The Bride of Christ: Future Church Leadership, Part 1
If you would, turn with me now in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 2. I’ll just be reading one verse.
2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Let’s pray together.
Our heavenly Father, as we come before You we come with gratitude for Your mercies to us throughout this week. We thank you for hearing our prayers, and blessing the ministry of Your Word to our hearts, for the fellowship that we have enjoyed together. Now, as we come for these last two sessions we look up to You once again. We pray that You would grant to us Your Holy Spirit; that Your Spirit would come upon speaker and hearer in order that we might understand Your Word and that we might feel its power in our hearts; that we might love it, Your truth, and that our thinking and our feeling and our doing would be shaped by it. We come to You believing that You are a Father who is not reluctant to give good gifts to His children, and You have revealed to us in the words of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, that if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will the heavenly Father? Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. So, what else can we do but ask, believing that Your promises are true? It’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
Not too long ago in the church I serve we engaged in a study of the first thirteen chapters of the book of Acts. Near the end of that study we spent quite a bit of time just focusing on the church at Antioch. It was the first Gentile church, a very important church. It became the launching pad of perhaps the greatest missionary breakthrough and endeavor in the history of the world. It was from this church, as you know, that Paul and Barnabas were sent out on their first missionary journey. It was a model church in many respects. For several weeks we considered some of the characteristics of that church, as they’re given to us in Acts chapter 11 and Acts chapter 13.
For example, it was a church that was built upon and devoted to the public ministry of the Word of God. It was a church that displayed to those around it an earnest love and devotion to Jesus Christ. The disciples were first called ‘Christians’ at Antioch. It was a church marked by practical deeds of love and benevolence to brethren in need in the offering and relief effort for the poor saints in Jerusalem. It was a church that was marked by a deeply-felt awareness of its dependence upon the guidance and the blessing of God, as seen in the fact that it was a praying church, and it sometimes joined fasting to its prayers. It was also a church that was marked by a focus on mission and not merely upon maintenance.
But there was something else that stuck out to me in our study of that church, and it was this: the church at Antioch was a church that cultivated and produced ministers of the gospel. Perhaps you remember how the church was founded. At first, who was the main preacher or teacher or pastor? Well, after the death of Stephen some who were scattered abroad came to Antioch and preached the gospel. We’re told that a great number turned to the Lord and believed in the Lord Jesus. When the news came back to Jerusalem they sent up Barnabas to check out the situation.
First there was Barnabas, but then Barnabas remembered that young man Saul, who had shown so much promise several years before this when Barnabas vouched for him in Jerusalem, and since that time to a various number of different circumstances and partly forced by persecution Saul had returned to his hometown in Tarsus, and had been there now for several years in relative obscurity. So, was Saul to be forgotten? Were all his tremendous gifts to be unused and virtually wasted? No, Barnabas remembered him, and he traveled to Tarsus to find him. He did he brought him to Antioch, and there they labored together.
We read, “So it was that for a whole year they [Barnabas and Saul] assembled with the church and taught a great many people.”
Now, there are two: Barnabas and Paul. Barnabas was, in some measure, instrumental in Paul’s development.
When we come to chapter 13 of the book of Acts, the number of gospel ministers in Antioch has multiplied. In verse 1 of that chapter we have this long list of prophets and teachers in the church. Barnabas and Paul are in that list, but there is also Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch. There was just one man, and then there were two, and now there are five. Then we find, as you know, that eventually two of these men are set apart and are sent out by the church in Antioch to preach the gospel and to plant churches in other places. So, this is what was happening in the church at Antioch.
In that same context, in Acts chapter 13, we have reference to another man: a young man named John Mark. At one point, as you know, Paul and Barnabas traveled to Jerusalem. They were sent there by the church of Antioch with a benevolence gift to the poor saints in Jerusalem and there was this promising young man there named John Mark, and when they returned to Antioch they brought him with them and he became something of what we might call ‘a ministerial intern.’ Barnabas and Paul became his mentors, and later when they’re sent out from the church on their first missionary journey they take John Mark as their assistant. Now, we all know that there were disappointments, there were ups and downs in Mark’s development, but eventually this same John Mark becomes the author of the gospel of Mark that we have in our Bibles.
