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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: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men 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. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
The message below was spread out over two Sundays, Feb 24 and Mar 2.
There’s been a fierce argument over this past week on the importance of words. The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates have been going back and forth on how important words are. Since one of the candidates is a more inspiring speaker, the other one is naturally minimizing the importance of words and speeches.
I am biased in favor of words. As I read history, what I see is that great speeches and sermons and fireside chats can make a huge difference in the church, and in the world.
How much more so, then, can the words of Almighty God shape human events, and hearts, and minds?
Paul writes in our text about the ministry of proclaiming God’s Word – preaching and teaching. After thirty years of preaching and teaching, Paul gave Timothy his mission statement:
Preach The Word.
My message is influenced by a 1967 John Stott sermon on this text. I found it on allsouls.org, my favorite sermon site.
The Word verse 2
When Paul writes “Preach The Word,” he means to preach the Bible. Now I’m sure many of you have heard speeches posing as sermons: A scripture is read before the speech, but the speech is not really a sermon, it is not really The Preached Word, because the speaker, doesn’t preach from God’s word, rather he or she speaks from his or her thoughts, loosely connected at best to a biblical text, or two or three or ten.
To preach The Word in the way that Paul intends means to preach The Bible:
First of all, Paul means to preach from the OT, which was his Bible and the Bible of the early church, before the NT was fully formed. Paul wanted Christians to open Genesis, Isaiah, Chronicles Psalms, Proverbs – the Older Testament to God’s covenant love for us.
Secondly, by Preach the Word Paul means to preach what the Apostles taught, the particular Christian message, the good news that: Jesus died, rose from death, and is coming again, and that by trusting in Christ we can know God and be part of God’s mission to save the world.
Later on after the apostles had all died, the next generation came together and prayerfully discerned from among all the early Christian writings what was scripture, and what was not; what came from the apostles and what did not, what measured up to the standard of apostlic teaching and what did not. Guided by the Holy Spirit, this was the process by which the NT was formed.
And so for us having both OT & NT in our hands, “Preach the Word” means to preach the OT, preach the NT, and in particular to preach the message about Jesus and his mission to save the world.
So the first phrase Paul uses to describe God’s message in v.2 is The Word.
The second phrase Paul uses in verse 3
sound doctrine v. 3
What did Paul mean by this phrase, sound doctrine? What does he mean when he predicts the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine?
One way to restate “sound doctrine” in light of Paul’s Greek original would be to say “healthy, or wholesome teaching.”
We know from our own experience that we as fallen people do not naturally gravitate towards what is healthy for us.
Paul wrote that people do not naturally seek out wholesome teaching, but he goes on to say (paraphrased) you, Timothy teach wholesomely in an unwholesome world. Give them what is right, what is proven, what is good for them, even when it opposes everything else they are hearing; teach them God’s Word. Don’t be tempted to always give them what they want; rather, give them what they really need, what is good for them, what will feed them, what will cause them to grow and become stronger.
Imagine if we gave our kids only what they asked for instead of what they really needed. What would your children’s world look like if they had only the things they asked for, and nothing else? I think we’d be looking at lots of candy, toys..
Kids ask for a lot of neat things, but besides giving them some of what they want, our job is to give kids a lot of what they need. Love. Affirmation. Security. An introduction to Jesus Christ. Responsibility. A sense of right and wrong. And of course Vegetables.
Paul knows that many would be begging for something new, fresh, exciting, interesting. Toys and Candy. A little of this and a little of that.
But Paul knew that to know God, people needed the whole Bible taught consistently, faithfully, soundly.
Paul knew that to be a part of God’s mission, people needed to understand who God is:
One God existing eternally in three persons.
Paul knew that to be whole, people needed to hear about
– the Father and his love
– The Son and his grace
– The Spirit and his peace
Paul wanted Timothy to give his people what is good for them – wholesome, healthy teaching about God and his Ways; in other words, sound doctrine.
The third phrase Paul uses is in v. 4,
the truth v.4
What does Paul mean when he writes: They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ?
We see examples in the Bible of people easily diverted from what is central, from what is most important. It’s not only today that we humans have short attention spans; this phenomenon of people becoming easily distracted has been around forever.
The classic example is Moses going up to visit with God on Mount Sinai. Moses was about to meet with God. This is a pretty big deal.
Instead of sitting silently, or worshiping God, or praying for Moses at this most important moment, what did God’s people do?
