2 Timothy 2:20-26

Hey,
welcome back, everybody.
We’ve had a few days off.
Glad you’re back with us.
I’m thankful to have you joining us as we continue through 2 Timothy,
the second chapter of 2 Timothy.
We pick up today with verse 20,
a couple of interesting verses.
I don’t know exactly what to make of them,
but we’ll try to unpack them.
Let me read them for
you and then we’ll get into it.
“In a large house there are utensils not only of gold and silver,
but also of wood and clay,
some for special use, some for ordinary.
All who cleanse themselves of
the things I have mentioned will become special utensils,
dedicated and useful to the owner of the house,
ready for every good work.” So
an interesting illustration here,
not one that’s terribly difficult to decode.
If you have, like we have,
China or silverware that you’ve either
inherited from family members or likely got at your wedding that spends,
in the case of our China at
least, most of its life in a cabinet or a cupboard,
rarely to see the light of day.
You kind of get the idea here that Paul is encouraging Timothy to instruct others that
those who rid themselves of these ungodly behaviors,
these sinful inclinations, those who try to pay attention to their life and their doctrine,
these things that he’s been saying to Timothy,
distinguish themselves as special utensils,
as set apart, as dedicated and useful.
I don’t know, this is,
Michael, maybe not the easiest illustration in Paul’s context,
but I think the point behind it is it’s fairly simple that Paul is encouraging those of us who
follow Christ to try and do so in such a way
that we’re set apart from the ordinary and that we
attain some level of dedicated, some level of,
you might even say,
special.
And I don’t say
that in a theological sense,
but in a discipleship sense.
That’s, I think, what makes this metaphor
so interesting, Clint, is because we know from Paul’s other writings, those things like
language of the body,
talking about different limbs,
how there are the higher sort of organs,
and then there’s the
things that we give less honor to,
but that they’re all important,
right, is the sense of that analogy.
Not really the same here.
Here, we have the sense of,
instead of everyone having a part to play and every part is, by definition,
God-blessed,
here we have this idea that we can,
by our choices and the things that we choose to do,
and therefore also the things that we choose to leave behind,
we can make some impact on our usefulness to the
kingdom.
We can be useful to the owner of the house in this metaphor.
And if you’re wondering
what’s at mind here,
I mean, I think it’s worth putting up here really quickly.
Verse 15,
very top of the screen here,
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him,
a worker that has no need to be ashamed,
rightly explaining the word of truth.” And then
we have what we talked about last session,
this idea of that profane chatter,
that stuff that spreads even like a virus.
Then we have this idea that fundamentally it’s the right teaching
that Paul has in mind.
And this is where I want to pause.
We sometimes become fixated on what it
looks like to live out the faith in our context.
And we’ve become very checklist oriented.
Does that person swear?
Do they wear the right clothes?
Do they listen to the right music?
This has always been a temptation for Christians.
What strikes me of the text so far that we’ve had here today, Clint,
is really in many ways how uninterested Paul is in the stuff that the Christian does,
but rather what the Christian believes.
And we’re going to see that flushed out here in verse 22.
But I think some of it is
that we live out the faith and we’re faithful when we stay true to
the core thing, that Jesus Christ,
the Son of God who’s resurrected.
We often, I think,
we look
to these tertiary areas of the faith to find sort of the definition of what it means to live the
faith.
And Paul resists that.
He is seeking to point out the danger of profane shadow,
those words that we say that really has no fundamental meaning in the faith.
And that is a constant, abiding temptation, I think, for every Christian.
So this analogy strikes me.
What’s really interesting here is I think it’s a call for each Christian to ask ourselves,
how useful have we made ourselves to the owner of the house?
How useful are we to the work of the kingdom?
Have we filled our life with rubbish,
with that stuff that we’ll,
by definition, pass away?
Or have we day by day been worked into those objects of fine use that we might be able
to contribute in a meaningful way to the work of God?
I think
maybe not the analogy that a preacher
would pick today to make this point,
but I think it serves the point if you hear it.
Yeah, I think we misread this if we read into it some kind of hierarchy of
the idea that someone
is more loved or better or
higher in God’s eyes.
This is a challenge for us to be as useful as we can,
to be as unstained as we can,
to be as helpful and valuable to God as we can be.
And so it really,
I think we need to understand where Paul is trying to get in order to make sense of it.
And I think the follow-up verses,
as you pointed out,
help us, Michael.
So let me read a few more here.
“Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness,
faith, love, and peace along with
those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies.
You know that they breed quarrels,
and the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome,
but kindly to everyone,
an apt teacher, patient,
correcting opponents with gentleness.
