Tag Archives: Timothy

PARTNER WITH TIMOTHY

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Philippians 2:19-20, 22-24 NLT
[19] “If the Lord Jesus is willing, I hope to send Timothy to you soon for a visit. Then he can cheer me up by telling me how you are getting along. [20] I have no one else like Timothy, who genuinely cares about your welfare…
[22] But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a son with his father, he has served with me in preaching the Good News. [23] I hope to send him to you just as soon as I find out what is going to happen to me here. [24] And I have confidence from the Lord that I myself will come to see you soon.”

Young Timothy, half Jew, half Gentile, which was of no consequence to Paul, was a very special person in Paul’s life. Paul “discovered” him on one of his missionary journeys.

https://gotquestions.org, article “Who was Timothy in the Bible?”, presents a thorough resume of Timothy, his relationship to Paul and his role in the early church.

There is no doubt that Paul loved this young man, mentored him in his personal life and in leadership, and entrusted the faith to him to guard, live out, and pass on to the next generation.

Timothy not only acted as Paul’s companion and messenger, but he was also pastor of the church in Ephesus, a significant church in Asia Minor.

Two of Paul’s letters were  written  to Timothy, one from which we get his instructions for church leadership which are relevant for local churches today.

Although there were other young men in Paul’s life who assisted him in various ways in his missionary enterprise, Timothy was the one whom Paul trusted and affirmed because of Timothy’s love, loyalty, and faithfulness to him.

Paul writes Timothy’s commendation and recommendation to the Philippian church which speaks of a close and loving relationship because of the trust and service the young man gave to the older man, like a son to a father. Paul may not have had biological sons but what could have been better than having a “true son in the faith”?

Paul taught Timothy not to be intimidated by those who thought he was too young to be of any use in the church. Timothy had proved himself to be a respected leader despite his youth.

1 Timothy 4:12 NIV
[12]”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.”

Through this relationship, Paul had a partner who faithfully served him. He was able to entrust at least some of his ministry and his legacy to a trustworthy younger man who would continue his work into the next generation. So he encouraged Timothy…

2 Timothy 2:2 NIV
[2] “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

How important, in today’s church, where apostasy is rife and many leaders are wolves in sheep’s clothing, that faithful older men mentor faithful younger men to safeguard the truth and pass it on intact to succeeding generations. What better way to learn than through loving  companionship, as Jesus did with His disciples! Bible schools may have their place but on-the-job training, person-to-person, doing life together, cements not only knowledge but understanding and experience invaluable to any effective ministry.

O, that there would be more Paul/Timothy partnerships to secure the future of and pass on the truth about Jesus to the churches in the face of apostasy in every generation.

A DRINK OFFERING

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A DRINK OFFERING

“But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But your know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I know how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.” Philippians 2:17-24.

Did Paul’s readers understand what he was saying?

As a Jewish rabbi, he was steeped in the knowledge of the Torah and would have been familiar with the intricacies of the sacrificial system. As a believer in Jesus Christ, he would have understood the symbolic meaning of the sacrifices.

The daily offering of a lamb, morning and evening was to be accompanied by their grain, oil and drink offerings which were a food offering presented to the Lord.

“This is what you are to offer on the altar regularly each day: two lambs a year old. Offer one in the morning and the other at twilight. With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from pressed olives, and a quarter of a hin of wine as a drink offering… a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.” Exodus 29:38-41, 41b.

Obviously God did not need food – the sacrifice was what the people gave out of their resources to symbolise the Lamb of God, Jesus, whom the Father gave for the sin of the world. The drink offering symbolised the blood that was poured out for us just as the body of the lamb was a picture of the body of Jesus given for us.

Paul was expanding on his song about Jesus who had laid aside His deity and His privileges to become human, humbled Himself even further until He was nothing by becoming a slave and a sacrifice for our sin. Paul saw himself as the accompanying drink offering, pouring his own life out on the sacrifice of his Lord as a pleasing offering to God.

Why was Paul telling the Philippians this? Was he trying to tell them how good he was? Was he boasting about his humility? Not likely! As a rabbi, he had the right to call people to follow him and to imitate him. As a disciple of Jesus, he was following Him.

“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1.

Since Jesus had poured His life out as an offering so that others mght live, Paul was acting as a true disciple by pouring out his life so that others would follow Jesus and live. He was not claiming to be the sacrifice – that was the role of Jesus alone. Paul was the drink offering that accompanied the sacrifice as a sweet aroma to God.

Like Jesus, Paul never called people to do what he was unwilling to do. He did not follow the tradition of the Pharisees, although he had been one, to say one thing and to do another. Even in his pre-Christian days, although he was wrong, he was sincere and fanatical in his obedience to the Law. Now he was equally zealous and fanatical in his obedience to Christ.

