Stay And Instruct

          Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope,  To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

         As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. (I Timothy 1:1-4)

          I think I relate to Timothy, one of the men whom Paul apparently chose to come after him. How in the world was he supposed to follow Paul’s performance? It’d be like me trying to follow a virtuoso on the guitar. Yeah, I can strum a few chords.

          Other passages make it clear that Timothy was younger than some of the people he was leading. I can relate to that, too. Most of my life seems to have been spent around people who were older and thought they were in control (or should be.) Our society tends to focus on youth, but whether or not the older folks around me are wise, they are intimidating.

          Onto this stage, those of us who aren’t quite all we think we should be timidly creep. And when we reach the tape X at center stage, we don’t get to sing the song of our choice. No, Paul has instructions. We’re to remain on stage and instruct. I’m not sure if the word in Greek has the same force to it as the English has for me. Somehow, instructing sounds more authoritative and aggressive than merely teaching or preaching.

          What makes it worse is who and what Paul tells him to instruct. There were people teaching strange doctrines. When you get what you think is a really good idea, one that makes you seem like you matter, or know what you’re talking about, how willing are you to step back? In case you don’t know me, you need a really good argument (or my respect) to get me to walk away from my ideas. That challenge is simply not an easy one.

          And then there’s the bit about genealogy. I cringe when I read this passage because I spent twenty years working on my family’s history, and I’m pretty proud of my family and the research I did. Was it wrong to do it? Ultimately, I don’t think what I did is what Paul was telling Timothy not to teach. Before 1100 A.D., there was a tendency for those of pagan persuasion to find in their family history a connection to gods, goddesses, or demi-gods. “Christians” followed the same idea, with a sanctified flavor. They found saints and folks mentioned in the Bible. My family tree includes both! It’s embarrassing, especially when one of the Biblical connections is a son of Noah never mentioned in the Bible but mentioned in Beowulf!

          Now, let’s pull it forward to the last twenty years. Books have been published that are based on lineages tying characters back to Jesus and other Biblical figures and imparting to the supposed descendants either a “Chosen One” status or some prophecy. The DaVinci Code did this in a way that led folks to at least entertain (if not fully believe) the premise of the story as fact.

          This is the sort of thing that I think Paul was warning Timothy about, speculations about family lines in order to make ourselves out to be more than we are. At the same time, I can’t help but consider the theory of evolution, which all comes down to if environmental pressures cause this or that to develop in direction X, then over the course of Y millennia, some portion of the species involved would develop into a different species, maybe even a different genus, family, order, class, phylum, or kingdom! Since no one was there and recorded the events, technically, it’s speculation.

          I can see what Paul is saying. Supposing that we are descended from apelike creatures like Australopithecus afarensis, what actual use does that knowledge have? The only real change it makes deals with one’s worldview. That makes the question of great importance but doesn’t change us. It doesn’t change the past, the present, or the future. It provides us with no real hope, just more speculation.

          On the other hand, we have prophecies in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled within recorded history. We have prophecies in the Old and New Testaments that are being fulfilled, or for which there is evidence that they will likely be fulfilled soon. That sort of knowledge is practical, and that’s the sort of knowledge Paul seems to want Timothy to teach.