Scripture Introduction
At a previous pastorate, one of our church member applied to teach at the local Christian school. He interviewed for the job and they accepted him. Then they gave him a statement of faith to sign. Much was what you would expect: do you affirm the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture, etc.? One line, however, caused some head-scratching: “Do you believe in the soon and pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ?” For those of you not up-to-date on the theological jargon of the contemporary church, you need to know that Christians have been anticipating Jesus’ return for…well…since before he left.
After his resurrection, Jesus made a comment to explain that we are not to worry so much about what God is doing in other people’s lives. He said to Peter, “If it is my will that he [John] remain until I come back, what is that to you?” And from that comment a rumor spread that John would not die; in other words, he would remain alive until Jesus’ soon return (John 21.20-23). Additionally, one of the problems in the New Testament church was that a couple of fellows began teaching that Jesus had already returned and those remaining were lost. As you can imagine, this upset the faith of some (2Timothy 2.14-19). And in the 2000 years of the church, this insistence on Jesus’ soon return soon arises often.
Now the apparent delay in the return of Jesus should not make us question its truth nor wonder if God is simply slow. As we heard in the “call to worship” this morning, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, but is patient, [giving people time to] reach repentance” (2Peter 3.9).
I tell you that to sensitize you to the frequency with which Christians latch onto simplified answers, rather than engaging in real study of “the apostles’ teaching.” Even the briefest glance at church history (which we might expect from a Christian school) would make us careful about what teachings rise to the same level as the doctrine of the Trinity. Yes, it is true that some false teachers used the idea of a “much distant return of Jesus” to promote a social gospel over and against the Bible’s teaching, but that that does not justify elevating a dubious interpretation of end times to the deity of Christ.
What must grip our hearts and minds, brothers and sisters, is not the slogans which easily separate us from those who challenge our pet theologies. Instead, as was true of the Christians when the church began, we must be “devoted…to the apostles’ teaching.” With that reminder from Acts 2.42 in our minds, let’s read of an application to a church and pastor a few years later, recorded in 2Timothy 4. [Read 2Timothy 4.1-5. Pray.]
Introduction
[Much of this information was gleaned from Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 90.] In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts produced a report, Reading At Risk. They concluded that “literary reading” (defined as any reading of poetry, drama, short-stories, or fiction which is not required for school or work, in other words, reading for pleasure) — literary reading is decreasing dramatically. Since 1982, young adults (age 18-24) show a rate of decline in reading of 28%, with a decrease of 18% among all adults. Reading is declining among all genders, all races, and all ages, though it is worse in the younger age groups.
There are corresponding effects. For example, the NEA report noted: “Literary reading strongly correlates to other forms of active civic participation. Literary readers are more likely than non-literary readers to perform volunteer and charity work, visit art museums, attend performing arts events, and attend sporting events.” (http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf)
This led Dana Gioia, the chairman of the NEA to note: “The data here demonstrate that reading is an irreplaceable activity in developing productive and active adults as well as healthy communities. Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media, they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading…. I worry about a culture that bit-by-bit trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment.”
In his essay, “The Epistle of van Gogh,” Japanese-American Artist, Makoto Fujimura writes about this tradeoff between reading and visual media: “We are not only reading less, we are reading less well: we are not only reading less well, we are losing our capacity to focus and pay attention to the world around us with empathy…. Vincent [van Gogh] communicated in a foreign tongue with his acute sensitivity, to impress upon the reader what he felt as sacred…. We may, if we [continue to] go down this road, no longer have the capacity to be moved by van Gogh or any other artist: we would not have the patience and longing in our hearts to do so….
“Some, I am sure, will point out that the mode of communication has shifted from the antiquated print culture to our current internet society. Now we have a visual culture and are taking in information differently. But taking in mere information does not mean we are deeply engaged with the content. We may be able to scan for multifarious sensory input, and gather unreliable, but perhaps important bits and pieces in our junkyard of amassed headlines, but the type of mental wrestling that reading a good book brings is irreplaceable.”
Because the Christian faith centers on the written word, because the one true God speaks the world into existence, writes his laws with his own finger, and walked among us as the living word — in short, because the LORD is a speaking and writing God, the changes we are witnessing must concern us. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the tyrannical government controls the citizens by burning books and replacing them with big-screen TVs. Ray Bradbury speculated about that dystopian society 50 years ago; today we give up our books without coercion.