Paul was unstinting in his recommendation of Timothy. He had found him as a young believer and nurtured him in his faith like a loving father. Timothy had turned out to be one in a million. There will always be those who join the cause for whatever reason other than obedience to Jesus, as in Paul’s day, so today. But for Paul, Timothy was a joy because he had turned out to be a true son – serving the Lord as he served him, Paul, as his father in the faith.

Paul knew that Timothy would do anything he asked because he was a true son, growing up under the guidance of his mentor until he, too, would father others in the faith.

“Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 4:15.

How true that even today we have many leaders who dominate or milk the people but not many fathers – those who love and nurture their people and pour out their lives for them like a drink offering.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – ONE OF THEM

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CHAPTER 16

ONE OF THEM

“Paul came first to Derbe, then Lystra. He found a disciple there by the name of Timothy, son of a devout Jewish mother and a Greek father. Friends in Lystra and Iconium all said what a fine young man he was. Paul wanted to recruit him for their mission, but first took him aside and circumcised him so he wouldn’t offend the Jews who lived in those parts. They all knew that his father was a Greek.

“As they travelled from town to town, they presented the simple guidelines the Jerusalem apostles and leaders had come up with. That turned out to be most helpful. Day after day the congregations became stronger in faith and larger in size.” Acts 16:1-5 (The Message).

Doesn’t that sound like a contradiction? Paul has Timothy circumcised and then takes the message to the Gentile believers that they don’t have to be circumcised to be saved! At face value it seems so. However, we have to examine the motive behind the action.

In spite of his frustration with the stubbornness of the Jews and their unrelenting persecution, Paul had a passion to preach the Word of God to them first and did so whenever he could. Timothy was a member of the covenant people of God through his mother. In order to have as much favour with the Jews as possible, he wanted Timothy to carry the sign of the covenant in his body, so he had him circumcised.

This was not about salvation. This was about identification. It was Paul who said, “I have become all things to all people. To the Jew I became as a Jew…” Paul was not changing his belief but imitating his Master. Jesus did everything He could to identify with humanity.

He came from the Father to be one of us, “born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights as sons.” Galatians 4:4, 5 (NIV). He was baptised to express His identity with us and He was crucified to complete that identity by taking our debt upon Himself and paying for it with His own blood.

Paul would never compromise the truth he stood for and defended with his very life. Jesus is the only Saviour and His work sufficient, plus nothing, to justify the sinner and give him access to a holy God. Through Him we have been redeemed from the slave market of sin and restored to the Father as His sons and daughters

No additions, rule-keeping or rituals, can make us more acceptable to God than we are now. In fact, anything we think we need to do to gain God’s approval actually disqualifies us from sharing in God’s grace and in the life of Jesus. Not even the work we do “for Jesus” can influence Him towards us.

“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

‘Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head.”

(Ludwig von Zinzendorf -1700-1760; translated by John Wesley – 1703-1791)

Whatever we might change or add to our lives had nothing to do with our acceptance with God; it only affects our acceptance with people. We may need to adopt dress, diet or behaviour to identify with people who are different from us, but none of these things will alter our standing before God unless we are depending on them for acceptance with God or to impress Him in any way.

What we do as believers should always be the outflow of the grateful and obedient heart of a son or daughter of the Father and never the reason for coming to Him. On the other hand what we do should be from a desire to identify with those we want to win, becoming one of them so that they can become one of us.

Greetings – But Who Wrote It?

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GREETINGS – BUT WHO WROTE IT?

Brothers and sisters, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation for, in fact I have written to you quite briefly. I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you. Greet all your leaders and all the Lord’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings. Grace be with you all (Heb. 13: 22-25).

The final paragraph and greeting ties this letter to the real world. The writer began his letter by launching straight into his topic as though it were too important to bother with hellos and introductions. He assumed that they knew him as he obviously knew them. The content of the letter with its urgent request for them to reconsider indicates that these people were in a relationship with the writer which made it even more unthinkable that they should go back to Judaism.

Many theologians insist that Paul wrote the letter, but this cannot be true because our writer inadvertently dropped clues all along the way that hint at the fact that this is not typically Pauline. It is very different in style and content from the other thirteen letters where Paul identified himself as the author. Why would he choose to be anonymous in this one? The content is obviously different for a reason. The writer was dealing with a different situation from Paul’s letters. But, at the same time, the personal snippets do not point to Paul.

It’s not my purpose, in this final meditation, to set out a reasoned theory about who wrote it. I only suggest that it was not Paul because of the hints – for example, in his farewell greeting he referred to Timothy as a “brother”. To Paul, Timothy was always his son in the faith.

To Timothy, my true son in the faith (1 Tim. 1: 2).

Our writer was obviously writing from somewhere in Italy. We have no clue as to the destination of the letter. Perhaps it was a church of believers who were predominantly Jewish, or perhaps he wrote to a group of churches in which there were Jewish Christians. It was common, it seems, to write to more than one group of people and have the recipients circulate the letter. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was a circular letter to the churches in Asia Minor. Perhaps the letter was copied before it was passed on so that each church would be able to refer back to its content.

