Listen to this message:
Edward Donnelly
We come to what are called the Pastoral Epistles. They’ve only been called the Pastoral Epistles for about 300 years. Thomas Aquinas, 450 years earlier, did describe them as Pastoral Letters. They are of particular interest, because they’re Paul’s last extant writings and they’re the only letters of his sent to individuals, rather than to a church. You remember that Philemon was sent to the church as well as to Philemon. Although even then we need to qualify that. In a sense, to contradict myself, it’s by no means certain that they were intent just for individuals. John Calvin says of 1 Timothy, “In my view, this epistle was written more for the sake of others than for Timothy himself.” He means the people who are not listening to Timothy, who are not following Timothy’s advice. Paul wants to say, “I support this man. I’m behind this man. This is what I’m telling him to do, and I want you to know that this is what I’m telling him to do.”
Calvin has a lovely phrase which I intend to use often. He says, “Those who carefully consider the whole matter will agree with me.” That’s a phrase that has got multiple uses. This is my view, and those who carefully consider the whole matter will agree with me.
Gresham Machen says the same. He says, “These epistles are not merely private letters. From the first, they’re intended to be read not only by Timothy and Titus, but also by the churches over which these men are placed. I probably said this before, but I beseech you, brethren, not to undervalue the brilliance of Gresham Machen’s New Testament Introduction. Because it hasn’t got footnotes and a bibliography, people think it’s superficial. It is profound. It is the lucid distillation of a vast amount of reading. Then, weren’t those articles written for a church magazine or for church members to read and to study? So, that is a masterly, masterly book—his New Testament Introduction.
This is obviously a stage in Paul’s ministry later than that recorded in the book of Acts. 1 Timothy and Titus were written after his first Roman imprisonment, and they were sent to Ephesus and to Crete. 2 Timothy was written from prison under the shadow of the sword.
I spoke about this, I think, before, but it’s irritating for me that in many of the commentaries written by excellent men—orthodox men, gifted men—you get 40 or 50 pages, at the beginning, defending Pauline authorship of these letters. Now, each letter begins with the same four-letter word: P A U L. I mean this quite seriously! Why do we play these games? Why do these gifted men—with whom we would be in perfect agreement—why do they feel they have to answer every objection against Pauline authorship that has been raised? Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see in a commentary, “I believe in the Scriptures as the Word of God, I therefore accept that Paul wrote these letters”? One sentence, the whole issue dealt with. I think we need to embody our convictions in our scholarship, and not allow ourselves to get sucked into this sort of nonsense. I found this lecture the most difficult of the whole series for several reasons.
With some of the other epistles, I flattered myself that I might be bringing at least something fresh to you, some underlying theme that perhaps you hadn’t noticed or perhaps I could develop in some way. Now, these pastoral letters are so relevant. They are so blindingly obvious to all of us. The teaching is patent on the surface, that there is really nothing new I can say about them. I’m speaking to men, and I take it that most of you know these three letters practically off by heart. They are your daily bread. You’ve read them and reread them and prayed them through and absorbed them. We have phrase in Britain—I don’t know if you have it here—about teaching your grandma to suck eggs. I don’t know if I can throw light on that, but it means doing something that is absolutely unnecessary. The idea is that grandmothers are experts on sucking eggs and they have no need at all for us to teach them how to do that. Well, I feel I’m trying to do that today.
I’m not developing one theme. I’m mentioning four or five issues that have struck me as important, and you’re familiar with many of them. The theme of the epistles. Paul states in 1 Timothy 3:15, “I am writing these things to you so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household
It’s a time when dark storm clouds are gathering around the young churches. The false teachers are gaining in influence. We’ll not take time to analyze their teaching. They’re these Judaizing, gnostic, counter-mission which had dogged Paul’s footsteps for years. Some of his statements are quite devastating. 2 Timothy 1:15, “You are aware that all who are in Asia have turned away from me.” Imagine it! “All who are in Asia.” All those churches, all that work. “Hymenaeus and Philetus have swerved from the truth.” “Phygelus and Hermogenes—they have turned away.” It seems as if entire churches have been infiltrated and destroyed.