They built a giant statute of a calf, and begin to worship that.
In the NT, reading the letter to the Hebrews, it is clear that some believers had moved away from direct worship of God and had begun to worship angels. Some easily distracted people began to take their eyes off of Christ and ask, well wasn’t Moses and weren’t the angels better than Jesus in some ways?
Talk about being distracted… Think of Jesus’ disciples, so easily side-tracked from Jesus and his mission, so quick to argue, to eager to fight and to jump to conclusions.
Even in some parts of God’s church today, people are easily distracted by leaders who stray away from what is central. These influential Christians, mostly to press their personal issues or to make a name for themselves, promote teachings, or doctrines, that are in direct conflict with God’s word.
They twist the truth about God and ask people to believe made up stories, myths and fables and other untruths that are so very interesting but ultimately untrue and empty, leading nowhere but to blind paths and dead ends.
Paul, by using the word truth, is saying that what we have in scripture is unchangeable. It comes from God and is given to us. Through humans and cultures to be sure, but form God. It is not for us to twist, change, or neglect the parts that we disagree with.
Rather, we are to approach God’s Word with hearts and minds wide open, to be led into the truth by the one who revealed it in the first place, the Holy Spirit.
As students of God’s Word, we seek to understand and apply God’s Word with minds and hearts engaged, studying diligently and praying fervently.
We want God’s Word to sink into us, to shape us, to lead us to the truth about God and His ways.
Some preachers and scholars act as if God’s word is a lump of clay to be shaped by them into something usable. This is folly. God’s word has been given to us, from God, through people. God is the potter, we are the clay. God uses the truth of his Word to mold us and to shape us
So thus far we have learned to approach the Scriptures as God’s Word, as Sound Doctrine, and as The Truth.
In discovering just how valuable God’s Word is, we’ve made an amazing find. This masterpiece which we can hold in our hands, and which anyone can own for just a few dollars, is in fact priceless.
Why? Because it is a message from God to us.
Back before we really knew its value, when the Bible was just a book those religious people read, when it was perhaps gathering dust on the bookshelf
Back then, we didn’t think much about what we should do with our Bible; after all, it was just cloth and paper like any other book
But now that we realize the value of it, we need to ask God a question – what do we do with this true, sound, healthy Word, this masterpiece- this message from God to us.
04 VISUAL PREACH THE WORD
Paul’s supplies an answer to this question in the central phrase of this passage –
that wonderful motto or mission statement for all Christians and for the whole church:
PREACH THE WORD
Long before there was internet, TV, radio or even newspapers, town criers stood out in to the public square, loudly proclaiming the news of the day.
This verb translated “Preach” means to proclaim, to publicly declare God’s message in the public marketplace of ideas and relationships.
And so besides preaching from the pulpit in the sanctuary, we as a church are called to get the word out there into the public marketplace; out into places like Starbucks, myspace, facebook and youtube, where people exchange messages and ideas, hopes and dreams.
It’s pretty cool that since we began posting on youtube last year, more than 400 times each month someone watches one of our videos. I really didn’t expect much action at all, yet in a small way, but beyond our modest expectations, the Word is getting out beyond our walls into the public arena.
Driving by our late 1960’s-designed campus (beautiful courtyard, nice interior, but someone stark-looking from the street), most people don’t seem to notice the signs & crosses. We’ve had comments that our buildings look like an office complex or a government facility.
What can we do about that? Well we have a wonderful public square here at the corner of busy “H” street, as people travelling north and south have to pause and wait for the 4 way stop, along with a steady stream of walkers. We are now considering ways in which to make our message more visible at the corner; to get the word out that Jesus is alive and that God’s Word is preached and taught in this place. The multi-talented Nick and I will be talking about increasing our visibility this week with our building & grounds guys… Nick has designed our new logo and is preparing the website for re-launch on Palm Sunday. Small but necessary steps…
We’re incrementally more effective in spreading the Word. Small steps so far, with another step coming this Thursday evening as OneLife launches. We want to get the Bible in people’s hands and Jesus in peoples hearts – and so we are starting a relational and contemporary Thursday night ministry geared to reaching people would not normally think of attending church on Sundays.
Bottom line – we are committed to preaching the Word, to getting God’s message out into the world.
Turning to today’s text, we hear the language of persuasion – the scripture is urging us to not be dissuaded from proclaiming God’s message. Paul’s letter to Timothy was written in the ancient style of paraenesis, or exhortation, urging. A paraenetic letter is a letter that urges the reader to take particular actions. In our text today, we read of four exhortations to preach the word.
