As said, today we are beginning a series on 1 & 2 Timothy.
Our rhythm here is to reflect on a gospel and the life of Jesus from Advent to Pentecost, then in ordinary time we reflect on a part of the Hebrew Scriptures and then a New Testament epistle. This year the lectionary gives us seven weeks of readings from 1 & 2 Timothy and so I have decided to focus on some of those.
So let’s pray, Your word, living God, is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We thank you that this light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not (and will not) overcome it.
According to the book of Acts and 2 Timothy, Paul meets Timothy, along with his grandmother and his mother in Lystra.
Timothy becomes one of Paul’s co-workers in spreading the gospel. Paul sends him to different churches he started to support them, including Ephesus. When Paul is imprisoned in Rome and he hears that there are leaders in the church, he started in Ephesus, who are teaching incorrectly about Jesus, he sends Timothy this letter (and you can hopefully find Lystra and Ephesus and Rome on this map).
Now, there is some debate about this. 1 & 2 Timothy are not part of the undisputed letters of Paul. Biblical theologians continue to discuss whether they were in fact written by Paul or by a follower of Paul seeking to honour Paul’s teaching and continue his legacy.
Today, we would consider that forgery and highly inappropriate, but it was very common and acceptable at that time. In fact, it was encouraged. And so, whether these letters were written by Paul or one of his followers in his name they are still valuable for us. They still form part of our sacred Scriptures and thus God’s word to us.
I am going to leave the question of context and authorship open. If you are really interested, you can do your own research and come to your own conclusion. But during this series I will be assuming this context and referring to the author as Paul as this is what the text intended.
These letters, together with Titus, are often referred to as the Pastoral Epistles. This does not mean they are only for pastors – although they do have some explicit teaching to church leaders – rather it means these letters are deeply concerned with what a healthy congregation looks like.
They offer specific and practical teaching about how to live together as the church.
The introduction to 1 Timothy in my bible puts it this way,
Anyone who thinks the Christian life is mainly a matter of high flown, ethereal thoughts and feelings will be rightly challenged by these writings. Here is real life among a particular people formed by the incarnation in the day-to-day concerns of life within the Body of Christ. Here spiritual formation occurs, as actual, specific tensions within the congregation collide with the soaring ideals of the Christian faith. Having affirmed together that we are attempting to follow Jesus Christ our hope, what does that mean when we must live out our faith among ordinary people in the ordinary church.
This opening chapter that we read today offers something of an introduction to the whole letter.
Paul opens by recalling his sending of Timothy to Ephesus to,
“instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine and not occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith. But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.”
Clearly, for Paul Christian teaching that’s faithful to the way of Jesus results in love and genuine faith. This of course is reiterated in arguable Paul’s most beloved teaching from 1 Corinthians 13.
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
NT wright puts it like this,
“Paul is anxious that everyone who professes Christian faith should allow the gospel to transform the whole of their lives, so that the outward signs of the faith express a living reality that comes from the deepest parts of the personality. He is also anxious that each Christian, and especially every teacher of faith, should know how to build up the community in mutual love and support rather than by the wrong sort of teaching or behaviour tearing it apart.”
As you can see from some of these headlines, from both Christian and secular media, there has been some talk of late of Christian revival in the West. While Christianity has continued to grow in the so called “global south” the past half century has seen a dramatic decline in Europe, the United States and here in Australia. However, research is starting to indicate that decline has not just stopped but that Christianity is on the rise again.
It seems, some people, but young people in particular, who are struggling with anxiety and loneliness, failing to find meaning and opting out of life, are coming to find hope and meaning in the Chrisitan story and a sense of belonging in church community. If this research is indeed correct, this is good news.
However, I do fear that some of this has to do with what Paul would call false teaching. Teaching that aligns the gospel of Jesus with the so-called Western way of life. It seems to be in, in some places, to call oneself a Cultural Christian, that is a person who adheres to Christian traditions, values, or affiliations that are primarily rooted in social, familial, or national customs rather than a genuine commitment to the teachings found in Scripture. Cultural Christians may attend church, celebrate Christian holidays, and value certain moral teachings, but they often lack faith.
I fear that some of what is being spread is a gospel of anger, a gospel of rightness, what Paul calls law here. Now, as he said, “the law is good, if one uses it legitimately,” but I believe that much Christian teaching today is illegitimate. There are people being called Christian leaders who sound more like the description in todays reading of people who desire to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.
Now I should probably tread carefully here and with some humility, some might say the same about me, but Paul is clear with Timothy, true Christian teaching that’s faithful to the way of Jesus results in love and genuine faith.
The fruits of the Spirit – that is the things that show the world the Spirit of God is within us – are not anger, power, wealth, winning every argument, getting revenge on your enemies, but are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
I fear this is not what we are always seeing in the so-called revival.
Nor are we seeing much of the repentance, the humility, the transformation that Paul describes from verse 12,
I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Paul is hyperbolic as he often is, but this story has been a common one of Christian conversion throughout the centuries. People like St Francis who gave up a life of luxury, wealth and glory on the battlefield after his conversion. And John Newton who famously wrote amazing grace after moving from slave trader to abolitionist. And Alice Cooper who sounding a lot like Paul described himself as a poster boy for what was wrong, the worst person you could possibly be. At the height of his success Cooper realised his life was falling apart due to alcohol and drug addiction. Now 42 years sober he believes that God healed his addiction. He founded Solid Rock, to help young people struggling with substance abuse.
I have my own less dramatic and consequential story of God’s grace leading me, as pretty messy and broken, young person, off a rather destructive and damaging path to that one that has been far more life giving. While, I carry some scars from those days, I am like Paul so grateful to God for his mercy.
And so I am sincerely hoping and praying that there is indeed what Justin Brierly is calling “a surprising rebirth of belief in God” but I hope that rebirth is rooted in the good news of Jesus not something (or someone) that looks or sounds nothing like him and his teaching.
This letter, as I said at the beginning, is deeply concerned with what a healthy church looks like. And as the letter continues, it will get into the practical details of that. But this opening, serves as the backdrop to rest of the letter and so the aim of any implementation of Paul’s instructions in the church must lead to love and genuine faith. If this is not what it leads to then how it is been implemented must be reconsidered.
In his last meal with his disciples, that we remember each week as we gather, Jesus said it plainly,
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
And so, friends, let us sing about this new commandment. As always, let us stay seated for this one, and take a moment to really take that into our very being.
