What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of
sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the
good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy
Spirit who lives in us. (II Timothy 1:13-14)
We’re in the
midst of what might be called a French-style revolution. The revolutionaries want
to throw off all the shackles that bind them to the autocrats and aristos of
the past, rejecting all that came before in their struggle to initiate a utopian,
equitable new world. While it’s true that they haven’t pulled the guillotines
out of the mothballs, the point (for me) is that they are at least as
autocratic and elitist in their new laws as the old aristos were.
Let me give two
examples of this perspective: a revolutionary cries that a person, and that
person alone, has the right to dictate which pronouns should be used to refer
to that person. Another revolutionary insists that no one has a right to
disagree with what they post on their social media page/site/wall. If someone
disagrees, they announce, “my body, or my wall, my rules.”
To this, as an
antidisestablismentarian[1], I say “My thoughts, my
perceptions, my beliefs, my rules. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion.”
Both the
revolutionary and I demand godhood of a sort. Perhaps it would be clearer to
say that we demand petty (or petit) godhood. We insist on the right to be gods
at least over our tiny domains. One difference is in the size of our domains. For
the revolutionary, the domain extends beyond the revolutionary. They believe they
have a right to dictate how others should treat them and their domains. No one
may contradict them about themselves, and no one may do so in their echo-chamber.
They have the right to dictate your behavior and words with regard to them.
On the other
hand, I insist that I have the right to believe as I choose to believe and the
freedom to speak even if it contradicts them. The differences are fairly
simple. Their godhood demands that I bow to their godhood. My godhood demands that
I do not. I will try to convince others of my perspective, but their perspective
is their choice. Their godhood doesn’t permit that.
Technically, my “godhood”
isn’t godhood. It is free-will. The revolutionary does not grant free-will. Oh,
we are free to do whatever we want, as long as it is consistent with the
revolutionary’s rules. On the other hand, you are welcome to believe whatever
you wish about yourself. You simply don’t have the right to dictate my beliefs
about you to me. The revolutionary is not my god, he/she is my equal.
So, what does
all of that have to do with today’s passage? Paul’s instruction to Timothy was
antidisestablishmentarian. He told Timothy to hold on to the pattern of sound teaching.
Christianity was and is a revolutionary concept in the sense that it turns the
world back right-side-up. It draws revolutionaries who want to use it to empower
themselves and it draws counterrevolutionaries who want to destroy it. Paul
told Timothy that Timothy was not to bow to the revolutionaries but to keep what
he had learned from Paul as his pattern of sound teaching – teaching he had
accepted of his own free will.
I have yet to find
any point at which Paul imposes his teachings on anyone or asks anyone to bow
to him. At many points throughout Scripture, and in this teaching of Paul’s, I
find godly men and women who refused to bow to the petty gods around them.
[1] I didn’t think I’d ever have an opportunity to
use that word, let alone use it in reference to myself. It means that I am against those who wish to
destroy the establishment, AKA an anti-revolutionary.
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