Preach The Word

INTRODUCTION (EARLIER IN THE SERVICE)

Today is our last week on 2 Timothy. Over the past three weeks we’ve looked at chapters 1 to 3. Today, we move on to chapter 4 – the last chapter in 2 Timothy.

I’m going to do a short recap on what we’ve looked at so far before we turn to chapter 4 later in the service.

In chapter 1 Paul introduced the main theme of his letter to Timothy. He wrote, ‘Don’t be ashamed of the gospel!’ Paul reminded Timothy that God called him. That God gives power to endure. And what a great message we have. Why should Timothy be ashamed?

Moving on to chapter 2, Paul told Timothy WHY he should endure. What is someone’s salvation worth? It’s definitely worth enduring some difficulties for! After that, Paul said, ‘Here is a trustworthy saying … if we endure, we will also reign with him.’ Reign with Jesus sounds very good to me! If that’s what we want, we need to show some endurance.

Last week we moved on to chapter 3. Here Paul’s focus was more on HOW to endure. Paul started off this section by writing ‘But UNDERSTAND this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.’ It’s important to know that there will be difficulties. Paul describes some very disagreeable people who will be around in the last days. Remarkably, it looks very much as though they are people in the church! Paul tells Timothy to AVOID such people. Finally, he tells Timothy to CONTINUE on the course he’s on and in this, scripture must be his plumb line.

That’s where we reached last week.

We’ll now have another hymn and our Bible reading. After that we’ll turn to 2 Timothy 4.

TALK

I’m taking as my text this morning the first phrase in 2 Timothy 4:2. Paul tells Timothy to ‘preach the word.’

This instruction to Timothy to ‘preach the word’ is very similar to what Paul has been telling Timothy all through this letter. Near the start of Paul’s letter he wrote ‘Don’t be ashamed of the gospel.’

A MESSAGE ABOUT PREACHING TO THOSE IN THE CHURCH

When I first read this phrase ‘preach the word’ I thought Paul meant ‘share the gospel’. I thought Paul’s instruction was about evangelism. I was all set to give some practical suggestions on how to share the gospel.

But as I’ve thought about Paul’s message, I don’t believe it’s an instruction to Timothy to share the gospel to people OUTSIDE the church. Paul is telling Timothy to preach the word to people INSIDE the church. Why do I think this?

Look at verse 2. Paul writes:

‘…preach the word … REPROVE, REBUKE, AND EXHORT’.

Timothy probably wouldn’t be reproving and rebuking if he was sharing the gospel with people OUTSIDE the church. It seems to apply to people INSIDE the church.

Look at verses 3 and 4. Paul writes:

‘For the time is coming when people WILL NOT ENDURE SOUND TEACHING, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and WILL TURN AWAY FROM LISTENING TO THE TRUTH and wander off into myths.’

People OUTSIDE the church don’t have to ‘endure’ sound teaching. They aren’t listening to it anyway. And people OUTSIDE the church can’t TURN AWAY from listening to the truth since they aren’t listening to the truth now!

So Paul’s instruction must apply to people INSIDE the church.

Paul isn’t telling Timothy to get out and preach the gospel to the unconverted. He’s telling Timothy to be faithful in preaching ‘the word’ to people in church. When Paul says ‘the word’ he means God’s word – in other words, scripture.

This message was relevant to Timothy in Ephesus. We know that there was a lot of false teaching springing up in the early church. But what about us today? If Paul was alive today, would he be telling preachers, ‘Preach the word’?

A MESSAGE WE NEED TODAY

About 130 years ago, a famous Baptist preacher called Charles Spurgeon commented:

‘Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is the better.’

Spurgeon sensed that people didn’t really want to hear God’s word. Maybe the situation has improved since Spurgeon’s time. But I don’t think it has.

A former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was looking at a particular ministry in Wales. He commented that ‘…one of the common experiences that I acquired during that period was looking over orders of service at Renewal services up and down the province, and saying, “where’s the scripture reading?”‘ Scripture clearly wasn’t being given much attention in those churches.

But a lack of attention to scripture is not at all confined to churches in Wales.