Last week we began a series on the early church. We saw in Acts 2 that they were characterized by two things: dynamic and devoted. Dynamic means both living and active, like the very word of God upon which the church was based. They were also “devoted” — they clung to certain beliefs and behaviors, they persevered against pressures to do otherwise. As a result, they experienced two kinds of growth: both outward (in evangelism) and inward (in edification), and the world watched with awe and the Christians had favor with all the people.
Those are the very same things we want. We want to grow both outward and inward. We want to see people converted, new Christians added to the church, not simply more church-hoppers discontent with their previous pastor. We also need to mature in our faith, growing in our ability to discern what is best, progressing in purity and faithfulness, loving God more with our heart, soul, and minds.
How do we get there? We begin in the Bible.
1. We Must Be Devoted to the Scriptures Because of God’s Solemn Charge (2Timothy 4.1-2a)
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, after healing a few people in a certain town, he says to Peter and his disciples: “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out” (Mark 1.38). The Kingdom expands because something new is taught and believed. Nor was this only the case with Jesus. The church was almost immediately persecuted because they “greatly annoyed [the religious establishment] because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4.2).
And here in our text, God clearly prioritizes this work of the church, especially for her pastors: preach the word. And to give it extra emphasis, a charge is added. Paul says, “Timothy, you are in the courtroom of God the Father and Christ the judge. It is his coming and his kingdom which you proclaim. With these witnesses, therefore, take an oath to always preach the word!” That is a solemn charge.
Two warnings:
First, “preach the word” limits neither my labor nor your responsibility to what happens here on Sunday morning. Many Christians imagine that the preaching which is referenced is restricted to proclaiming the kernel of the Gospel. That is utterly unbiblical. Jesus commissioned the church to teach the whole world to observe everything he commanded, not simply the core message of “repent and be saved.” The Bible has something to say about race relations, civil disobedience, how you run your business, how you study and take tests at school, higher education, and political expediency.
What more effective way could Satan extinguish the light of the word than the method he has chosen — to shutter it inside the walls of a building?
As a possible example, let me challenge two groups. First, those involved with Christian education. Would it not benefit your students for pastors to prepare carefully and Biblically reasoned lectures, applying the Bible to contemporary issues in a way that challenges them to think about God and the world? Surely there are men in addition to myself who would be honored to labor for a quality presentation each month to your school. I was invited once by the University of Nebraska at Omaha, to present a lecture on “Sex-education in the Public Schools.” I treasured that opportunity to preach the word outside the pulpit.
But there is a bigger challenge to all of us. Do we desire to know God’s will in areas other than salvation? Are we really devoted to the apostles’ teaching, or small subset, the heart of the gospel? We cannot turn the Sunday morning pulpit into a series of lecture on ethics. This is the time and place to be renewed with the heart of the gospel, to restore our walk with God through grace, repentance, and faith. But when will we explore Biblical ethics? I have no outlet, other than our few minutes together on Sunday mornings, to teach the word. Would God call us devoted to the Scriptures? That is the first warning: do not limit Bible teaching to Sunday mornings.
The second warning is: realize that “preaching the word” will not be readily received. Thomas Oden, in a lecture to the Evangelical Theological Society, said: “I am doggedly pledged to irrelevance insofar as relevance implies a corrupt indebtedness to modernity. What is deemed most relevant in theology is often moldy in a few days…. I am pledged not to become fixated upon the ever-spawning species of current critical opinion but instead to focus single-mindedly upon early consensual assent to apostolic teaching….”
Our society is quickly abandoning reading and the ability to think for the pleasure of emotions. (Of course, real life is full of unpleasantries, so we prefer the invest ourselves in an imitation of life, videos!) As a result, devotion to Scripture will appear more and more irrelevant. At times like this, many churches retreat, hunker down, and shutter themselves in. But let us not do so! We must not give up. Instead, let us redouble our efforts. God may want us to start reading clubs here in the church. Sunday School was not begun to teach covenant children — that was done at home. Sunday School was a ministry of evangelism and education in a time when there were no public schools. It was a creative ministry designed to train people to read. Maybe God wants us to begin a tutoring program. I have a meeting in a couple of weeks with other pastors to discuss starting tutoring for at risk children in the Winton Woods School District. I can’t figure out myself what ministries we are called to do. I need your help.
But I can tell you this: devotion to the apostles’ teaching means more than 40 minute sermons on Sunday morning, no matter how Biblical they are. If we are devoted to the Scriptures, we will shine light into this community: it is God’s solemn charge.