He says in Titus 1:11 of the false teachers, “They’re upsetting whole families.” The Greek is oikous. I don’t think he’s referring to families so much as household churches meeting in homes, as the church did. Whole congregations have been devastated and taken over. There’s a tidal wave of false teaching. Imagine Paul coming to the end of his life: lonely, all his work under threat, people abandoning him, leaving him. What’s he going to say to these younger men? “You’re left to cope without them.” Of course, that’s a situation that is relevant to many of us. We pastor small churches, and we face an increasingly hostile society, and our people too are in constant danger of being undermined by so-called Christian confusion. I want to select five pieces of counsel to those who are called—as we are—to serve as stewards in God’s household.
The first: keep teaching sound doctrine. This is the most urgent need. This is where Paul plunges straight in at the very beginning.The briefest and boldest introduction, and then he gets to it. 1 Timothy 1:3, “Charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? The choice of words. Heterodidaskalein. A different doctrine. In other words, there is a fixed body of truth, there is a norm, and anything else, by definition, is wrong. So, it’s not an open playing field. It’s not a free-for-all. There is a body of truth. There is a standard of truth. There is THE doctrine, and we’re not to teach anything different from THE doctrine.
He emphasises this in other places. 2 Timothy 1:13, “The pattern of sound words.” The Greek is hupotupósis, which the dictionary translates as ‘prototype’ or ‘standard.’ There’s a prototype of sound words. There is a standard of sound words. 2 Timothy 1:14, “The good deposit.” The word ‘deposit’ is paratheken. It’s a banking term. It refers to a sum of money that is entrusted to someone to keep, to look after for the person who entrusted it to them. Not to waste it, not to dissipate it, not to lose it, but to keep it.
So, Paul starts with this note. “Don’t teach different doctrine. Don’t diverge from the norm. Don’t diverge from the pattern. Don’t betray the deposit.” In other words, theology is essentially a conservative, not an innovative discipline. That’s one of the curses of theology being done by academicians. You’re not going to get a PHD for saying, “I think the Westminster Confession is basically true.” You have to come up with something original. Our Professor Lockridge and Pastor Martin and Pastor Hughes knew. They said to us on one occasion in college, “Gentlemen, when you finish your sermon and read it over, you will realize that you’ve been given new insights on a passage, fascinating insights which no one has ever had before. Ruthless expunge them from your manuscript. They are almost certainly wrong.”
That’s what Paul is stressing here. “Keep the deposit.” It’s done by preaching the Word. So much we could say about this. I pass over it, but Paul does note, and it is relevant to us that this is not easy. 2 Timothy 4:3, “The time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.” I don’t need to expand in that to you, men. The relevance is obvious. We’re living in those days. “Teachers to suit their own passions.” Seeker-sensitive, but the sanction is enormous.
“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; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” It means something to me every year at our college, when I have to stand up and I’ve got 18 of the previous men who’ve taught in the college, they’re looking down at me in their photographs. I have to pledge, my colleagues have to pledge that we still hold—without any reservation or equivocation of any kind—the teaching of our church. I do that with a degree of fear and trembling, but that’s what Paul is saying here. He’s putting it in the light of the Day of Judgement. “I charge you,” he says.
Note the word ‘patience.’ This patience is vital, and for us, as Calvinists, it should be natural and instinctive. We believe that anything that men understand, they understand by the grace of God. Anything we know is not due to our insight, to our genius, to our quickness of mind, but because the Lord has revealed it to us. So, it is incongruous for us to become impatient with people who do not yet see the truth that we are seeking to convey to them, to get irritated with them, to get hasty with them. “The Lord’s servants [says Paul] must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.”
Those here who are younger men, you need to take hold of that in your pastorate. We do need the gift of patience, and when we’re young we tend to be impatient. We want to set everything right in our congregation in several years, and we do damage, because we’re in too much of a hurry. We’re denying our theology. We’re denying our theology. We should be the most patient and longsuffering of men. It’s the Lord who’s going to teach them! It’s the Lord who’s going to reveal these things to them and to change their minds!
