the challenging days ahead. Who will carry on like good soldiers, disciplined athletes, hard-working farmers, Christian leaders who will keep accurately proclaiming the Word of God’s truth until they finish their course. This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul.

I know that the Apostle Paul was giving Timothy critical instructions about the aspect of being a good pastor of a church and the obligations that they held. And it certainly struck a chord with me as I recalled some of those difficult days that we’ve all faced as pastors. But I’d like to expand it a bit because I know that every one of us who follows Christ experiences the difficulties and the spiritual warfare as well. And here’s the challenge. When you encounter someone who you recognize holds that special gift, and I think we’ve all seen it in someone, encourage them. You may be the instrument of God that raises up the next Billy Graham.

Whether they become a pastor or go on to share the gospel with others, we could never begin to calculate the ripple effect that could happen, but God does. When we spread the good news, we will feel like that soldier in the battle, and we will be enticed not to follow the rules of the race, and in the end we lose. And we will be expected to put in the hard work necessary for the harvest, as well as study the Word of God so that we are able to share God’s Word accurately.