First , preach the Word in light of the reality of Jesus Christ
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: Preach the Word…
2 Timothy 4:1
Notice that Paul writes about the God and Jesus in both the present and the future. Jesus stands with God as witness to our preaching, and Jesus stands ready to come again and wrap up the salvation of which we preach.
The point here is that Jesus is real, that he is really with us, and that he really and truly returning at the end of history. The story of his coming the first time, and the promise of his future return are not some made up jive. Jesus is real. He really came, lived and died for our sins. He truly rose from the grave. He is now present in this world, set high above as king, yet so near by His Spirit, empowering us in His mission. And truly he is coming back to finish everything left undone, to put the new heavens and new earth into action once and for all.
We spread God’s Word in light of the reality of Jesus, knowing that he stands with us as we preach, and that he stands ready to return when the time for preaching is done.
Second, preach God’s Word both urgently and consistently
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season… 2 Tim 4:2
In Ecclesiastes we read that there is a time or a season for every human activity a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Yet God wants us to be ready always – whatever season of life we find ourselves in – he wants us to always be ready to share our faith, to spread God’s Word in season and out of season.
God wants us to preach and teach and otherwise spread God’s Word with a consistent urgency and passion:
– at all times and in all places
– both when it goes well and when it does not,
– when it is convenient to us and when it is not, consistently, in season and out of season whether times seem favorable or not, whether it is a bother or not – keep on spreading the word like a farmer sows seed…
This instruction is not just for pulpit preachers but for all who hold God’s Word in their hands, for all who hold Jesus in their hearts. We are to take this word – this masterpiece – and get it out there! We’re not to wait for the world come here to find Jesus, our commission is to take Jesus with us out into the world.
But what about people’s feelings? What about people’s right not to be offended, not to be intruded upon? Shouldn’t we leave the evangelism, the persuasion to the Baptists and Pentecostals? We’re proper Presbyterians after all.
John Stott, and Anglican priest, speaking to a reserved British audience
taught that we can share the Word, which sometimes offends on its own, without being offensive ourselves…..
Stott exhorts us to share the gospel:
* Urgently, but not rudely, or insensitively
* Clearly, yet not as a pusher, rather as someone who gently invites people to trust in Christ
* Faithfully, but not as someone who has faith all figured out.
Third, preach the Word practically, with real world relevance
…correct, rebuke and encourage… 2 Tim 4:2
When we preach, teach or share God’s word, it should in connect with people where they are.
• It should have a practical impact on people’s lives.
• It should relate to them where they are.
• John Stott calls for Christians to know God’s Word and, equally as thoroughly, to know and be engaged in this world. One foot in scripture and one in the world. His book on preaching is called Between Two Worlds.
Paul in our text uses three very practical verbs to describe the scripture’s relevance –correct, rebuke and encourage
These three verbs describe ways in which the variety of messages in Scripture can address a variety of people in various situations:
* When we are full of doubt, God’s Word can correct or convince us out of doubt and into faith
* When we are full of sin, God’s Word can rebuke or convict us of sin and cause them to turn from sin and towards God through Christ,
* When we are full of fear, God’s Word can encourage, lift up, cast a vision of a good God and of a hopeful future walking with a mighty God who protects us and assures us that there is no reason to fear or fret because God is with us..
Some have called the Bible an owner’s manual. I wonder what would happen if you opened the owner’s manual to your car and found 66 separate books – history, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy about your car’s future, etc..
A better description of the Bible would be to say it is the story of God. From cover to cover the Bible tells of a God who begins by creating and ends by re-creating.
In between the Bible is a great big epic story of a God who creates, seeks and saves, and of people being encountered by God who calls them into relationship. Some run towards God and embrace Him; others run away.
But while the Bible is a great big epic, it is also a very practical guide to daily living, which is where we get the “owner’s manual” description.
The Bible can be applied directly to so many life-situations:
gossip, conflict, decision-making, doubt, fear, worry, stress, sickness, you name the human condition and the Bible has something to say about it.
So the Bible is a practical book, and as we spread God’s Word, we can help others to understand just how relevant it is to their lives.
Fourth, preach the Word carefully and patiently, allowing God to bring the results
…with great patience and careful instruction.