Another common fault of youth—and I speak from my own experience, which needs to be mortified—is the appetite for controversy. This was meat and drink to the false teachers. They loved debating and arguing, and Paul warns Timothy and Titus to keep clear. Titus 3:9, “Avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law.” Some of these may have been perfectly valid. Some of these may have been issues that needed to be debated, but not at this point, not at this time. He says in 2 Timothy 2:23, “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.” It’s easy to start a fire; it’s hard to put it out. It’s easy to start a fight; it’s hard to stop it. Upbuilding, says Paul, is more important than argument; and this, by the way, from perhaps the keenest and ablest controversialist who has ever lived. This was not a fuzzy-minded man who couldn’t win an argument. This was a man trained in rabbinical debate. Who’s a master of all of the weapons of controversy.
Timothy 2:14, “Charge them not to quarrel about works, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.” And what’s the next verse? “A worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” It’s in the context of avoiding quarrels, and as soon as he has said, “Rightly handling the word of truth,” he comes back to it. “But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene.” A very, very vivid phrase. It will rot the people of God. Sound doctrine, on the contrary, he calls hygiainouses, doctrine which produces hugiés, which produces health. It is health-giving doctrine. It is nourishing doctrine. (1 Timothy 6:3; Titus 1:9; Titus 2:1). It promotes the spiritual health and well-being of those who are fed by it.
Now, Paul is not denying that there is need for a polemic ministry. Many of his epistles engage in such a ministry, but he’s alerting us to the fact that one of the cleverest devices of Satan is to divert us from truth which will build up our people. Brethren, I include in that legitimate topics for debate, valid topics for debate. There are a host of things that we could discuss, perhaps in some circumstances we would be entitled to discuss, but, as pastors, we are not a debating society. We don’t have that luxury. We have to say to one another, “Is this absolutely necessary that we debate this issue now? Is the press of need upon us so great that is has to be settled? Does the health of our people demand it or would we be wiser and more mature to leave this aside onto a more convenient occasion?” I am constantly amazed at the tangles that people get into in churches, regarding fairly esoteric or peripheral matter. “It’s in the Bible!” Yes, it is in the Bible, but you remember Richard Baxter, “There are many things which our people may know, but there are things which they must know, or else they are undone forever.”
Is this making our people healthier? It’s a stern warning here, but a positive teaching, because we’re living in a wilderness of ignorance outside the church and inside the church. I am becoming convinced that perhaps one of our most significant contributions, as Reformed churches in the 20th century, will be the teaching of the Word of God.
I have recently been able to get a monkey off my back that has been burdening me for years. I know you men won’t misunderstand me. It bothered me—in a sense it still does—that most of the growth in my own congregation has been from hungry Christians. We have seen conversions. We’ve seen a number of conversions from raw paganism. We’ve just had a young Roman-Catholic woman who has come to faith in the past few months. We’re very thankful for that, but mostly it’s been Christians who are looking for teaching. Can you understand that I felt a bit, “Well, it’s moving bricks about in the body of Christ, but it’s not really extending the body of Christ.” But, you know, part of the great commission is, “Teaching them to observe all things, whatever I have commanded you.”
If we have a heart for the lost and if we’re seeking to do all within our power to reach the lost and if we’re not going about trying to entice people from other churches, but God brings to us people who are hungry and want to be taught the way of God more perfectly, then with free and frank hearts and consciences, we should thank God for bringing them and we should teach them what God has entrusted to us. That is part of the Great Commission.
The one other point I would say before we leave this is our young people. I expect you men agree with me. I am enormously encouraged as I look at some of our young people, as I look at 20-year-olds and think about how I was like as a 20-year-old Christian, the teaching they’ve had and the training they’ve had and the theological muscle they have put on and the things they now know that I didn’t know till I was in my mid-thirties. I think, brethren, we should be very hopeful and prayerful that God will use our ministries in a coming generation. Psalm 45, one of my favorite verses, “Instead of the fathers shall be the children; whom thou will make princes in all places of the earth.” Psalm 127, “As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the sons of youth.” And we’re shooting them out to places where we’ll never go, we’ll never reach. We should pray for that.
