All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
My Understanding: The letters to Timothy are letters written by Paul, an apostle and a pastor, to a fellow pastor. So, it might be easy to read through the Timothy epistles and think they do not apply to us. Yet, 2 Timothy 3:16 makes it quite clear that all scripture, which includes the Old Testament, is God-breathed and is useful (valuable; beneficial; helpful; functional; practical) for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. So, when reading scripture, we need to examine the verses carefully, comparing scripture with scripture, to see what applies to all of us today specifically, and what principles we can learn from what may have specifically applied to someone else. So, I am going to examine this passage of scripture today in light of 2 Tim. 3:16 to see the usefulness of it in teaching, rebuking, correcting and training me in righteousness.
Preach the Word
The first charge given to Timothy was to preach the word. To preach means to proclaim and/or to be a herald (a messenger; representative). When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, via repentance and obedience to Christ and to his commands, we are given the Holy Spirit of God to indwell us, and we thus become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus is thus lived out through our lives, which makes us his representatives to the world. In Romans 10 Paul said that the word of God is “’near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” So, we are all called upon to confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives, with our mouths, from the very onset of our faith in Christ. Then, in 1 Co. 11 we learn that when we partake in communion, we are not only doing that in remembrance of Jesus Christ, but when we eat the bread and drink from the cup, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.
In 1 John 1 we read the word “proclaim” in relation to being a witness of what we have seen and heard, and in Rev. 14 we learn of an angel who proclaimed the eternal gospel to the people on the earth. So, whenever we share our faith in Jesus Christ, and we share the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are making a proclamation. As well, the whole of scripture is a proclamation and a declaration of truth, so any time we share the truths of God’s word with someone, we are sharing a proclamation. Paul said, as recorded in Romans 15:16, that he was given the grace of God “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God…” A minister is one who cares for others, who comforts, who offers support, etc., and we are all called to do that. Also, we are all called to be priests (see 1 Peter 2:5-9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6). “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). So, we are all called to be Christ’s representatives, to make proclamation and declaration of his truths, to share our own testimonies of salvation, and to share the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ.
Be Prepared
Going along with the subject of preaching the word, Paul told Timothy to “be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.” To encourage means: “to give somebody hope, confidence, or courage;” and “to motivate somebody to take a course of action or continue doing something.” 1 Peter 3:15 says: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” In 1 Thess. 4 &5 we are instructed to “encourage each other with these words,” i.e. the words of God, to “encourage one another and build each other up…”, and to “encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” And, in Ephesians 4:15 we learn that instead of being spiritual infants, blown here and there by every wind of teaching, we should make this our practice: “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” So, we each have a responsibility to be prepared always to share our faith and to encourage (cheer; hearten; inspire; urge; support; nurture; persuade; push; and build up) one another in the faith. And, we are all to practice patience, one with another.
Itching Ears
Paul said that a time would come when men (includes women) would not put up with sound doctrine. I believe that time has already come. The whole of the New Testament clearly teaches that true faith in Jesus Christ involves 1) Repentance (turning from your sin), 2) Obedience to Christ and to his commands, 3) Spiritual fruit (works) resulting from faith, and that proves the faith as genuine, 4) Death to sin and our own selfish wills (daily), 5) No conformity or love for the world and the world’s standards and sinful pleasures, 6) putting on Christ and his righteousness and holiness, and 7) the Lordship of Christ Jesus over our lives. Yet, many of today’s churches have changed the true message of God’s grace into a free license for immorality. They are teaching a watered-down version of the gospel of Jesus Christ that does not bring people to the cross of Christ, and does not require of them that they die to their sin and sinful practices, and that they walk in obedience to Christ. They teach them that all they have to do is “believe” and God does the rest. Yet, they fail to define what it truly means, by Biblical standards, to believe and to have faith in Christ Jesus. They give the impression that faith in Christ is nothing more than an acknowledgment of what Jesus Christ did for them in dying for their sins so that they can be forgiven, yet it gives them a false hope of salvation and heaven based upon a lie, for it fails to tell them that they must die to their old lives and to sin if they are to follow Christ Jesus.
