Skip to main content

Be Prepared In Season And Out of Season

          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 people 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. (II Timothy 4:1-5)

           We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. (Romans 12:6-8)

          As Paul concludes his letter, he tells Timothy to preach, rebuke, and encourage. He warns that people may not respond. His job is like “herding cats.” He doesn’t say it, but some of those cats might be like domestic shorthairs, some might be feral, and some might be jaguars or lions. Herding them, and keeping them from harming one another or Timothy was a task that required diligence and patience. No matter what, Timothy was to do his job well. When the going got tough, Timothy was to keep doing his job.

          When we read this passage, we may be discouraged. Here’s another thing we don’t feel competent to do, but we’ve been commanded… preach, preach, preach, encourage, rebuke. I don’t have a problem getting up in front of a polite audience, but one-to-one? Rebuke and encourage? With great patience?

          What we are forgetting here is that Paul was writing to a pastor. If Timothy had been, for  example, a deacon, the exhortation might have been that Timothy should serve well and with great patience. If he’d been an administer, he’d have been told to administer with great patience, not lording it over others. In Romans, Paul points out that there’s more than one gift. And it’s possible for a person to have more than one gift, but whatever gift one has, one is to do it whole-heartedly, with great patience and endurance, even under oppression.

          So, if you see a problem and you have an idea for solving it, whether it means picking up trash or picking up people, do it with determination, patience, and joy. Use your gifts, whatever they are, no matter how small or insignificant they seem to you. Timothy doesn’t seem to have thought much of himself as a teacher, after all.


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