Secondly, develop leaders of godly character. I’ll move through this more quickly, not because its less important, it’s not, but because I believe this is ground that we’re familiar with. This is why Paul is writing: to encourage, to guide younger men, to let the church see that he is behind them. He’s telling us here that one of the key responsibilities of any leader is to train others. He’s telling us, in particular, that the training of leaders has to be very, very closely linked with the life and ministry of the local church. That is something we have to build into our philosophy of ministerial training. To remove them from the life of the church and to set them in a completely separated environment is not the biblical pattern, and it is productive of some very unfortunate results.
He’s got a far-sighted philosophy of ministerial training, which covers four generations. 2 Timothy 2:2, “What you have heard from me, [that’s two generations, Paul and Timothy], you entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Paul is looking to his spiritual great-grandchildren. He’s not a shortsighted man, he’s a man who is farsighted, and we are to be farsighted. We are to be building for our spiritual great-grandchildren. We are to be teaching men not just so that they now, but so that they can teach, and there’s a difference between the two things. We are to be teaching them in such a way that they can teach others, not only how the truth we get from Scripture, but how we get it; not only what we do, but why and how we do it, so that they in turn can reduplicate our ministry.
You’re familiar with the qualifications for leaders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. I’m not going to go over them at all. I simply remind us that the focus is less on their gifts than on their graces. The focus is less on what we can do, and it’s more on who we are. We can put it this way: God is more interested in what He is doing in us than on what we are doing for Him. That is the order. Leaders of godly character; strong in the faith; masters of themselves; managers of their households.
Above all, the leader is to be an example. 1 Timothy 4:12, “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.” Titus 2:7-8, “Show yourself in all respects, to be a model of good works, and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned.” The leader is to be a model to be followed. Not the model in the modern sense. I remember hearing about a man who had to make a speech at a wedding, and he decided he would say that he hoped the groom would prove be a model husband. So he looked up ‘model’ in the dictionary, and it said a small imitation of the real thing. It’s in the other sense, to be a model.
As Pastor Martin says, there’s a very delicate interplay between the example and the authority of the leader. A common mistake is to want everything in black and white. “I am the leader, it says so in the book of church order. So, therefore, you have to do what I tell you.” That isn’t the way it works! It’s a fluent, pneumatic, living thing. You, young men, need to take that on board. Your leadership is affected by who you are. Your moral authority, your willingness to submit to your brothers will augment your leadership.
One young man said to me rather enviously, “Your elders would do anything you want, wouldn’t they?” I said, “Well, they might. They might, but you know how many times I’ve asked them? Once in fifteen years. It was once. I stood against the rest of my brethren, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve heard your opinions, but I absolutely cannot go along with this. I believe it’s a mistake.’ My brethren said, ‘Well, if you feel that strongly about it, we’ll follow your lead.’” But if I did that every week, how long would the authority last? So, it links in.
Paul himself provides an example. He’s an example of Christ’s mercy. 1 Timothy 1:16, “That in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” If God can save me, He can save everyone, anyone. In the final passage, a most magnificent passage, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course.”
Onesiphorus also (2 Timothy 1:16) is offered as an example of courageous, Christian care and ministry. This godly character in the leader is vital, not primarily because he’s a leader, but because he’s a believer. 1 Timothy 4:16, “Keep close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Several weeks ago, my wife and I were on holiday in Wales, and we walked in a beautiful deserted beach. It stretched for miles, and along the beach at one point are the ribs of a great ship that was wrecked on that coast. It’s solemn to think of that great vessel riding along on the waves, and then it wrecked on the rocks. Now all that is left is a ruin. You remember how he says in 1 Timothy 1:19? “Some, by rejecting faith and a good conscience have made shipwreck of their faith.” Tragic. So, that’s why Paul says. It’s not first because you’re a leader; it’s because you’re a Christian man. It’s not first for your people; it’s for your own soul.