But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2 Tim 4:2, 5
These two verses sound a bit like a commitment to military service. Those of us enrolled in God’s service (all believers) have duties to discharge, like a soldier does.
The work we do is the work of the evangelist, the one who spreads the good news message, the Word of God, the gospel.
The life we live is blessed with God’s presence, but it’s sometimes very hard.
The stress level gets high, yet we must keep our heads screwed on straight, keep on thinking clearly, not letting ourselves get sidetracked or react sinfully.
We hold in our hands the Bible, God’s Word, to be preached and shared anywhere there are people who need to hear it. Not just on Sundays, but every day. Not just to church people, but to everyone.
Preach the Word: urgently, passionately, consistently, patiently, practically; all by the power of the Spirit, in the presence of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
run to Sunday!
The blog is back after more than a month off for Christmas, the mission trip, the Super Bowl (no I have not gotten over it yet) and more.
We are in the midst of Bible Month at First Pres. Why “Bible Month”? Goes back to a decision we made at session (our church council), having reflected on what some mega-churches, particularly Willow Creek, have uncovered in self-evaluation. Seems that Willow, with thousands in attendance, wanted to evaluate their ministry of the past two decades. On numbers alone, you’d have to say they are successful. Lots of people, pastors, buildings, money, projects, influence.
However, when they asked their people if they had made progress in their spiritual lives, the answer was a resounding no. Wow.
Willow Creek is now saying that over two decades that their ministries gave people the following impression: if you showed up to their excellent services and programs, you would grow spiritually. Willow now confesses that they failed to teach people to take responsibility for their own spiritual lives, to become self-feeders. Willow believes that they created a dependency on programs, and never communicated that the programs were intended to supplement private spiritual practice, not to replace it. People faithfully showed up to Willow week after week, year after year, delegating responsibility for their own growth to the mega-church professionals. Thousands of churches followed this model. Millions remained treading spiritual water.
Our response at First Pres is to set aside a month for the promotion of personal Bible study. Is this just another church program, creating more dependency on the church? Maybe; but we hope not. Our aim is to help people make the Sunday-Monday connection, to self-feed from Scripture on the weekdays, to take responsibility for spiritual growth, rooted in personal study of the Word.
Sundays after worship we are listening to the excellent John Stott lecture series The Bible and the Christian Life. This series provides a solid foundation on the nature of scripture and how to approach it. I am roughly coordinating my Sunday sermons to the Stott series:
2/17 2 Tim 3:14-17 Hear the Message
2/24 2 Tim 4:1-5 Teach the Message
3/2 2 Tim 4:6-18 Mobilize the Message
3/9 Women’s Sunday – service led by Presbyterian Women
3/16 Luke 19:28-40 Activate the Message
3/23 Luke 24:1-12 Live the Message
3/30 Guest Preacher,
Rev. Craig Jones of the Theological College of Zimbabwe
_____________________________________________________________________
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote this letter from the emperor’s prison in Rome, where he was being held for the last time. Paul knew the end was near; this colored his message to Timothy. As we read 2 Timothy, we catch Paul’s sense of satisfaction in the sufficiency of Christ, mingled with alarm at the dangers facing the church, and urgency for ensuring the integrity of the preached word and the church.
Second Timothy is the last letter from Paul that we have. One might call it Paul’s last will and testament, handed over to his delegate, Timothy. Timothy was trained, commissioned and sent by Paul. With Paul in chains, Timothy spoke for Paul, and so in Timothy the Word of God was “unchained” …I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. (2 Tim 2:9)
When you move from one job to the next, or retire, isn’t it satisfying to hand over your job confident that your successor has every opportunity to succeed? At each of my ministry transitions, I have been blessed to leave with every confidence that the ministry would move forward under new leadership. It’s a good feeling to know that the person who follows you is called and capable, and that the ministry you are passing on is in good shape.
The Paul-Timothy transition happened at an unstable time for the church. In many ways the church had yet to find its feet. Paul’s letters project an unswerving faith in the Lordship of Christ over the church and the world. Surely with Jesus on the throne, everything would work out well for God’s people.
But in 2 Timothy, Paul seems gravely concerned about the future of the church. With Paul in prison, Timothy had become the focus of attacks from Paul’s opponents. Paul paints a picture of the gospel’s opponents and their teaching throughout 2 Timothy:
They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 2 Tim 2:18
Comment – The message preached by the opponents is different than the apostolic message; the false teachers taught that believers in Christ did not have a future resurrection to look forward to.