What I’m trying to help us to see is that there was this culture in the church of cultivating future leaders and ministers of the gospel. We continue to see this throughout the book of Acts. Later Paul carries along with him another young man, and this young man’s name was Timothy, the recipient of the epistle that I’ve had us turn to today. Then, after Timothy himself has been established in the ministry, it’s Paul who now writes to Timothy the words in our text, 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” There is this emphasis on cultivating and producing future leaders and ministers of the gospel.
Now, certainly, this is something that is very important when it comes to the theme of this conference. When it comes to the perpetuation, beautifying and well-being of the bride of Christ, the Church. As we’ve been reminded this week, we’re told in Ephesians 5:26-27 that Christ is sanctifying and cleansing His bride with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church. Well, this washing of water by the Word, whether we conceive of that in terms of that initial conversion, regeneration, definitive sanctification, and also take into that the ongoing work of progressive sanctification, nurturing and cherishing the Church—this washing of water by the Word occurs largely through the public ministry of the Word of God, by God-called, Scripturally-qualified, Spirit-empowered preachers.
This matter of producing, identifying, cultivating, and preparing future ministers of the gospel is something every church and every pastor ought to be deeply concerned about. That’s the topic that I am taking up. I was encouraged to take this topic up. Some of you who were at the fraternal, a couple of messages that I brought there, one of them had to do with this and I made the comment kind of offhandedly that I’m being very brief, there’s a lot more I would like to say on this subject. So, Bart was there and he kind of encouraged me to take that up and to go further with it in the conference this year. So, that’s what I’m going to seek to do, and I’m going to seek to open up this text before us under four major headings. We’ll cover one and a half, or one and a third, something like that, of those points, those headings, in the first message, God willing. We’ll see how that goes, and God willing we’ll come back with the rest of the headings in the second session.
First, I want us to consider the instruction itself that is to be given, that Paul is referring to here. Secondly, the recipients of this instruction. Third, the Provider or the Facilitator of this instruction. That’s where we’re going.
1) The instruction to be given.
Let’s consider, first of all now, the instruction to be given. The instruction itself that is to be given to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, what is it?
1. Its content.
Well, notice first its content. Its content. It’s described here as “the things that you have heard from me.” That’s the content, and this points us back to what Paul says to Timothy in chapter 1, verses 13-14. Paul writes there:
“Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in you.”
Very similar language to what we have in chapter 2, verse 2. Really, we have two directives here, which is just one stated in two different ways. “Hold fast the pattern of sound words, that good thing [or that good deposit] which was committed to you, keep [or guard].” So, there’s something we’re to hold fast and to guard, a deposit that has been entrusted to us. When Paul says that we’re to hold fast to it and guard it, the idea is we’re to be loyal to it, committed to it, defend it, and proclaim it.
Now, what exactly is it that we’re to hold fast and guard in this way? What is this good deposit, this treasure? Paul describes it in verse 13 as “the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me.” That’s apostolic teaching, teaching which is both rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures, handed down to us now in the New Testament Scriptures, and which finds its center and its foundation in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which Paul has just summarized in verses 9-10 of this first chapter.
Now, this is a tremendous statement; it’s a very important statement. Let’s look at it for a moment.
First, he refers to ‘sound words’ or ‘sound teaching,’ ‘sound doctrine.’ At its root, this word translated ‘sound’ means ‘healthy,’ and it’s used to speak of that which is reliable, accurate, and health-giving. It’s faithful, reliable, accurate, health-giving doctrine.
Secondly, he refers to the pattern of sound words—and it’s interesting that he refers to this word, which means ‘an outline,’ ‘a sketch,’ or ‘a pattern.’ The assumption here is that sound doctrine has a pattern, an outline. The truth presented in Scripture is interconnected. The Bible is not just a bunch of atomistic, scattered, unrelated verses with helpful, devotional thoughts for the day! No. Divine, redemptive revelation as a whole, taken together in all its parts, presents us with a comprehensive, thorough, coherent system of sound doctrine, which finds its center in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, referred to here as the ‘pattern of sound words,’ or sometimes referred to in the New Testament as ‘the truth,’ or ‘the teaching,’ or ‘the faith.’