One reason why the so-called experts doubt that the Pastorals are written by Paul is that they say that faith in the Pastorals has a different meaning than from Paul’s other epistles. They have more an ethical quality, and I think they’re right in that. In the Pastorals, faith seems to be more like reliability or faithfulness. What’s wrong with that? We’re living in an age where there’s far too much ‘trusting Jesus’ and there’s far too little faithfulness to the way of life that Jesus taught us. Saving faith is trust in Jesus, and it is faithfulness, it is reliability, it is holding by what He taught. The need for heart religion. Four times in 2 Timothy are the little words but you sued. Second person, singular. Paul puts his finger on Timothy’s soul.
Pastor Martin’s sermon on 1 Timothy 1:16 that I heard 35 years ago has probably had more effect on my life than any other text that I’ve ever heard as a Christian. I would guess that’s the same for many of you men. “Take heed to yourself and the doctrine.” How many ministries have been kept by that? Isn’t that one of the blessings of this conference? A friend of mine here was saying the other day, “That’s what I like about this conference: it doesn’t try to be cutting-edge; it doesn’t try to be right at the forefront of the new gimmicks. It settles on the great permanent realities: prayer, the Word, holiness, and love for Christ.”
Thirdly, Paul counsels these men to maintain biblical church order. Some scholars have found the Pastorals pedestrian in contrast to Paul’s other letters. Rather tedious, rather dull. There are few flights of oratory; there are few profound theological expositions. One scholar damned the epistles with the adjective of prim. He says, “They are prim.” In a sense, you could see what he means, because 1 Timothy is about the nuts and bolts of church management, how you do things. Public prayer, the role of women, qualifications for leaders, church discipline, the care of widows, the support and the ordination of elders. Church business, that’s what it’s about. Titus 1:5, “This is why I left you in Crete, to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ.” No. He says, “So that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders over every time.” Oh, come on Paul! Is this Paul? Is this the passionate evangelist? Is this the matchless theologian? Church order?!
Of course, this has been the problem, hasn’t it? It’s been one of the problems with Roman Catholicism. It’s been one of the problems with the mainline denominations. Order becomes all. Order becomes everything. It’s been interesting to see how these churches are dealing with the controversies about women and homosexuals and so on. The whole focus is in managing them. Nobody’s asking “What is the truth?” Nobody’s saying “Let’s see what the Bible says.” They say, “How can we keep people in the same church who have different views? We’ll get a bishop who will come in and do this.” It’s just management. No quest for truth at all.
Then you see modern evangelicalism has reacted against that to the other extreme, and become suspicious of church order. That’s the sort of thing we’re told quenches the Spirit. That’s the sort of thing that gets in the way of the real work. How many times have you heard, “We’re not an organization; we’re an organism”? Or at best they say, “Order is just a pragmatic thing. You just use your common sense. You organize your church. That seems best. It doesn’t really much matter either way.”
It’s very significant. Here’s a church in crisis, tossed by the winds of heresy. Paul’s about to leave. What’s he concerned with? Biblical church order. William Hendrickson, in connection with the battle against the spread of error says, “Stress is laid on the importance of proper organization.” Machen says, “The principal subject is the organization of the church.” Paul lays down precisely and authoritatively what is to be done and how it is to be done. Machen has another perceptive comment, “There is a divine warrant for orderly government, as well as for missionary zeal.”
My brethren, Paul is teaching us that in critical times church order is not less important; it is more important. Some of the procedures of the church are like a life belt on a ship. Most of the time you don’t need them, but when you do need them, you need them really badly. In our own book of church order most of it we rarely read, but when the crisis comes, how are things to be done? You need it badly.
