Skip to main content

Paul And Timothy


You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 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. (II Timothy 2:1-2)

           Almost as soon as I got to college, I met someone who thought I was someone else. There were five Karens on my dorm floor, and she mistook me for one who had filled out a survey. Before long, I was a member of a Christian discipleship program and remained with them for three years. There were pros and cons to the group, but they taught me the power of this passage. It’s been 35 years since then, and I wish I could find a program of its type for older adults.
          Paul had learned from God. He had taught Timothy and others. Now Timothy was to teach others, who would teach others. As an ad from a few years put it, “and so on, and so on, and so on….”
          This is the model on which we should be building our lives. We find a good mentor (AKA life coach and finding several to help teach us in different areas of our lives is helpful.) This person needs to have honest access to our lives. The pastor of a church, teaching on Sunday mornings is cannot be close enough to the congregation to be everyone’s mentor. Mentors must hold us accountable for our decisions and acts. They’re there to teach, correct, reprove, and train. And we’re supposed to then find others that we can help, teach, correct, reprove, and train.
          Some folks take the “God and Me Is Enough!” approach, or the “My friends and I are all the Church We Need” approach. The problem is that we tend to be blind either to our faults or our strengths and our friends – if not equally blind – tend to not want to hurt feelings. A mentor has a measure of objectivity and a measure of authority. We need this sort of person in our lives.
          If we followed this pattern taking on two disciples each year, and with them taking on two disciples the following year, by the end of 10 years, there could be 4000 people whose lives are being influenced. We and our world would both be better for it. So in addition to yesterday’s question of “Who are your Onesiphoruses, Phygeluses, and Herogenes?” we have another question. Who is your Paul, and who are your Timothys? If you are lacking either, ask God for them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more