God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to the truth,
and that they may escape
from the snare of the devil,
having been held captive by him,
to do his will.”
So almost two sections here, front and back.
A word to Timothy,
“shun youthful passions.” We’ve
talked repeatedly in this study that Timothy is
perceived and presented as a young man.
“Shield youthful passions and pursue righteousness,
faith,
love, and peace.” I think most of us, Michael,
have some experience of maybe being overzealous when we’re young,
overconfident.
I certainly wouldn’t speak for anybody else,
but I could check that box repeatedly and solidly.
That idea that sometimes,
you know,
youthful passions doesn’t always mean youthful sins.
Sometimes it means that the passion of youth leads us to arrogance,
to ego.
And so Paul says instead, “Pursue righteousness,
love,
and peace along with those
who call on the love with a pure heart.” And,
you know, again,
Paul loves these words, faith,
love,
and peace.
And when Paul thinks of the church and what Paul wants to see in the church
or in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ,
these are the words that come to mind for him, faith, love,
and peace.
And I think that matters.
I think that’s a really strong verse here.
There is a Facebook account that every day broadcasts a picture like a sandpit.
I think it’s like the same picture,
and it happens every day.
And for some reason,
lots of people like it.
I feel like verse 23 should be a Facebook page that every day says the same exact thing.
Like, every morning,
eight o’clock, we should all get hit with a dose of have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies.
You know that they breed quarrels.
I mean, that is like a marching
order in the 21st century.
And,
you know, I say that somewhat in jest,
but with a very large dose of seriousness.
I think we need to take very seriously that the words that we use in our relationships,
even the words that we don’t think others will hear,
have an unbelievable impact,
not just in the world around us,
but in shaping who we are as Christians.
We’ve already had this
in the study.
I believe it was last week.
So go back a couple of lessons if you missed it.
But an entire conversation about are we people who use words idly?
Are we those who at the end of the
day, if you take measure of the stock and value of what was said,
does it measure up to the
fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
And of course, no one does that perfectly.
We’re not setting a bar that is so high as to never be achievable.
It’s rather about the spirit that
returns day after day,
seeking to add something of value,
not to fall back into senseless controversies.
And Clint,
let’s not even make this about cell phones.
There’s literally TV channels devoted to the controversies of this celebrity versus that celebrity.
And the,
you know, the gossip of the day and the sort of cultural Maloo.
It is so easy to get caught up
and believe that these are the things that are important,
that this sort of entertainment is the
heart of having a real joy in the world.
But the truth of the gospel tells us that that is counterfeit,
that fundamentally being in the community of faith,
pursuing these deeper things,
which you name, Clint,
righteousness,
faith, love and peace, that this is the way of those who call upon the Lord.
And when they do so,
they will find themselves not needing the senseless chatter,
not needing these kinds of idle controversies,
not looking for quarrels.
They can live in real and deep and
meaningful community in the midst of the community of faith.
Anyone who’s been Christian for
any time, Clint knows that that staying in community is hard work.
And I see Paul making a
really pretty on the nose argument,
I think, which is
entirely applicable today of what it takes to do that.
It is tempting to read these through our own lens.
But having said that,
I do think there is wisdom
here for the moment we’re in.
Because if you read these verses carefully,
you see that Paul
says avoid conflict where it can be avoided.
Avoid things that don’t have a point.
Avoid arguments that are meaningless,
that are worthless, that are helpless,
that don’t move the needle forward in relationship or in faith,
in peace, in righteousness, those things you mentioned that Paul mentions,
Michael.
And look,
as you read the back of this,
you see that for Paul,
and we all know,
if you’ve read any of Paul,
you know that Paul’s not above
arguing.
Paul will get in it with people who he believes are misleading others.
But the point is, for Paul,
it is to the end of trying to correct gently.
A teacher must correct with gentleness.
Perhaps knowing that God may bring them to the truth,
that they will repent.
The idea is not to
win the argument or the issue.
The idea is to win people to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The idea is not to bring somebody to your camp.
The idea is to bring somebody to your Savior.
And for Paul, that is entirely different than the idea that I’m going to argue over this thing because I want to
win, and I want them to agree with me,
and I want to back them into the corner and have them admit
that I’m the right,
I have it right,
and that they’re wrong.
Most of what we do,
I’ll always, again, speak for myself,
often doesn’t fall within these parameters.
And so I find this a very
challenging word, as also a guy who is pretty quick to argue and has more than 100 times in
my life, probably, found myself at some point thinking,
“What are we arguing?
How is this an argument?
What are we even talking about?
