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.
A number of surveys have been conducted in the UK over the past twenty years or so to discover if people who describe themselves as Christians read the Bible regularly. The surveys give a consistent result: very few do. One of those surveys, quite a recent one, made an interesting observation. It noted: “The reasons for engaging with the Bible … were mostly ‘to comfort me’ and ‘to inspire me.’”
It isn’t wrong to read the Bible to seek comfort and be inspired. And the Bible certainly does comfort and inspire us. But it isn’t the proper reason to read the Bible. The reason we read the Bible is because we declare ‘Jesus is Lord.’ To make ‘Jesus is Lord’ a reality we have to listen to him and then obey him! Listening to God means reading the Bible. The fact that we read the Bible is one of the clearest demonstrations that Jesus really is Lord.
If people read the Bible to be comforted and inspired that’s probably what they want in a sermon. Perhaps that’s the situation here in the UK.
Congregations can put pressure on preachers. After all, they pay their salaries! Preachers then modify what they preach. They skip over parts of the word of God which they think their congregations don’t want to hear. Or they talk about something else entirely. I went through theological training to become a Baptist minister. I remember a talk about pastoral care. The lecturer gave a lecture on the theories of Siegmund Freud. Why do I need to know Siegmund Freud’s opinions?! I want to know what God has to say in the pages of scripture! That’s just one example. At theological college the process is relentless – there is input from almost everywhere BUT scripture. I don’t believe that in three years of training we had one Bible study.
Someone called Mark Cartledge who is a lecturer in theology at the University of Birmingham did some research on how the academic world uses scripture in teaching theology. He wrote: ‘…the practical theological academy, for the most part, is content to sit loose to an engagement with Scripture.’
What kind of example is that to people who are preparing to be ministers? The colleges that are training people to be ministers are teaching by example that you don’t need to preach ‘the word’!
Maybe people in the UK want to be comforted and inspired by God’s word. Perhaps in other parts of the world people want something different. They want to be told that following God will make them rich. Or that faith in God will bring them healing. ‘No believer should ever be sick!’ That’s what Kenneth Hagin, the founder of the Word of Faith movement declared. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
There are countless ways in which preachers preach something other than God’s word.
At this point you may be thinking: ‘This is all very well, Simon. It might apply to you. You are a preacher. But I’m not!’
A MESSAGE THAT APPLIES TO ALL OF US
But I believe that Paul’s message to Timothy applies to all of us. Let’s suppose that it’s true, that I am the preacher and you aren’t. In that case you have a job to urge me to stay on track just as Paul was urging Timothy to stay on track. But I don’t believe that it’s true at all. It ISN’T the case that I am the preacher and you aren’t. Preaching doesn’t only mean giving a sermon on a Sunday. ‘Preaching’ can mean that we’re advocating something. Someone can preach the Keto diet. Someone can preach lifestyle change as a response to global warming. In this broader sense we can all preach God’s word. Paul’s message applies to all of us.
A SOLEMN MESSAGE
Paul really, really wants Timothy to stay on track. He gives him one of the most solemn injunctions that we find anywhere in the Bible. He writes, ‘I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.’ Paul sounds really serious, doesn’t he?
But Paul isn’t only giving Timothy a serious tone. He’s giving him some serious logic. Why does Paul mention ‘Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead’? Is Timothy going to be judged on his performance? Why would Paul write this if Timothy ISN’T going to be judged? It would be irrelevant, wouldn’t it?
There are two senses in which believers are judged. I’m sure all of us know John 3:16. Jesus said, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’
We understand from this that there will be a day of judgment. Some people will inherit eternal life. Others, very regrettably, will perish. From this verse it seems that the only two possible outcomes are inheriting eternal life or perishing. Jesus doesn’t mention anything about being judged on our performance as Christians.
But there are a number of passages which DO talk about us being judged on our work, on our performance. Paul, in 1 Corinthians [3:12-15] tells us that ‘the Day’ will disclose the quality of each person’s work. He tells us that our work will be tested, and there’s the possibility of reward or loss.
Jesus’ parable of the minas [Luke 19] has exactly the same idea. A nobleman gives ten of his servants ten minas each. The nobleman goes away – obviously paralleling Jesus going away. He comes back – paralleling Jesus’ Second Coming. When the nobleman comes back, he wants his servants to give a report. You can imagine the servants standing rather nervously, waiting to report.
Once again, there’s an assessment, and there’s the possibility of reward or loss.
Paul tells Timothy, ‘I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, WHO IS TO JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD’. In other words, ‘Timothy, you need to take this seriously. You’re going to be assessed.’
Paul was writing to Timothy. Timothy was the overseer of the church in Ephesus. He had a role as a preacher. I have a task of preaching now. But in a broader sense, we all have the task of collectively preaching ‘the word’, God’s word. It’s really important. We are going to be assessed on what we’ve done with this treasure that God has entrusted to us.
A HOLY CALLING
To conclude this talk and our series in 2 Timothy, I want to go back to the verse which I think expresses the theme for the whole letter. It’s 2 Timothy 1:8, but I’m going to go on to verse 9.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us AND CALLED US TO A HOLY CALLING…
In our passage today Paul has solemnly called on Timothy to preach the word – God’s word, which means scripture.
Jesus is Lord. He is head of the church. He’s the boss. As Lord, Jesus speaks to the church. He has a lot to say. He gives commands and guidance and warnings and encouragement. We discover Jesus’ message for us primarily in the pages of scripture. We read it for ourselves. But the preacher also has to pass it on.
‘Preach the word’, Paul tells Timothy. Timothy has to PREACH. He has to communicate, publicly and passionately. He has to preach ‘THE WORD’: God’s word, scripture, in other words. He has to preach what’s there and not preach what isn’t there.
What’s the result? As Timothy did his job, God’s word reached God’s people in his day. As we do our job, God’s word reaches God’s people in our day.
At the start of his letter Paul wrote that God ‘called us to a holy calling’. What has God called us to? He’s called us to preach his word. It means that we are God’s spokespeople, his emissaries. It certainly is a holy calling! May God help us to diligently fulfil it.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 31st October 2021