In the 1960s, as the older men would remember, there was what we could call a Reformed Revolution. Banner of Truth began publishing Reformed works in great numbers. There was an enormous upsurge of interest in the Reformed faith. But as we look back, we see that the Reformation was soteriological; it never became ecclesiological. In fact, in some quarters, discussion of such issues was actually discouraged, so that when we get together we don’t talk about these things. It’s pedantic; it’s extreme; it’s divisive. So, the Reformation never really penetrated that men were saying, “How are churches to be ordered according to the Word of God?” Many of those men continued in unbiblical church structures, preaching the doctrines of salvation. The problem is, you can’t transmit that down to generations.
It’s like the wine and the wineskins. The wine is more important. The wine is the life. The wineskins are the organizational structures; but if you want to keep the life and pass it on and conserve it and guard it, you’ve got to have something to put it in. You can’t just let it spill about all over the place. A lot of these churches and the generation are not going to be evangelical. They’re not going to be biblical. They’re going to have gone in all sorts of weird directions. Nothing to hold them. If we are building for the future, if we are building solidly and Scripturally, we have to apply Scripture to the fabric of the church’s structure and life.
Let me say this: there are in this gathering today Baptists and Presbyterians. People would say, “That is the difference, two different views of church order.” Brethren, that’s wrong. That is not the difference. The difference today, the important gulf is between those men who believe that there is a biblical church order and that it’s important that the church be ordered according to the Word of God, which all of us do, and those who don’t believe there is a biblical church order and don’t care. We are united. We are all seeking to govern our churches according to the Word of God. So, we love one another. We have sympathy with one another. We’re coming closer to one another. We can talk to one another.
Many of our fellow Baptists and fellow Presbyterians are in fact further removed from us than we are from each other, for they have simply inherited the tradition or are following it for Pragmatic reasons, and not from Scriptural principle. We’ve seen it again and again. When the rain and the floods and the wind come beating on a church, has it a biblical church order?
I would be the last to hold up my own denomination as any sort of example. We have all sorts of flaws and weaknesses, but our forefathers, the Scottish Covenanters, tried to establish a biblical church order. I was reflecting last night that we have never, by God’s grace, had a man teaching anything but the Reformed faith in our college. All those pictures are up on the wall, and there’s not one of them that we would remove or want to remove. One reason is that our forefathers were trying to do things as Scripture said they would be done. That’s no guarantee, but it’s not unimportant. So, Paul urges Timothy and Titus to maintain, to establish biblical church order.
Fourthly, he urges them to pastor the people of God personally. I’m not satisfied with the word ‘personally,’ you may come up with a better word as we go through it. Paul warns young Timothy strictly against heavy shepherding. 1 Timothy 5:1, “Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him.” Don’t go in like a little Hitler and start telling some man who is old enough to be your father what he should be doing. Treat the young men like brothers. Don’t come in as their lord and master. Come alongside them. We don’t want this pastoral tyranny. The older women, like mothers.
That’s what’s wrong with too many pastors today. They’re overbearing, they’re intrusive, they’re tyrannical. They want to follow Paul’s advice. “Just preach the Word; love your people. You have no call to do anything more.” Yet, this same Paul, and these same letters advice these men to pastor in a way that is distinctly hands-on.
Women are not permitted to fill an authoritative, teaching role. He says it won’t happen. Perspective elders and deacons and their families are to be very, exhaustively examined and tested over a period of time. That will involve a great deal of intimate dealing. “What is this man like in his relationship with his wife, in his home, with his fellow members?” It has to be scrutinized. It has to be discussed. It has to be examined.
Families with elderly relatives and who are not caring for their elderly relatives, they are to be confronted and spoken to about that. The way you are treating your mother, trying to get rid of her when you could be having her living with you, that is not right. You shouldn’t be doing that to your aunt or that invalid person. You’re denying the faith. You’re worse than an infidel. The church isn’t going to bear a burden that you should be bearing. That’s pretty directive, brothers. It’s difficult.