2. We Must Be Devoted to the Scriptures Because of Their Powerful Benefits (2Timothy 4.2b)
There are three benefits: reprove, rebuke, and exhort. If you look back a few verses, Paul just told Timothy that the Scriptures are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” In other words, Paul is saying, “Timothy, my young apprentice, the Bible will both prepare you and profit your congregation. It is full of powerful blessings.”
Christians often have better professions than practice. Most of us loudly insist that the Bible has the answers for all of life. But few of us can find them. Our lives are to be built on doctrines, but they are more often determined by our preferences. We know what we want out of church and life, and we expect to get it.
When was the last time you studied one topic extensively in order to know the mind of God on it, and so change forever your practice? Is that really why our music is from a specific time in history and of a particular form and style? Do you really pray the way you do because that is God’s teaching on the matter? Some Korean sisters and brothers gather in a group and everyone prays out loud simultaneously. What about churches that have small group prayer during the service? Or that distribute the bread and wine differently? Are we controlled by tradition or the teaching?
I don’t want us to miss the benefits by hiding the apostolic doctrines and teachings.
3. We Must Be Devoted to the Scriptures Because of Society’s Deaf Ear (2Timothy 4.3-4)
David Wells’ insightful critique of the church, No Place For Truth, observes: “Unless we change, the evangelical church will be known as the church that gave up the truth for falsehood.”
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues convincingly that “in many ways it is the departure of the Church from preaching that is responsible in a large measure for the state of modern society…. The Church, having abandoned her real task, has left humanity more or less to its own devices.”
When we leave the world to its own devices, worse yet, when we bring adopt and conform to those devices, we create a society deaf to the Word of God. They will no longer endure sound teaching, but will, instead, go to that message which massages their passions and desires.
As that happens, the church is sorely tempted to abandon the Word for other works. We must not. We must, instead, discover where our devotion to the Word has faltered. We are the light and salt — if the world cannot see, it is because we have hidden the lamp; if it cannot taste, it is because we are not salty in a God-centered way. We can proudly puff ourselves with our privatized religion; we can “tsk-tsk” over the many forms of their rebellion; we can complain that they do not listen, but could it be that we speak with harsh words or with our hands over our mouths? There are plenty of reasons for the world to reject the Word; let us not add to them by our own misuse and abuse of it.
4. Conclusion
4.1. Press Forward
We are tempted to retreat when we hear reports like that from the NEA. We say, “Well, my kids will read good books and be challenged in their academics.” They should be, AND we have work to do. We must take care lest we become the “helicopter parents” who teach our children that the universe revolves around their wants, needs, and desires. Your kids need to see you serving and ministering, even though some of their wants will be sacrificed! The Christian faith is not defensive and reactionary; it is other-oriented and ministry-minded. We have a light to shine, let us labor to do so.
4.2. Creatively Encourage Reading
The problem is not simply Scripture, it is reading and reasoning. The Christian faith is word-based. We must care about all reading, and we must be on the forefront of promoting reading by children.
4.3. Expand Our Own Commitment
We have, already, one additional time to devote ourselves to the scriptures: Sunday school. My mentor, Pastor Mike Ross, used to say that the Sunday school hour was as important to the church as the preaching time. If we are brutally honest, is it not true that many of us who would never skip church are with missing Sunday school? Here in our church, we schedule other events during the Sunday school hour. We talk in the hall rather than come in on time. We place a low priority on teaching other than the Sunday sermon.
Walter Elwell, in his Bible Pocket Handbook, writes: “I was walking in San Francisco along the Golden Gate Bridge when I saw a man about to jump off. I tried to dissuade him from committing suicide and told him simply that God loved him. A tear came to his eye. I then asked him, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or what?”
He said, “I’m a Christian.”
I said, “Me, too, small world. Protestant or Catholic?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me, too, what denomination?”
He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too, Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Well, ME TOO, Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Well, that’s amazing! Northern Conservative
Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
I said, “A miracle! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Council of 1912?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Council of 1912.”
I said, “DIE HERETIC!’ and pushed him over the rail.
That is what people think our devotion to Scripture means. It was not so in the New Testament church. They loved the Bible and they were unified in love for one another. We will develop that theme in the future, but for now, keep it in mind as we puzzle out what it means to be devoted to Scripture in a world that does not read. You think about that. Amen.