As you know, the word ‘faith’ is often used to refer to the personal act of believing, but is sometimes used to refer to that which is to be believed, the sum of gospel doctrine. Very often when the article is there, ‘the’ is before the word, the context is clear that it’s not talking about the act of believing, it’s talking about the sum of gospel doctrine, the sum of Christian teaching to be believed. The faith. The Christian faith. This language is used many, many times in the New Testament.
1 Timothy 3:9, “Those who are elders in the church must hold the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.”
1 Timothy 4:1, “Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.”
Jude 1:3, “I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once delivered to the saints.”
‘The faith,’ ‘the pattern of sound words.’ All this language points to this very important truth: there’s a definitive, coherent, interconnected system, if you will, of gospel, Christian doctrine to be gathered from the teaching of the Bible as a whole, the pattern of sound words, and it’s our duty to know it and believe it, to defend it and to teach it to God’s people. In our text, Paul tells us that it’s also our responsibility, “To commit it to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
So, with reference to the instruction itself, its content. Notice secondly, its verifiable nature.
2. Its verifiable nature.
Notice the phrase ‘among many witnesses.’ “The things you have heard from me among many witnesses.” The preposition is ‘dia’ as you know. It normally means ‘through,’ ‘through many witnesses,’ so some have tried to interpret this that this is something that Peter had heard Paul’s teaching through the teaching of other people, but Timothy was close to Paul. He traveled with Paul; he shared with Paul in many of his missionary endeavors; he had heard Paul himself; he was hardly dependent upon others to tell him what Paul taught. This proposition doesn’t always mean, or necessarily mean ‘through.’ Are you aware of the flexibility of Greek prepositions? There are occurrences in which it actually carries the idea of ‘in the midst of’ or ‘among,’ and that’s how we see it translated here and in most of our English translations. “The things you have heard from me among many witnesses.” Here I believe that Paul is underscoring that the content of this instruction was not something hidden or secret. This was not some secret, hidden teaching, some secret tradition, the authenticity of which there was no means of testing. It was something that could be verified by many witnesses who had heard the Apostle Paul’s teaching.
Now, some of you may know that very early on in Church History the Church was challenged by the errors of Gnosticism. It used to be believed that Gnosticism wasn’t actually around at this time, and it came to be sometime after the apostles, but now apparently, based on newer evidence, many scholars today argue that the reforms of Gnosticism were already around when the New Testament was written. One of the claims of the Gnostics was that they possessed a secret knowledge, a higher knowledge only given to a few. Well, soon after Christ there developed Gnostic sects that claimed to be Christian. One of their trademarks was this claim to have received secret, private revelations of their own, and also to possess secret traditions and teachings handed down from the apostles over and above what is given to us in the Scriptures. Well, it’s very interesting that when refuting Gnosticism this is one of the texts that you’ll find that the early Church fathers referred to.
For example Tertullian, in his work entitled Prescription Against Heretics he appeals to this very text against the Gnostics. When Paul exhorts Timothy to guard the deposit committed to him and to commit it to others Tertullian says, “There is no hinting at a hidden doctrine, but a command to not admit any but the teaching he had heard from Paul himself and openly before many witnesses, as he says.” So, Paul reminds Timothy that his teaching was not some secret teaching; it was something that could be verified by many witnesses who had heard Paul and who therefore could check Timothy’s teaching over against the Apostle’s teaching.
This reminds us that the kind of teaching that Timothy was to pass on and that we are to pass on was not to be something original with Timothy. It was not to be the musings of his own mind. It was not something that Timothy was free to tweak and to correct if he felt necessary, something that could be tampered with and changed to suit the times. Timothy was not to make it his aim to be original.
Furthermore, Timothy was not to be looking out for some secret, new revelations. No, there’s always been, there’ve always been, there are still out today those persons or groups who claim to have such an intimate relationship with God, such an intimate access to the Lord that He reveals secrets to them that are not contained in the Bible. We see this on the television. We see it creeping into many different churches, but no, Timothy is not to rely on some inner, creeping voice in his ear. He’s not to base his teaching on dreams and visions and impressions. Timothy was charged to teach the very same things Paul taught, things that could be verified and demonstrated from the teaching of the Apostle.