Distinctions are to be made between the widows of the church; very delicate, personal, embarrassing distinctions. “She who is truly a widow, who has set her hope on God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, they are to be supported. But she who is self-indulgent is dead while she lives.” (1 Timothy 1:5-6). You are to form a judgement as to whether a woman in the congregation is self-indulgent. Refuse to enroll the younger widows.
When necessary, discipline is to be public. “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.” (1 Timothy 5:20). Slaves are to be taught to respect and obey their masters.
As for the rich people in the congregation, the wealthy people, “Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches, but on God; to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, to be ready to share.” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). Many of you men have gone into the home of a wealthy member and said, “Now, it is observable to me that you have a large bank balance and you’re comfortably off. I’ve come to you, as your pastor, to talk to you about your giving and your support of the needy. I come to ask you do you really need that second house? Do you need all those holidays you’re going on? Is that something you should be doing?” Can you imagine what would be said? That is what Paul is doing.
Now, some of this can be done, no doubt, by preaching, but it looks very much like hands-on pastoring to me. In fact, Paul is going far further into people’s lives than I have ever had the courage to go, and I find myself rebuked. You think you’re a hands-on pastor till you start reading the pastoral epistles, and find out what your duties are. That’s truly loving for our people. It’s vital for our own self-respect.
The picture is of a shepherd with a sheep. Something that would describe it is that you need to get your fingers into the sheep’s wool. There’s a model being presented in Reformed circles all over the world, in different continents, of a bland, genial, remote style of leadership where the minister will preach fine, homolytic sermons, balanced, Orthodox sermons from the pulpit, but really want of any meaningful, day-to-day contact as people. They trust that God will apply the Word, people will sort out their own problems, and they’ll be mature. Brethren, it doesn’t get the job done. The shepherd does have to get his hands into the sheep’s wool.
Some ministers are overbearing; some ministers are tyrants. We know that. We believe in the priesthood of all believers, but we mustn’t be intimidated. We mustn’t be pushed off by criticism. This is what the inspired Apostle tells us we are to be doing. The rewards are enormous. Pastor the people of God personally.
Lastly: present an attractive but uncompromising face to the world. I haven’t picked this up. How conscious Paul is of the impression that the church is making on society! He’s very alive to that, and that surprised me. For example, his instructions to the slaves. (1 Timothy 6:1). He tells them to behave in such a way, “So that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.”
Titus and the young church—the behavior seems to be on couth. He tells them to do some things which would seem to us obvious. “The older women are to train the young women to love their husbands, their children to be self-controlled,” and so on. “That the Word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:7-8, “Show yourself a model of good works, so that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.” He’s very alert to what Schaeffer called ‘The Watching World.’ He’s very conscious of the unbelieving world looking at the church. Perspective leaders have to be well-thought of by outsiders. (1 Timothy 3:7).
Christians have to be submissive to rulers and authorities, ready for every good work. (Titus 3:1). Christians ought to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy towards all people, behave in an attractive way towards the world, public prayer sought to be offered for kings and for all who are in a high position. Paul is saying this is not a revolutionary movement designed to disrupt the Pax Romana. He’s actually saying, “We’re not attempting even to overthrow the bedrock of the economy.” The bedrock of the 1st century economy was slave labor. That was the engine which drove the 1st century world! Paul says, “Slaves, be obedient to your masters.”
When you look at his ethical instructions to Titus, they actually are very close to the list of virtues in the Greco-Roman philosophers. He urges things like—and you read these in Aristotle and Plato and in some of the Latin writers—he urges self-control, temperance, reverence, prudence, fortitude. These are in all the Greco-Roman writings. They were generally recognized virtues. He’s urging believers to behave in a way that’s commendable to society in general. That struck me and it challenged me, because I have a tendency to forget that. I have a tendency to see the church as an embattled minority. “We are Ishmaelites. Every man’s hand is against us, and our hand is against every man.” It comes from our covenanting forefathers. We were a persecuted minority, driven from one country to another. “In this world you shall have tribulation.”
