We return to our study of Paul's second letter to Timothy.
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Phil Cox |
We return to our study of Paul's second letter to Timothy.
7th August 2026
As we've seen, Paul is writing to Timothy, his beloved protege, who was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. He begins the second chapter of this letter thus:
2 Timothy 2v1-3
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.
Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
This summarises much of what Paul wrote in Chapter 1, where he set out the vital importance of spiritual power and of the pastoral ministry, and he talked about his own suffering for the Gospel, and encouraged Timothy to share the same burden.
In this opening of Chapter 2, Paul makes three points, which every pastor must take to heart and faithfully obey.
Every Christian discovers eventually that his own strength is not enough. We cannot live a godly life, we cannot put to death the sin that is within us, we cannot serve the church and proclaim the Gospel to the world effectively, using our own resources. We need the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We need all the love, all the power, all the forgiveness, all the revelation, that God freely gives us through Christ our Lord.
A pastor understands this perhaps more than anybody. To lead a church, to care for all the people in it, including the opinionated, selfish, lazy, disruptive, unsubmissive and divisive ones, we need the grace that is in Christ Jesus. To know how to teach, encourage and rebuke, to know how to steer the church into a better way of being church, to inspire the church to reach out to their neighbours with the Gospel of peace, we need the grace that is in Christ Jesus. To keep ourselves from sin, from exhaustion, from giving up, from self-pity, we we need the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Paul tells Timothy, "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.
Pastors and teachers carry a great responsibility. We must teach the same message, the same truth, that the apostles taught. We must not add to it, and we must not subtract from it. We must teach the Bible, all the Bible and nothing but the Bible. We must draw the same lessons from the Bible that the apostles drew from it. We must not re-interpret it.
When a Pastor is tempted to say something contrary to Scripture, he must refuse to do so. When he is tempted to include in a sermon as idea that is not in the Bible, he must refuse to do so. When he is tempted to teach any new interpretation of a portion of Scripture, he must refuse to do so. To stay faithful to the apostles' teaching requires the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Church members and pastors are infected by worldly ideas. To teach Biblical truth which contradicts fashionable ideas requires courage, clarity, and the conviction that faithfulness to God is more important than popularity with church members, and more important than the approval of our neighbours.
And it is not enough to teach apostolic truth; we must also entrust [apostolic truth] to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. We must train our church so well that members emerge who are able to join in the work of teaching the Bible, and to carry it on when we're not longer able to do so.
Church members who aspire to be pastors and teachers, must be reliable. We must be confident that they will teach apostolic doctrine with the same faithfulness and integrity that we do. They must conform to the qualifications Paul set out in his earlier letter to Timothy:
1 Timothy 3v5-1-7
Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires
a noble task.
Now the overseer is to be above reproach, the husband of one wife,
temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not
a lover of money.
He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him,
and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.
If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take
care of God’s church?
He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall
under the same judgment as the devil.
He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not
fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.
Paul has said this to Timothy before. He repeats it because it is a necessary component of the character of a pastor. If we are not prepared to suffer for the truth - all the truth of the Bible - then sooner or later we will compromise what we teach and how we lead. To compromise Biblical truth for the sake of our own comfort, or the comfort of church members, is to demonstrate a lack of faith in God, and a lack of faithfulness towards God. A pastor who is unwilling to suffer for Christ's sake should repent or resign.
A pastor, and any Christian, should see himself as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. We're not only saved by Jesus Christ, we're not only adopted as God's children, we are under His command. May we never be insubordinate, may we never go absent without leave, may we obey our captain's orders at all times. Truly, we need to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.