If this was a “brief” letter, one wonders what a long letter would look like! Our writer had a brilliant mind and an excellent grasp both of Judaism and its fulfilment in Christ. He must have been a Jew to have been able to present his case as thoroughly and convincingly as he did. He was more than a theologian. He was probably also a pastor because he evidenced a shepherd’s heart for the people. He knew the people to whom he wrote and he also knew those in Italy from where the letter came.

He referred to Timothy as a brother. Timothy had often visited Paul in prison and been a messenger for him from time to time. This is the first and only hint in the New Testament writings that he was also in prison.  As Paul’s understudy, he must have been a prominent figure in the early church and also a marked man from the Roman government’s point of view. It was inevitable that he, too, had to put up with being harassed and incarcerated for his faith and his activities in spreading the gospel.

What can we take away from this letter? I believe that it stands side-by-side with Paul’s letter to the Romans as one of the two most important interpretations of the cross. Where Paul presented the work of Jesus as the culmination of God’s justice and righteousness – setting forth the death of Jesus as the answer to the dilemma of human sin and God’s justice, Hebrews presents the work of Jesus as the fulfilment of all the types and pictures of the Old Covenant.

These two letters are like the two sides of a coin. Each compliments the other and together they present a full-orbed picture of both the intention of the Father and its fulfilment in the Son. Both the Greek and the Jewish mind would be satisfied that Jesus is a perfect and sufficient Saviour of sinners.

Does it really matter who wrote it? The truth is in what he wrote and of that we can be assured.

And so we can leave this letter for the moment with a feeling of contentment because we know that God has taken care of every detail and wrapped up His case for both His justice and mercy by the death of His Son. Once again, just as Paul had presented his side of the story, to the Hebrew writer Jesus comes up trumps. He is the focal point of everything God promised and did through the history of His people, to bring them to this point where His Messiah stepped in to complete what He started in the Garden of Eden.

The writer urges us, then:

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12: 2b-3a).

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Grace And Peace

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GRACE AND PEACE

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.” Colossians 1:1, 2.

Quite a mouthful in the opening sentence! Unlike our modern communication, ancient letters said it all in the first sentence; writer, recipients, and who they were. Who were Paul and Timothy?

Paul described himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. He was not a self-appointed or self-proclaimed apostle. We have many of those today. Why do spiritual leaders love titles? Does it elevate them above the rest or give them an edge on spirituality? On what authority do they claim those titles? Those who call themselves Apostle So-and-so or Prophet So-and-so – can they honestly say that they were given that title and office by the will of God?

With a title comes a task – to lead people by example as Paul did. Because he was a God-appointed and Spirit-anointed apostle, he could say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” How often do those who carry official-sounding titles betray them by espousing people to themselves! They are the only ones who are right and not to recognise that is to dishonour their title.

Who was Timothy? A brother! Timothy was Paul’s young trainee. When Paul found him, he realised that he had found gold – a young believer who had the makings of a fine leader. Paul did not give him the title of apostle. It was not his right to give, but he trained and mentored him to understudy him as a faithful and fully equipped leader. He was able to leave him in Ephesus to care for the church there while Paul went on with his mission to make Christ known where He was not known.

Paul regarded Timothy as his son in the faith. He often accompanied Paul on his journeys and acted as messenger and support during Paul’s imprisonments. He was a comfort to Paul in his suffering and in his old age, a true son upon whom Paul could rely to continue his work when he was no longer there

Who were the Colossians? The ancient city of Colossae was built on a major trade route which ran through the Lycus River valley in the province of Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey. It was famous for its dark red wool cloth called colossinum from where the city got its name. The city lost its importance when the nearby city of Laodicea overtook it as a business centre.

Paul spent two years in the nearby city of Ephesus from where the gospel spread to other centres, carried by converts from Ephesus. It is likely that one of Paul’s converts, Epaphras, was responsible for carrying the message to Colossae. Philemon was a member of that church, to whom Paul wrote a short letter about his slave Onesimus.

Although Paul did not know the people in the church at Colossae personally, he could still address them as “holy people” and “faithful brothers and sisters.” Why? Because, like his Master, he could view them as already complete in Christ. As long as they were in Christ, from God’s perspective, they had already been perfected. “In Christ” is, of course the operative word.

Grace and peace! Grace – a prayer for his readers to experience the ongoing grace of God in their lives, and peace – a normal Jewish greeting – “shalom” but for Paul the result of all God’s mercy to us – His peace that guards our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  Infused into this greeting is all the richness of God’s work in the lives of those who are “in Christ”.

This was much more than just a nicety, a polite greeting like we would say when we say “hello” and “goodbye” but, to Paul, it was the expression of his heart and his love for God’s children, even if he did not know them personally.

SCRIPTURE TAKEN FROM THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.