"I Thank Him"

THE COMPELLING APPOINTMENT: 1 Timothy 1:12

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful appointing me to his service.

Having wrapped up his discussion on the danger of false teaching, Paul moves on to the matter of his own calling and credentials for writing, giving both positive and negative examples and points for his protege, Timothy.

[He] who has given me strength. The task is too much for the Apostle alone, as it is for any of us. On the other hand, God does not call and deploy without giving the means to do the job, whether of internal or external resources. This is absolutely necessary. In my father's office for many years there has hung a framed prayer for ministry, imploring the guidance and protection of God lest the one making the prayer make a mess of everything. Anyone who has sought to fulfill a spiritual calling knows well the aptness of this prayer, and the dangers which lurk close by. But God is faithful to lend the strength necessary to the occasion. What is required from us is faith: not in the sense of some kind of herculean spiritual effort that we have to work up to, but like the simple turning of a tap to open the way for God's resourcing to flow, saying "yes, I will trust" to God's offer of all things needful. Faith is our assent, yours and mine, to the abundant provision of God.

To faith, then, God adds not just ability and skill but stamina, too, to continue. To stamina God adds anointing. To anointing, God adds wisdom. To wisdom, God adds compassion. And to compassion, love. This is the strength which God imparts to us.

He judged me faithful. Paul (as he will soon aver) was a persecutor of the church! He would have seemed the last man to be trusted -- as his first experience at Damascus and Jerusalem proved. Yet God had other plans. In what sense then is this true?

Paul had faith. He trusted God, and knew God's power, even if it was at first wrongly applied.

Paul was devoted. He gave 125% of his effort (as we say) to the "cause", whether it was his misguided cause (opposing God's work by persecuting "the Way" of Christ) or his later, holy one. The energy was there and focused in intensity -- it just needed to be focused in the right direction. Many of the Church's greatest leaders over the years were persons who had great flaws or who had been at one time great persecutors of the faith, but whom God turned in a different direction.

Paul was faithful in his work. Starting from the beginning (see Acts 9), he persevered against all odds and under all circumstances, to the end.

Appointed to His service. Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Paul could not keep the message to himself. The call is a sacred one, and the Holy Spirit opened the doors for the Apostle to fulfill it.


Lord Jesus Christ, you have given me strength to do Your work. Grant that I may live fully-charged and fully-engaged in the work to which You call me, as You have been to me. Appoint me each day to my allotted tasks for You, but let me ever fulfill them in loving service to You. In Your holy Name I pray, Lord Christ. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"To Timothy"

PROTEGE OF AN APOSTLE: 1 Timothy 1:2 (part 2)

Just who was Timothy?

His name (Greek Timotheos) means either "one who honors God" or (less likely, I think) "honored by God". It turns out that most of what we know about him comes from the New Testament, in which he is shown to be a protege of the apostle Paul. The son of a Greek (Gentile) father and observant Jewish mother (Eunice) and grandmother (Lois -- see 2 Tm 1:5), he traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys. Paul had met him at Lystra, and arranged for his circumcision as a Jew, for the sake of the mission to the Jews (Ac 16:1-3). The author of Hebrews tells us that a Timothy (presumably the same person) was imprisoned but then released, a sign of his suffering for the sake of Christ. He also had strong ascetic traits, for instance frequent fasting; hence Paul's encouragement to him to make medicinal use of wine (1 Tm 5:23).

Other early Christian sources tell us a little more. Eusebius (History of the Church 3.4) tells us that Timothy became the first bishop of Ephesus, and was evidently Paul's troubleshooter and undershepherd there, as Titus was on the island of Crete. That's suggestive, since tradition also tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary Theotokos and John the Apostle both spent their last days at Ephesus, which may mean that Timothy was their pastor. If this is true, it's a second tie between the Theotokos and Paul, the other being Luke the Evangelist and (traditionally) first iconographer, whose first work was of the Virgin.

He is believed to have been martyred at Ephesus during the reign of the Roman emperor Nerva by enraged pagans, for honoring God (timo-theos!) by opposing idols.

Timothy learned this reverence of God on his grandmother's knee and at his mother's breast, and under the guidance and tutelage of his mentor Paul. A generation after the man from Tarsus laid down his life for the Gospel of Christ, Timothy followed, but not before serving long and well as the trusted leader of one of the most important sees of the Christian Church.

Lord, thank you for the example of Timothy, and for his faith. Enable us to learn well and to teach well, so that those who are guided by us and who follow us will also minister well and faithfully to your people, blessing Your own heart. Let me, also, be truly found to be "one who honors God". Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"To Timothy, My True Child in the Faith"

BORN TO REPRODUCE: 1 Timothy 1:2

Paul now identifies his addressee: Timothy, his protege. Paul refers to him as "my true child". This should raise several ideas in the mind.