I’ve maybe told you before of a poem that my mother used to recite to me. It was about a little boy called Jimmy Douglas, and he was caught by the dragoons, taking food to an old preacher. The dragoons took him to the top of a cliff and they said, “If you don’t tell us who the preacher is, we’re going to throw you down.” The wee boy stands and looks over the cliff. This shaped me in many ways! The poem says he stands, looks over the cliff, and he turns around to the dragoons and he says, “‘‘Tis awful deep,’ he tremblingly cried, ‘but all I cannot tell. So throw me down then if you will, because it ain’t as deep as Hell.’” That’s what I was brought up on. You’re going to obey Jesus Christ is it kills you, or you go to Hell. That’s the choice.
You get into an attitude of who cares what the world thinks of us? They hate our Saviour. They hate His people. We don’t want their praises. We don’t want the praise of man. “Woe to you when all men speak well of you.” That’s simplistic. That’s one-sided. There is a constant tension. The beauty of it is that Titus is balanced by 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy points out that no matter how well we behave the world will always hate us, and will always persecute us.
I read last week that it’s estimated that 330,000 are martyred for Christ every year at present. More people than ever before in the history of the world. We’ve got to be prepared to suffer and be ashamed, for Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:12, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” “My gospel, for which I am suffering with chains.” “You have followed my persecutions and sufferings.” “Nevertheless…” Paul is saying here that as Christians we are to do everything we possibly can to commend ourselves to the watching world for the sake of the gospel.
So, men, are we too often uncouth and impolite and inept and insensitive and boorish? Do we say stupid things in public? Was it sensible to call for the assassination of the President of Venezuela? The man has apologized for that, but you see, you’re giving the enemies of the gospel exactly what they want. You’re giving them weapons. You’re handing them things that they could use. Do we disguise our social inadequacy? We say, “Well, that’s the defense of the cross. I am suffering for Christ.” Paul says in Titus 2:10, “So that in everything we may adorn the doctrine of God, our Saviour.” The world is watching us, and we have an obligation to behave in such a way that we’re not putting up any barriers, that we’re adorning the doctrine of God, our Saviour.
We’ve heard over the years, in the infinite fellowship of this conference, Pastor Martin talking to us about some of the positions that treated him and his wife over the years. One thing that struck me was the length to which he went to develop and maintain ties of respect and friendship with them so that they would think, “This is a serious man, this is a concerned man.” Isn’t it vital for us? The world will hate us, but Paul says to always be conscious that we’re on the stage, the eyes are upon us. “Do everything you can to adorn the gospel.”
So much here untouched, but I can’t leave without reminding us that 2 Timothy does show us how to die well. It’s very hard to read the last verses of Timothy without emotion. It’s a challenge to each of us today, who are dying men, to seek, by God’s grace, to die like this. Paul is in prison. He writes his last will and testament, “Do your best to come to me soon.” You hear the loneliness in those words. “Luke alone is with me.” It’s a difficult time. Judea is boiling up in rebellion; the false teachers are creating havoc. The old man’s in the death cell, but his brave heart is unbroken. His old eyes are steady. His voice doesn’t tremble.
“I am not ashamed. I know in whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he’s able to guard until that day what I’ve entrusted to Him.” (2 Timothy 1:12). “I am already being poured out as a drink offering; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day; not to me only, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6-8). “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and bring me safely to His Heavenly Kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:18).
At the first light of day, it would have been the day in which he would see Jesus. They took him when they stripped him to the waste. As a Roman citizen, he would die with a sword. They tied him kneeling to the pillar, and he knelt there. I wonder what he said to himself? “For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18). But glorious it was to see how the open region was filled with horses and chariots, with trumpeters and pipers, with singers and players and stringed instruments, to welcome the pilgrim as he went up and followed Him at the beautiful gate of the City. Amen. Let us bow our head in prayer.
Strengthen us, Lord Jesus. We pray that none of us be made shipwreck, but that we may be preserved to live for You, to serve You in our day and generation, to fight the good fight and finish the course and keep the faith. Grant to us the crown of righteousness. May we love and support, remember and uphold one another before the throne of grace. We ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.
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