Paul said that instead of adhering to sound doctrine, they would, in order to suit their own desires, “gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” So, if you want to have the hope of salvation and eternity with God in heaven, and yet you don’t want to have to give up your own way of living, then you must create a doctrine that allows you to have the hope of eternal life without it costing you anything. If you want to build a big and profitable ministry, and so you don’t want to step on people’s toes, and thus alienate the people you want to target, you create a doctrine of salvation that does not “slay the sinner” (Tozer quote), but that, instead, entertains him. So many of today’s churches have bought into, and have adopted the marketing schemes and techniques of how to build big businesses, and have incorporated these schemes into their church policies and practices. What marketing scheme is going to tell you that you must tell your prospective “customers” that, in order to buy your product, they must first of all give up their own selfish wills and desires and must willingly submit themselves to the will of another? What marketing technique is going to tell you that, in order to gain clientele for your business that you must tell them that it requires that they die to their sins first, and that they obey the commands of another? What marketing ploy is going to tell its potential customers that buying their product will mean they will be hated, rejected, persecuted and perhaps even killed because they chose to buy? So, they gather around them and they follow teachers who say what their sinful and selfish desires want to hear and believe.
Keep Your Head
The phrase “keep your head” means to keep calm, to keep your wits about you, to remain steadfast and to not lose your ground, even when everything else around you may be falling apart, and even if everyone else around you may be giving way to following what their itching (desiring; craving; hankering) ears want to hear. Part of keeping your head means having the understanding that you will face hardship because of your choice to remain strong and steadfast in your faith in the whole gospel, in spite of strong opposition and/or persecution from those who have chosen the way of a “gospel-lite.” We cannot cave under pressure to conform to a watered-down version of the gospel or to accept man-made teaching over and above the word of God. Timothy, as well, was to do the work of an evangelist. We are not all called to be full-time evangelists, but we are all called to evangelize, i.e. to spread the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey the commands of Christ Jesus (God).
Drink Offering
Paul, in essence, said that he had poured out his life on the altar as an offering for Christ Jesus. Romans 12:1-2 tells us that we are all to offer ourselves on the altar of sacrifice in becoming living sacrifices to God, holy and pleasing to him, which is our reasonable service of worship to God. We are to no longer be conformed to the pattern of this world and its sinful desires, but we are to be transformed by the power of the working of the Holy Spirit within us in the renewing of our minds. Jesus said that if anyone was to come after him that he should deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Christ. He said if we hold on to our present lives and the way we choose to live our lives, we will lose our lives. Yet, if we lose our lives for the sake of Christ by dying to sin and our old way of living, then we will find our lives. He said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” (See Luke 9:23-27) In other words, we are all called to pour out our lives on the altar of God as an offering to Christ Jesus. Coming to faith in Jesus Christ means we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, and the life we now live, we live by faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who loves us, and who gave himself for us (Gal. 2:20). This is what it means to believe in Jesus Christ and to invite him into our lives to be our Savior.
Paul knew he was going to die, and that he was going to depart this world. He said that he had fought the good fight, he had finished the race, and he had kept the faith, and now there was in store for him a crown of righteousness. The “good fight,” “the race,” and “the faith” are all synonymous with each other, and they all revolve around the crucified life that is poured out as a drink offering to Christ Jesus on his altar. And, this is the calling on the life of each individual believer in Jesus Christ, to be crucified with Christ so that we (our own selfish wills and desires) no longer live, but that Christ lives in and through us for his purposes and for his glory, so that we can be effective ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are hurting, to those imprisoned by sin, and to those in need of hope.
The Lord’s Anointed / An Original Work / December 16, 2011
Based off Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Sov’reign Lord on me;
Anointed to preach the Good News;
Sent me to bind up the brokenhearted;
Proclaim freedom for the captives.
He sent me to preach release for pris’ners
Who are walking in sin’s darkness;
Proclaim God’s grace to all men who’ll listen;
And tell them about God’s judgments;
Comfort all who mourn;
Give crowns of beauty;
Oil of gladness and thanksgiving.
They will be called oaks of God’s righteousness,
A planting of our Savior, God,
For the display of our Lord’s splendor, and
They will rebuild God’s holy church.
God will renew them, and will restore them,
And you’ll be called priests of the Lord.
You will be ministers of our God, and
You will rejoice in salvation.
The Lord loves justice;
He is faithful to
Reward those who are seeking Him.
I delight greatly in the Lord;
My soul rejoices in my Savior, God.
He has clothed me with His salvation,
And in a robe of His righteousness.
He has given me priestly garments to
Wear, as the bride of Jesus Christ.
As the garden of our Lord and Savior,
He causes us to grow in Him.
He makes righteousness,
Praise, and thanksgiving
Spring up before all the nations.
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