For us today, that means only those things that can be validated and confirmed from the apostolic teaching now inscripturated for us in our Bibles. In fact, I think it’s evident that Paul was preparing Timothy here, and the Church, for the time when special revelation would cease, the post-apostolic period of the rest of Church History in which we now live. Timothy is not to look for new truth! He’s to pass on the revelation already given by the apostles.
Now, notice something else about this instruction: thirdly, its particular focus.
3. Its particular focus.
The instruction Paul refers to here is instruction that has a particular goal in mind and is focused upon a particular subset of men. It’s instruction with a specific focus, and that focus is the training of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. In other words, Paul is clearly referring here to something additional to the regular instruction we give to all of God’s people in general. The man of God is to preach the gospel and teach sound doctrine to all of the people of God under our charge, but here we have reference to instruction to be given not necessarily exclusively, but more intensively to a specific subset of Christian men. This is special attention and instruction to be given to a special kind of men in the church. Men who have proven themselves to be faithful, and who also have the potential and ability to teach others God’s Word to others, to be leaders and teachers and pastors in the churches, or church-planting missionaries.
So, there’s a very important assumption here in this text. That assumption is that ordinarily such men need something more than the general instruction given to the whole church. They need special, more detailed, more intensive and expansive teaching and training. When Paul lays out the qualifications for elders in the church in Titus 1, one of the necessary qualifications is that they must be, “Men holding fast the faithful word as they have been taught, that they may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine, and to refute those who contradict.” These are men who have been taught and trained so as to be able to do that!
Now, to be able to meet that qualification, especially to the degree necessary to be a pastor who labors full-time in word and doctrine, ordinarily—there are exceptions—but ordinarily there needs to be more specialized attention and training. Again, that’s assumed here in this text. In fact, I think we could argue that this is even more the case now than it was in the time in which Paul wrote this.
For example, ordinarily it’s very helpful for a man to have at least some understanding of the original languages in which the Scriptures were written: Hebrew and Greek. It’s not absolutely essential, but it’s very helpful, and the more the better. You know, most of the men that Timothy worked with already knew Greek, right? They were very familiar with Greek. Also, a man needs to understand at least something of the customs and historical settings reflected in the Bible. Well, Timothy and his men were living in the historical setting of—at least in this portion—of the Bible. They were actually living in it, but we’re not, right? He also needs to have a grasp upon the basic rules of biblical interpretation in order to rightly divide the Word of Truth. He needs to have a general knowledge of all the content in the Bible, of the broad themes of Scripture as they unfold in redemptive history. In other words, he needs training in what we ordinarily refer to as: exegetical theology.
Furthermore, we—unlike that generation—we live in a time in which we have the benefit of over 20 centuries of Church history that has gone before us, a history in which the Church has wrestled with various theological controversies and heresies, and many valuable lessons have been learned. Surely, to have a high degree of competence as a minister of the Word ordinarily a man needs to be familiar with that history. He needs to be able to recognize these heresies when they pop up today. Really, there’s nothing new under the sun. Just about every modern heresy is just another form of a heresy that’s popped up in the history of the past dressed in a different suit. He needs to be able to recognize that! He needs to benefit from the lessons the Church has learned in the past so the same mistakes and errors don’t continue to be made. This is what we generally call: historical theology.
Then there’s taking all of that exegetical theology and historical theology and correlating and organizing the teaching of Scripture in a balanced, systematic, and logical manner. The pattern of sound words; the faith once delivered to the saints—what we call: systematic theology.
Certainly, a man needs to learn how to take all of that and apply it practically to the lives of real people in real churches, how to care for them and shepherd them, and how to effectively teach the truth to them and to others. This is usually what we refer to as: practical theology or pastoral theology.
I trust we would all agree that there’s not one of these disciplines that should be neglected in preparing leaders and teachers and pastors and missionaries for the Church of Christ, so far as a man has opportunity and we are able to give it to him. So, with respect to the instruction itself, we have its content, its verifiable nature, its particular focus. If you look carefully, there’s something else about this instruction. There’s something said, fourthly, about its method.
