December 21st, 2018

As most of you will know this has been a "Yes, he fell week, month or year" and apparently total healing for me will be quite a ways down through the calendar. Initial healing was to have been so​me usual tinkering with a slight chip on the collar bone but further work shows a fractured shoulder PLUS a broken hip!  In any case, I am learning how to accept the fact that "It is well with my soul!"

The world needs more Timothys
 
Timothy was a young convert to the Christian faith when he joined the apostle Paul in the early 50s. He labored side by side with the veteran missionary for a number of years before being instructed to remain behind in Ephesus to take care of the church.  Somewhere around the middle of the 60s, Paul wrote a letter to Timothy that is often described as a “manual of church discipline.” This letter from the old gospel warrior to his young lieutenant, along with another letter that he wrote from a prison cell in Rome, are two of the three letters we know  as The Pastoral Epistles.  Hopefully these few words of introduction will be of help as we move through a series based on 1 and 2 Timothy.
         What immediately calls for comment is Paul’s reference to his young helper as “my true son in the faith” (1 Tim 1:2). The Greek gnesios could mean that Timothy was “true” in the sense of “trueborn,” that is, born in wedlock. But it is far more probable that Paul’s use of the word “legitimate” simply meant that Timothy was absolutely reliable. “Solid as a rock” is how we might put it today. God had chosen Paul for a position of leadership, and as everyone in that category knows, one’s assistants are of little value if they are not dependable. I heard the CEO of national company say on one occasion, perhaps facetiously, “Lord, save me from my staff!” Anyway, Paul could have been a bit apprehensive about leaving Timothy in Ephesus to manage the church (1 Tim. 4:12), but his young assistant had proven to be absolutely dependable and that gave Paul the necessary confidence.
         As life rolls on, something very interesting takes place. There’s probably a name for it, but here’s what seems to happen. Things begin to change their position along a scale from trivial to vital. At my age, I find myself regarding certain things as a lot more valuable or important than before. That which I once thought to be really important begins to slide down the scale, while qualities such as friendship, authenticity, and self-forgetfulness rise to the top. To borrow a metaphor from the market, “stuff’s in free fall while genuineness is in a rally.” It is not you decide that the worth of a certain virtue should be rated higher or lower, but that the realignment seems to take place all on its own. (Actually, that’s God at work behind the scenes!)
         Timothy was Paul’s “true son in the faith.” The apostle Paul, the major figure in the westward movement of the Christian faith, needed a “son” on whom he could depend, one who genuinely cared for the people who needed instruction in the faith and the encouragement to live it out. Timothy was young, but he was one with his mentor.
         You will probably agree that the 21st century church needs more Timothys. Like all other social entities, the natural movement of the church is to the left, and by that I mean away from God’s design to a focus that pleases the “old nature.” What the church of today needs is leaders who will stay absolutely true to the One who commissioned them to “make disciples of all nations?” (Matt. 28:18). Personally I want to be a “true son” of the One who left me behind – right now in Anacortes, WA – but will almost certainly return before long! How about you?