"As I Urged You ... Remain"

THE MIRAGE OF SAMENESS: 1 Timothy 1:3-4 (part 2)

It's easy to pass over, but Paul tells Timothy to stay in Ephesus, while he goes on to visit Macedonia. Can't we charge Paul with a simple case of: "Do as I say, but not as I do"?

The Miasma of "Fairness". As the father of two sons with six years' difference in age, I have long been very familiar with the question, "How come he gets to do that and I can't?!" -- usually (though not always) raised in complaint by the younger about the older. Yet not only in age and understanding but in temperament, talents, and needs, the two, now young men, are very different. To treat them identically would have been a dangerous mistake.

We live in a society burdened by -- sometimes, seemingly paralyzed by -- ideas of fairness that can approach the ridiculous in application. Paper cups are stamped, "Warning! Contents may be hot!" when they are designed and used exclusively for steaming beverages, as a bowing to fairness (I presume) toward the clumsy or not very bright. A parent objects to a costume party in a classroom, so an entire school district bans such celebrations for all students, all the time. In seminary, a bulletin board in one classroom had a round of pocket bread attached followed by the formula "divided equally = justice". Catchy and facile, but not usually true because people's needs are rarely identical.

A growth point in discipleship is recognizing that God's call in my life may be quite different from that of someone else. This is part of what Jesus is getting at with Peter at the end of John 21. As Oswald Chambers points out in My Utmost for His Highest, this can also mean that some activities and influences, while not sinful in themselves and okay for someone else, may be wrong or dangerous for me.

None of us is "special" in the Kingdom of God in the sense of being preferred over others or being exempt from the demands of discipleship; yet each of us has been made unique by the Creator. Timothy's path of service paralleled Paul's for a time, then they diverged. Paul's call was one thing; Timothy's, another. The same is true for each of us.


Lord, thank you for your call in my life. Forgive me when I look with envy on your calling in other lives, or receive with distrust what you say to me. Let me neither react with resentment, not lord it over others in pride, when the differences in calling become apparent. Help me to remember, as Jesus said, that I am "an unworthy servant" -- but even an unworthy servant is still blessed to be Your servant. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)