4. Its method.
The method of instruction, or the kind of instruction given. Notice again what Paul says, “The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these things to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” The method is captured by this word ‘commit.’ What does this word mean? It means to entrust something to someone, to entrust something to someone for safekeeping. It was used in commercial transactions, for example, to give someone a deposit, entrusting it to them to keep safe and intact.
Paul has passed on to Timothy a deposit of truth to be guarded and kept by him, and Timothy is to take that deposit and he is to pass it on to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Here apostolic doctrine and teaching is spoken of as a trust. It’s been entrusted to you, and now you are to commit it to others, just as you received it.
Now, why do I refer to this as ‘the method of instruction’? What exactly do I mean by that?
What I want us to see is that the kind of instruction Paul is talking about here is what we might call ‘dogmatic, faith-filled instruction.’ Let me explain what I mean by dogmatic. We often use the word in a negative way. My wife is very dogmatic about the fact that everything is bigger and better in Texas, because that’s where she’s from. We often use the word to speak of someone who has a strong opinions about things, arrogantly asserts their opinions. My wife’s not arrogant; I wasn’t implying that, but you know what I’m talking about. We joke about that a lot in our family. If someone’s from Texas they’re already great. It could be a democrat, a flaming liberal, but if he’s from Texas he’s worth listening to, you know? It’s that kind of thing. Everything’s better in Texas. Well, we sometimes use the word dogmatic in a negative way, someone who’s strongly opinionated in an arrogant kind of way, but that’s not the only meaning of the word and that’s not the way I’m going to use it.
When I speak of a dogmatic method of teaching, or a dogmatic, faith-filled method, what I mean is instruction that believingly sets forth, demonstrates from Scripture, and defends the doctrines of the faith as they’ve been handed down to us. It’s instruction that has as its purpose communicating, demonstrating, and entrusting full and intact the pattern of sound words, and encouraging confidence and faith in those sound words; heart-felt, deeply rooted devotion to the faith once delivered to all the saints. It’s the opposite of the kind of instruction that studies various viewpoints and the various opinions of theological issues, without seeking from Scripture to refute those in error and to demonstrate authoritatively, from Scripture, those that are sound. Sadly, that’s the kind of instruction that’s often given in seminaries.
I remember the seminary that I first went to, as a young man, that’s the way we were taught systematics. I don’t know if they still do it that way; I hope not. Maybe they don’t. If they don’t anymore, praise God, but here’s the way systematic theology was taught: basically, we took up each of the major doctrinal categories and we were taught various perspectives on each of those doctrines in Church history and the churches today. “Here’s what some believe; here’s what others believe,” and so on. We might discuss the pros and cons of the various viewpoints, and the professor might give his opinions on some of those, but there was no taking the Scriptures and seeking with careful, exegetical, expositional instruction from Scripture to convince and to set forth authoritatively what the Bible actually teaches on each of the major doctrines, and to defend the doctrinal positions handed down and contained in the doctrinal standards of the churches the seminary served and represented.
Well, my dear brothers, this is not the kind of theological and ministerial training that Paul us talking about here. This is a dogmatic method. There is a deposit of truth that’s been passed from Paul to Timothy, and Timothy’s task is first (chapter 1) to guard it and to keep it, and he’s also to entrust it whole and intact to faithful men who will in turn entrust it to others. The goal is not merely to give a wonderful, well-rounded introduction to all of the various viewpoints of modern theological inquiry. It’s to do what Spurgeon sought to do in his pastor’s college.
Let me quote to you from Iain Murray. This is from Murray’s introduction to the little book An All-Around Ministry. It’s a book of sermons, as you know, that Spurgeon preached at the annual conference for the men who attended the college, and Murray is commenting on Spurgeon’s views on training men for the ministry. At one point, this matter of the method of the teaching comes up. He says:
Spurgeon differed from so many of his contemporaries (and ours) with regard to the manner in which students should be trained. Instruction [he maintains] should be given in a definite, dogmatic form. Tutors should not teach their students in a broad, liberal manner which presents a number of ‘viewpoints’ and leaves the ultimate choice to the student. Rather, they should forcibly and unmistakably declare the mind of God and show a determined leaning for the Old Theology, being saturated in it and ready to die for it.