There’s no point to this.” And so,
yeah, I find these words
convicting, and by being convicting,
I find them pretty instructional.
You know, Clint, we live in a world where maybe one of our greatest temptations is we make
assumptions about who our opponent is.
We sort of create a straw man of those are the people
over there.
I know them because they look like this,
or vote like this,
or act like this,
or spend their money like this,
however we identify them.
I want to just point out,
look at here,
verse 25, correcting opponents with gentleness.
Remember,
just a couple studies ago,
who were the opponents?
They were not the world.
They weren’t the people out there,
outside the church, impressing upon the community.
They were rather people claiming to be from within
the community who were teaching wrong things about Jesus,
about his identity,
that he was from the lineage of David,
that he was resurrected,
this core of the gospel that God made life happen
where there was death.
That, for Paul, is the simple gospel,
and it is the thing that has been
transgressed by these opponents.
It’s worth noting that Paul does get motion riled up to your point, Clint,
when that false teaching has an impact upon the least in the Christian community.
I mean, we see that in the letter to the Corinthians,
the idea of meet sacrifice to idols.
If somebody is uncomfortable with that, whether or not theologically they should be,
you need to be
sensitive to it.
Paul is very concerned where the teaching of the church begins to trample
people’s ability to trust and have faith in Jesus Christ.
I just think it’s hard to not see that
wisdom written through these lines here,
that fundamentally, as Christians,
when we recognize our call to stay true to the gospel,
we must do that with intentional gentleness,
with the understanding that if it goes well,
it’ll be like Jonah.
Whether or not he wanted to go to Nineveh,
right, the point is that God had a plan for the Ninevites,
and so when he went and preached,
God made that message effective,
and ultimately, God brought an entire city into the story of redemption.
It is so easy for us to turn that message into one of destruction and judgment,
say, hey, you need to get this right or else,
and then we feel in all of these horrible things that might happen.
I mean, fundamentally, the goal is gentle correction with the hope that the community will be united
around the fundamental revelation of Jesus Christ.
That’s what Paul has in mind.
It may sound simple,
but we know that when it’s actually lived out,
when we put flesh to it,
it gets unbelievably complicated because people are people,
and people struggle with lots of
different sinfulness and lots of different ideas,
and we struggle to find ways to live into these
righteousness and love and peace.
These are what we’re called to be,
but living into it is not as
we can make our way into the Christian community,
and it happens overnight.
It’s a practice of a
life spent in the midst of the Christian community,
sort of insert Dietrich Bonhoeffer in life
together here.
I think we see that written out in beautiful words here.
I think Paul is paving a really challenging path for us,
as on one hand,
he calls us in times
of disagreement to be gracious,
to be patient,
to be Christian.
But then, as you’ll see tomorrow,
he also calls us to take a very strong stand against that,
or at least in the face of that,
which threatens to degrade the gospel,
that threatens to undermine the work of Christ.
And so,
you know, it is
a challenging path forward
to stay between those two poles,
to stand strongly and firmly upon the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and yet to do so gently and patiently in
a way that seeks to bring opponents to the truth rather than beat them with the truth.
And I think that for most of us, Michael,
that’s a humbling task.
Yeah,
anyone who can read these words,
pass by them with the impression
that this is easy to do,
have yet to hear them.
This is,
in some ways,
not even faith 401 or 501.
It’s not as if this is advanced in its intellectual
status.
I think that this is advanced in its practice.
This is the fruit of an older,
wiser teacher speaking to a young person who we just today,
you know, is passionate, right?
And there is a kind of youthful passion that helps the faith.
There’s also a deep kind of seasoned wisdom that recognizes,
listen, the struggle’s not today or tomorrow.
It may be a week or a
month away when that teaching happens again,
when the person you thought corrected was corrected,
and then it comes back and you realize, no,
that same thing over and over and over,
same rock, same hill, keep pushing.
There’s a way in which that this gets lived out and it becomes a part
of our story, not a part of our intellect.
And so if we think what we’re hearing here,
Clint, is just, you know,
write doctrine once you have acquired that you have it.
I don’t think we’ve heard the actual full extent of the difficulty that’s actually implied in this.
Yeah, I would agree.
I think it’s significant that Paul spent so much of this letter
instructing Timothy on how to treat people who, in Paul’s estimation,
have it wrong.
And yet compels him to do so as a teacher who is kind and gracious and gentle and patient.
Again,
I think those are good words but challenging ones.
Thank you for being with us today,
sharing some time with us.
We hope that we will see
you tomorrow as we continue on in chapter three.
But until then, I’ll give the video a like and a
share, and we will see you tomorrow.
Thanks, Saul.