Each of us should ask himself / herself: Who are my children in the faith? Who has come to Christ because of my testimony? Hopefully this includes any natural children (if applicable) -- our kids at some point make decisions for themselves; but we, like Augustine's mother Monica, can be fervently praying and using our gentle, loving influence to try to guide them to the Cross and to faith.

But it's not just about our natural children, grandchildren, or others who are part of our socially-recognized nurturing responsibility. The circle extends to friends, coworkers, fellow-students ... in fact, every life we touch. As C.S. Lewis said: You have never met a mere mortal. Each life is move a little closer to Heaven, or to hell, by your influence and mine. Who are our children in the faith, and how are we feeding, tending, encouraging, challenging, and protecting them?

There's no question that John and Nicholas belong to Elizabeth and me: their looks and their personalities, though different, each bear the stamp of their parentage very clearly. They are our "true children". What of our children in the faith? Are they "true children"?

Each of us must first ask: do they bear the stamp of my character, my influence? Have I given myself, poured myself into them, opened my heart and life so that they can see who Christ is in and for me? Most of all, are they themselves reflecting more and more the character and likeness of Jesus Christ? For that is what is most important.

And if they are our "true children", it is for us to ask whether there is some alloy we are risking putting into the pure substance of their faith, character, and life. Is my heart single toward Christ? Or is there something else that I am passing on, some flaw, some admixture, some dross or brokenness? I have asked this question on numerous occasions regarding our missionary work in the world, and what the Western, especially American, church exports in our church planting elsewhere. Are we planting our problems all over again, along with our churches? Congregations of local churches should ask this: what kind of disciples are we making? Are they "true children" of Christ? And I must ask the same question of myself: am I planting my failings and misunderstandings, along with sharing the Master's love and example and the lessons of faith? May it not be so! But it reminds me of my responsibility, and the call to be ever on guard. Satan is subtle. But Christ is both stronger and wiser still.

In 1955, Dawson Trotman gave a 47-minute talk called "Born to Reproduce". (You can read it here: http://www.navigators.org/us/ministries/college/navfusion/assets/BorntoReproduce.pdf)Trotman, founder of the Navigators, understood this to be part of the very core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Every species must reproduce or die; but while each individual human may not have natural offspring, and extinction of the Church is guaranteed by Christ not to happen, every Christian believer is responsible to use those opportunities that God gives to work at replicating the chromosomes of faith in the life of another ... in the lives of others.

Who are our children "in the faith"? And are they true?


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"By the Command of God"

WHO CALLS?: 1 Timothy 1:1 (part 2)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope ...

The first striking aspect of this verse is the reference to "God our Savior". We often hear the phrase "our Savior Jesus Christ". Here, though, Paul says "God our Savior". So we understand, just as in John 3:16 and other passages such as 1 John 3:1 and 4:19, that it is of God's eternal purpose that God's own creation be redeemed, and that God is the primary Actor in our salvation. This gives the lie to the idea that the God of the Old Testament is a vengeful and judging and even capricious Dictator, where the Savior is kind, loving, and forgiving. God is the loving Father, the eternal Spirit of both love and justice, who has purposed to redeem and restore all of His creation. Moreover, because we believe that God is revealed as Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we understand from the apostle that the whole of the Godhead is bending toward our salvation.

The second striking feature of the passage is the double mention of "Christ Jesus". Paul is an "apostle" (apostolos, "one who is sent") by Christ Jesus; and he also identifies the same Christ Jesus as the end of his quest and every believer's ("our hope"). Christ is therefore both the origin and basis, but also the end and goal, of our life's purpose.

There are two ways at least of understanding this. One, and I think the wrong way, is to see Christian profession as the limitation of our personhood. The great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, himself an atheist, pointed this way when he maintained, "The worshiping mind is not a creative mind." This is to make Christ a barrier that one cannot get across. But this is a mistake: the fashioner of our minds, our hearts, our creativity, our very dreams when whole and healthy, is the limitless Mind and Heart which created all things and set before us and all beings an open future.

The other way is to consider this belonging a bit like being part of a family. I was born into my clan, my tribe, my nuclear home gang; and, having lived my life connected to them directly or not-so-directly, I will always belong there and pass from this life with my identity still rooted in that belonging. What I do with that identity is up to me -- but it is a big part of defining who I am. Even if I should abandon the family connection and take another name, that name too will be part of my self-definition. As a Christian, we are born anew into the family of God by the grace of Christ; and that identity is part of our inheritance and points us onward to the great destiny which belongs to all of God's true children.

Christ is "our hope". Hope implies something identified, but not fully realized; a goal, an end. He is our hope because He has made us His own. He is our hope because we look to make all that we do serve His purpose, and win His approval and applause. He is our hope because He has begun to reform creation, un-corrupting and healing that which has become broken and corrupted through sin and rebellion.

He is our hope. When that Hope is the one who has called and named and identified, how can one go wrong? What confidence this brings! What daring it can inspire! And this is exactly how Paul is fired -- and so is able to encourage the protege he will now begin to address in the letter.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)