That’s what I’m talking about. That’s it.
Now, listen to this quote from the principal of Spurgeon’s pastor’s college: George Rogers. He’s speaking both for himself and Spurgeon when he said:
Calvinistic theology is dogmatically taught. We mean not dogmatic in the offensive sense of that term, but as the undoubted teaching of the Word of God. We have no sympathy with any modern concealment or perversion of great gospel truths. We prefer puritan to modern divinity. We think it right to be informed of the ground and tactics of the adversaries of these main truths in order to defend them when absolutely required, but not to be diverted from them.
This is the instruction envisioned in our text. Its content, its verifiable nature, its particular focus, and its method.
Now, brothers, I trust we all realize that what this text implies is the very thing that our culture denies. We live in society that denies the very concept of absolute truth, the very concept that there is such a thing as a definable body of divine truth that can be known and handed down to others, universal truth that applies to all people, an interconnected, self-consistent body of authoritative truth that presents a coherent, overarching world-view that authoritatively answers all the great questions: where did we come from? What’s wrong with us? Is there any hope? Where’s that hope to be found? Where are we all heading? Where’s all this going in the end? “True truth”—as Schaeffer once put it. That is true at all times and for all people. I trust we realize that this is precisely what our culture denies. It denies that there is such a thing.
We labor in a time not merely of defection from the truth, but defection from the whole concept of truth altogether! There’s the prevailing influence, as you know, of what is called ‘postmodernism.’ We’ve all heard of postmodernism, perhaps it’s an overused phrase. Human ideologies and philosophies come and go. Whatever is in one generation is rejected by the next for something else. However, I think it is important for us to understand the times in which we live. Postmodernism is a philosophical viewpoint first developed among academics and artists, but its influence is quickly spread throughout our culture, and it’s an understanding of the world that rejects the very notion of fixed, universal, and absolute truth. Every culture and every person constructs their own truth, so that what’s true for one person or group may not be true for another. Truth is relative; it’s made, rather than found. It’s whatever works for you. All absolute claims are simply social constructs used by those in power to oppress other people. That’s the idea.
Al Mohler suggests that actually postmodernism may not so much be a movement or a methodology, as it is a prevailing mood in our culture. We’re living in a culture that’s soaked with the influence of this kind of thinking, or this mood. In such a culture, it’s just not ‘cool’ to speak about anything with absolute certainty. Even in the professing Church the ‘in thing’ is for theologians and trendy pastors to never be dogmatic, to never be certain about anything. Present what you think, what you feel, but also be quick to affirm the value of other viewpoints, and whatever you do be positive. We must always be positive; never condemn!
Then there’s the influence of religious pluralism growing out of this. R. Kent Hughes summarizes it well:
Today’s pluralism holds that all religions are equally true. It sees the world as a religious garden through which we can wander, plucking the flowers that smells sweetest to us. The ultimate test of what is authentic is how it makes us feel. Religion is merely a preference, not unlike the choice of a meal or the color of a car, and because all religions are equally true, any claim to the truth is absolutist and bigoted. Those who insist that they have the truth are divisive and imperialistic, the equivalence to intellectual facets and un-American, even anti-American.
Also, growing out of this ‘mood,’ if you will, is a therapeutic model of ministry and a climate of uncertainty as to whether objective, transcendent, absolute truth even exists, or if it does we can never know for sure what it is, or we don’t want to be bothered with it. In a climate like that, as Mohler puts it: “The question then shifts from what is true to what makes me feel good.” Me, my pleasure, what makes me happy, what works for me, what makes me feel good. Self-esteem is all that remains as the real goal of education and even theology. Categories like sin are rarely mentioned, if not rejected. It’s all about self-esteem, self-fulfillment, feeling good about yourself, and that’s not just out there in the world!
