The Right Way to They

There’s a passage in the Bible that just won’t preach.

Maybe it’s because “the devil’s in the pronouns.”  After all, any pastor willing to provoke the flock to Scriptural literacy is bound to open up a can of worms.  And worms in the pews take valuable seating space away from itching ears wearing deep pockets.

I wonder if that’s what was on the apostle Paul’s mind when he wrote his second letter to “his beloved son, Timothy?“

“I solemnly testify before God and Christ Jesus, who is about to judge living and dead [at] His appearing and His reign:  Preach the word.  Be persistent in season [and] out of season.  Expose, rebuke, [and] encourage with all patience and instruction.  For [the] time shall come when they will not put up with sound teaching, but, they shall accumulate teachers for themselves according to their own desires, having an itch [for] hearing [something different], and they shall turn away from the hearing of truth and they shall wander away to myths.”  [2Tim. 4:1-4]  [my emphasis]

I had to stumble across these sentences on my own.  I’ve never heard anyone preach about them, teach about them, or bring them to my attention.  Yet, even when I first read them, the pronoun “they” seemed to spring up off the page as if it were in bold print.

So who were “they?”

I did a lot of speculating.  And since I’d always understood unholiness to be something found only outside of the Lord’s congregations, I was satisfied to reckon “them” to be there as well. But then, I found myself burdened with the tool of inductive knowledge.  As a result, I became helplessly aware of a troubling scenario Paul was laying out in the previous chapter:

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”  [2Tim. 2:24-26]  [my emphasis]

The sentences that followed pre-warned the readers of the repercussions for failing to “…expose, rebuke, [and] encourage with all patience and instruction.”  In such a case, there was only one course of action that could be taken:

“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times shall be present.  For men shall be lovers of self…holding [to a] form of godliness, [though] having denied its authority.  Have nothing to do [with] these [men].“  [2Tim. 3:1-2a, 5]  [my emphasis]

[What’s the “tool of inductive knowledge?”  see: Inductive Study? Sounds Like a Plan.]

If Paul wasn’t referring to certain members of the congregation in the church in Ephesus above, but rather pagans on the “outside,” would they really have been concerned about “holding” to any form of godliness?

I’m convinced that anybody who isn’t a little bit unsettled about what Paul wrote to Timothy here might very well be part of a problem rather than a solution.  He’s probably the same one who denies that money ever blows a sermon’s sails while he simultaneously helps to row his congregational ship into the waters of irrelevancy.

Look around.

Paul charged the “saints and faithful brethren [who were] in Christ at Colossae” to conduct themselves wisely around outsiders [Col. 4:5], yet reminded “the church of God which [was] at Corinth” that the Body of Christ was to administer to itself—exclusively:

“For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?” [1Cor. 5:12]

[Are Christ’s disciples never to “judge” one another?  see: The Second Biggest Lie.]

Having the confidence to make a judgement [or speaking the truth in love] is a necessary attribute for developing the skill to be able to “expose, rebuke, and encourage with all patience and instruction.”  But confidence doesn’t just fall out of the sky.

Timothy gained the confidence to do these things by knowing what the Scriptures actually said. [2Tim 3:14-15]

How do you gain yours?