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 2 Tim 3:1-5
Comment – The self-centered lifestyle of the opponents is different than Christ-centered servant lifestyle lived out by the apostles.
…while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2 Tim 3:13
Comment – The opponents are named as both evil and false; they are pretending to be good apostles, but they are neither sent from God (apostles) nor are they good.
For the time will come when men 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. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 2 Tim 4:3-4
Comment – The apostolic teaching is named as “sound;” (see 1 Tim 1:10) one could substitute the phrase “tested truth.” Opponents of the gospel will not gravitate towards tested truth, but rather towards untested ideas, new teaching to satisfy consumers wanting the latest variety, the trendiest model. Truth, predicts Paul, will matter less to people than novelty, and so people will believe myths which tickle their ears. False ideas will be adopted instead of time-tested truths.
It is against this background of false living and teachings that Paul lays out scripture’s role as the foundation of true knowledge and living in our lives:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:14-17
Continue in The Message Paul was concerned for “Continuity in Content.” He knew that Timothy was a different person than he was, and that in every local congregation the leadership would take on a different look and feel, relative to both the leadership and the context. Change was inevitable. But for Paul there was one thing that could not change, the content of the message about Jesus Christ.
For Paul, who Jesus is and what he did were realities that neither a changing world nor changing leadership could alter. The message proclaiming the person and work of Jesus Christ could not be changed, because to change the message would be to bear false witness, to lie, about God and His work.
Paul urged Timothy to trust the message he had received from trustworthy people, specifically from Timothy’s mother and grandmother as well as from Paul himself. (2 Tim 1:5) Timothy received the gospel from people he knew, who cared about him, not from strangers who were here today, gone tomorrow. Kind of like the contrast between the ministry of a good pastor or elder and that of a TV personality. One is invested in your life, the other just an image on a screen.
Timothy was raised in a godly family and so he learned the scriptures (OT) from an the age of five, according to Jewish practice. His family’s role was crucial, but Timothy came to faith as the Spirit shaped him though Scripture, which made him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Learning the OT scriptures prepared Timothy’s heart for the message of Christ, and so Timothy believed and was saved through the true message taught by true people.
God-breathed Scripture God’s revelation in Jesus Christ unfolded in time and history, was witnessed by the apostles, and recorded in Scripture. The message about Jesus is the culmination of all in Scripture. Paul says here that all scripture was breathed upon, or inspired, by God. Just as God breathed, creating the first people, so also God breathed, creating the scriptures.
The Bible was written by humans, but ultimately it came from God. In our passage the Bible is called, uniquely in the NT, holy scriptures. The word holy speaks to the divine origin of the scriptures. Men wrote them down, but the words came, through human hearts and minds and hands, from God.
This is a crucial point. Not only are the scriptures words of men pointing to God, they are also words of God. All scripture, meaning every book of the Bible, is the Word, and all books together, the whole Bible, is the Word. We believe that God worked in and through the authors of scripture to produce messages that tell us how God saves, and how we can be a part of God’s salvation. We believe that God worked through the early church to canonize, or set the rule, of what is scripture and what is not. The Bible is a finished work.
The gospel part of Scripture is the “good news message,” that which was preached by the apostles, and so we use the adjective apostolic to describe the content of the gospel message. The apostles uniquely received their authority to speak and to write the New Testament from Jesus himself. One may measure modern teachings about Christ against the gospel preached by the apostles. False teachings about Christ are different from what the apostles taught; true teachings are apostolic, consistent with what the apostles preached and taught, as authorized by Jesus himself.
The Use of Scripture
…useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Good things in life may be used properly, or abused dangerously. Paul wrote here to show how scripture could be used properly, in contrast to the abuse of scripture practiced by false teachers out for their own gain.
The false teachers abused the Bible by interpreting scripture wrongly to prove their false teaching and to justify their false living. Paul encouraged the right use of Scripture for teaching the truth and correcting falsehood, for rebuking selfish living and commending the Christ-centered life.
The overarching purpose of using the Bible properly is so that each person called by God would be well-equipped to do the work of God.
And so to sum it all up:
- Let’s continue living the scripture-based live, as first shared with us by trustworthy messengers.
- Let’s trust the scriptures because they are inspired by God and because they lead us to Christ who saves us.
- Let’s use the scriptures daily, so that we are well-equipped to serve God.
run to Sunday!