Today we have the phenomena of literally tens of thousands, literally thousands, of people gathering in gigantic auditoriums. There they are, and they have their Bibles in their hands and they have little notebooks and pens to write down notes. It’s all very beautiful. You look at it and it’s wonderful! All of those people gathered with Bibles in their hands! There they sit with eager enthusiasm before a preacher who quotes from a Scripture text, but he goes on to give a message that has absolutely nothing to do with what the text actually teaches or with what the Bible as a whole teaches. Yet, nobody seems to notice or to care! They all love it! Why? Because he’s telling them all what they want to hear. He’s sprinkling in a little bit of Jesus there, a few Bible verses, but the entire message is about me, my success, my self-esteem, my health, my house, my car, my promotion. This is the gospel being preached: your best life now, seven steps to living your full potential. It’s all about cooperating with God and His great desire to give me more stuff and to make me more prosperous.
Untold multitudes of people are flocking to that kind of preaching in churches and on the television, and it’s leading them to Hell. They think it’s Christianity!
Also connected to this is the moral relativism of our culture. As someone has said, “The god allowed by postmodernism if not the God of the Bible, but a vague concept of spirituality. There are no tablets of stone; no ten commandments.” The spirit is captured in the slogan for Outback Steakhouse. I like to eat there, but you know the slogan? “No rules.” That’s it. We live in a time when absolute moral perversion is not only accepted, it’s called good and wholesome, even in so-called Christian denominations, and we see more and more Christian leaders and institutions caving in on the front-burning, moral issues of our day. That is the climate we labor in, brothers!
What are we to do? God’s Word tells us to hold fast to the pattern of sound words, and it also commands us to pass it down intact to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, and that means we must be committed to it ourselves, whatever the cost. It means we must be courageous; we must be prepared to be ridiculed and abused and treated as fools for Christ’s sake. Remembering that it is the truth alone by which sinners are saved, by which saints are sanctified, and saints continue to be saved. It’s by the truth!
It’s by the truth that the Kingdom of our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is advanced in the earth, and therefore we must be devoted to the pattern of sound words, whatever the cost. Also, we must make it one of our great prayers and aims in the Christian ministry to cultivate and produce courageous, committed men to follow after us, who are able to teach others also. If we don’t, at least from the standpoint of human responsibility, the truth will be lost.
So much for the instruction itself to be given. Let me begin to draw our attention now, secondly, to the recipients of this instruction. All of that was to lay down the foundation as we begin to get into some very practical issues.
2) The recipients of this instruction.
As we noticed earlier, here we have reference to the training to be given not exclusively, but more intensively to a specific subset of Christian men. Now, let’s look more carefully at what Paul says about the recipients of this instruction.
1. They must be faithful men.
First of all, they must be faithful men. Now, this language can be translated or understood in a couple of ways. It could be taken in the sense that they must be men who are believers themselves, men full of faith; they are convinced men. Men who have a real experienced of the power of the gospel in their own souls and a living faith in Jesus Christ. It’s possible to understand Paul’s use of the word translated ‘faithful’ in that way: convinced, believing men. While that, certainly, is assumed and absolutely essential, it’s more likely that Paul is using the word here in the way it’s translated in most English texts ‘faithful men’ in the sense that these are men who have proven themselves not only to be true believers, but to be men who are loyal, reliable, and trustworthy. I think the emphasis upon committing or entrusting something to these men points to that understanding.
If you’re entrusting something to someone, it’s important the person be trustworthy and reliable. These are steady, committed, faithful men, the kind of men who can be counted on. They’re not flighty; they’re not shaky in their commitment to the gospel and their commitment to the Church. They’re not shaky in their Christian profession and devotion to Christ. If you’re going to pour yourself into a man to disciple him and to train him, you don’t want to waste all of your time investing in an unfaithful man.
Now, of course, even if we try our best to identify such men, we can’t be absolutely certain how they’ll turn out. It’s not a foolproof thing. Even Paul was disappointed with certain men he had hoped better for.
In chapter 1 he speaks of, “Phygelus and Hermogenes who have turned away from me.” In chapter 4, no doubt with great sorrow in his heart, he spoke of, “Demas, who has forsaken me, having loved this present world.”
When trying to identify and train leaders in the Church we sometimes, I would say we often experience tremendous disappointment and heartache, men who let us down, and all of our efforts seem to go to waste, but we don’t want to be setting ourselves up for that by investing in men who already have no present testimony of faithfulness.
As kind of a side—you know, sometimes, as pastors, we can end up spending the vast majority of our available time with problem-plagued people who are not faithful, people who perhaps even require us to have to stretch the judgment of charity to the nth degree to even believe that they’re true Christians! Sometimes almost all of our available time can be taken up with people like that.
I want to say something here, and I say it lovingly. I don’t want to come across cold, but they’re what we might call ‘humpty dumpty Christians.’ All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could never put them back together again. We just have to face it. There are people like that in the church, and they can be like a black hole that will suck away all of your time, all of your pastoral energy, if you let them.
Now, again, don’t misunderstand me. We should love these people. We should care about these people. Church should be a place where such people can find love and be treated with kindness. We should care about them; we should try to help them; counsel them perhaps, as we’re able.
Here’s the point I want to make: we have to be careful that we don’t allow all of our time to be taken up with people like that. Coddling them, always being there at their beck and call—sometimes what we’re doing is we’re simply creating a kind of dependence upon you. That’s not healthy for them! It’s a good rule of thumb. If someone else’s life is a disorderly wreck, be careful, in your efforts to help them, that you don’t let your ministerial life or your Christian life become a disorderly wreck. When that person’s disorderly wreck is now infecting my life so that my life is becoming a disorderly wreck, it is a good warning to me. It’s a good rule of thumb; it’s a simple rule of thumb.
Here’s more to my point: be careful that you’re not neglecting the importance of investing time and energy in the kind of men that Paul is describing here in our text. Men who will be able to make a difference, faithful men who have potential to become future leaders in the church.
There can be many other things that can dominate our time. As pastors, we all know what it is to feel as if there’s never enough time, never enough days, never enough hours to do all of the things that we want to do. We all know what it is to have a long to-do list, and it seems like we keep adding things to that to-do list faster than we’re taking things off! Have you ever had that problem? We know what that’s like. I know what that’s like. But if we find that we have no time in our schedules to devote to seeking to cultivate future leaders in the Church, then we need to ask ourselves: is everything else I’m doing really necessary? Some things absolutely are, but is everything you’re trying to do necessary? Are you the only one in the Church who can do some of them? Are there other elders or other people in the Church who can help out with some of those things? Where do my priorities need to be?
Well, it may not be the top priority, and I don’t believe it is for most of us, but certainly it should be a priority for pastors, for the eldership as a whole, to give deliberate, intentional time and effort to encouraging and discipling faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
They must be faithful men. Secondly, they must be competent men.
2. They must be competent men.
Men who will be able to teach others also. It’s the future tense. “Will be able to teach others.” They may not be doing a lot of that now, but there’s potential there. There’s a reason to believe this person has some gift in this area, enough reason to let them try it in some context, perhaps, and seek to cultivate it. If the nuts and bolts are there of an ability to communicate the truth in an edifying way, this is the kind of guy we’re looking for, and we need to help him to develop his gift.
So, he’s not just a faithful man; he’s a competent man. He has some real ability to communicate the truth to others. There are faithful men, there are good men, godly men, pillars in the Church who just don’t have that ability. There’s no shame in that. They have other gifts with which to serve Christ, but the kind of men Paul is talking about here are both faithful and able to teach others.
Now, all of this raises the question: where do we find men like this? How do we get them? How do we cultivate them? We desperately need them. We desperately need them, but they don’t just grow on trees, do they? We can’t make them; God makes them and Christ gives such men to the Church, but ordinarily God works through means. What are some of the things that we can do in the effort to see men like this raised up in our churches?
I don’t have all the answers, but in the next session I hope to come back to this very practical question, still out of the heading of the recipients of the instruction. What can we be doing to help to see men like this cultivated in our churches? Then I hope to really zero in on the next point concerning, what I think is a very crucial point, concerning the Provider or the Facilitator of that instruction that Paul has in mind here.
God willing, we’ll come back to that in the next section. Let’s pray together.
Our Father, we thank you for this opportunity to consider Your holy Word. We look up to You for strength to be able to follow through with these things to the end of this conference. We pray You continue to give us understanding in Your Word, and especially related to this particular topic, give us help. Help us, O God. Grant that we might, indeed, see a generation of many such faithful men who are able to teach others raised up in our churches. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.
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