Preach and Live the Word: A Meditation on 2nd Timothy 4, for the 19th Sunday in Pentecost

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,

who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season;

 reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;

but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth,

and shall be turned unto fables.

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions,

do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

 

In the immediate context of 2^nd Timothy, Paul is writing his encouragement and instructions to a pastor he has trained and ordained for ministry in a particular place (likely Ephesus).  Paul is also writing in the knowledge of his own imminent martyrdom while imprisoned in Rome, and is contemplating the significance of faithful ministry before meeting his Lord face to face.  His command in chapter 4 to preach the word… reprove, rebuke, and exhort… is couched between two practical realities:  first, that he must do so as if ministering before the living Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead, and secondly that people will grow ever more resistant to such preaching as history marches on.  Timothy is charged with faithful execution of his pastoral office in Word and Sacrament while knowing that he is ultimately accountable to the Judge of all mankind for the conduct of his ministry, and that mankind in general will not appreciate faithfulness to the Word of Christ.  It is a paradox that all pastors must face, with severe consequences of forgetting either one:  to forget Christ as Judge is to invite eternal condemnation upon himself by departing from sound doctrine, and to forget the unfaithful inclination of fallen man is to invite despair when ministering to all people.  Pastors such as Timothy are not called to judge others in their faith or rejection of Christ’s Word, but rather to be faithful to that Word in their living, preaching, and teaching, which is the only hope of salvation for both them and those they minister to.

 

In a secondary sense, this injunction of Paul to Timothy applies to every Christian.  While pastors hold a peculiar commission to preach Jesus’ Word and be stewards of the mysteries of God according to their particular vocation, every Christian is called to live and witness to that Word, too.  And just like pastors, Christians all serve in their various vocations with a knowledge that Jesus is coming to judge the quick and the dead, and that the world will not often appreciate the Word they are called to live by.  Every Christian, pastors included, can be tempted to forget or reject the clear testimony of Scripture that Jesus is in fact coming back in glory—to either think Jesus isn’t really coming back, or that Jesus is just a mushy headed sentimentalist who won’t really judge the world in righteousness.  This can lead Christians to play fast and loose with the Words of Jesus, disregard His clear teachings, and excuse the rejection of His Word as insignificant in the lives of those who will not follow Him.  Likewise, Christians may deny the Scriptural witness to the depravity of fallen man, that all evil begins in the hearts and minds of those whose nature is corrupted by Original Sin.  Forgetting such truths can lead Christians to despair of the Word of Christ to transform fallen men into redeemed saints by the power of His Holy Spirit, so that they chase other means of persuasion get people into the Church.  In either case, Christians and pastors alike are tempted to leave the Word of Christ either by denying the reality of Jesus as King of the Universe, or of people as being in need of anything other than that Word which their fallen nature despises.

 

I think that forgetting these truths is partly why there are so many sects, schisms, divisions, heresies, and apostasies in orbit of the Church today, as there have been across the ages.  The Word of Jesus doesn’t change, anymore than the nature of God can change… but people vacillate between a multitude of bad ideas in every generation.  It’s no wonder, then, that mobs of people will heap to themselves teachers that tell them what they want to hear, which is usually affirmation of whatever pathology has captured the imagination of the age.  In our own current context, lifestyles centered around self-gratification and self-identity abound, as do the teachers who bend to their desire of affirmation.  God’s definition of marriage, healthy sexuality, family structure, the binary complementarity of male and female genders, and the value of every human life bearing the image of their Maker, have not changed.  Yet much of modern society has attempted to depart from these teachings at their own peril, precipitating yet another calamitous fall of a once great civilization.  Our current “cancel culture” phenomenon is little more than what Paul warned Timothy about 1900 years ago, when he said that the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine… and shall be turned unto fables—preferring lies to reality, fallen men will persecute the truth in order to suppress it, and fill their ears instead with the voices of those who affirm their self-deceptions.  And while our generation amplifies and intensifies these efforts through the modern tools of various interactive media, the impulse is not different than the Greco-Roman culture which martyred both St. Paul in Rome and St. Timothy in Ephesus.

 

And of course, since every Christian is a redeemed sinner wrestling every day against the same fallen nature, we are all tempted into traps of indifference or apostasy related to Jesus’ Word.  But it is still His Word which calls to us in our darkness, shining the light of life and hope and love into our brokenness.  That Word of Law continues to prick our conscience, teaching us what is right, and true, and holy—our just duty before God and our fellow men.  And the Word of Gospel continues to speak forgiveness and mercy and grace to all souls who will repent of their evil and trust in Jesus’ saving work for them.  The Gospel of Jesus Crucified and risen for sinners like you and me breaks every cultural paradigm and subdues every malignant spirit in any age, offering reconciliation with God and eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  No matter the nationality, no matter the cultural deceptions, and no matter the lying tongues of heaped together teachers in all their pompous fury, it is still the Word of Jesus Christ which gives life to whoever receives it in faith.  Where is the Marxist race-baiting totalitarian, or the atheistic nihilistic hedonist, or the body mutilating gender transformationist, when the Word of Life comes to heal and restore and to give life abundantly to every person of all nations, tribes, tongues, gender, politics, or economic status?  Where is the false teacher who can resist the simple affirmation that Christ has given everything to His people by grace, earned through His own merits as the Only Begotten Son of the Living God?

 

Jesus remains the only One to whom judgement has been given by the Father over all creation, and it is by His Word alone that every creature shall be judged on the Last Day.  But it is also by His Word that everyone who trusts in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.  For there is no other Name given under heaven by which mankind must be saved, but the Name which is above all names, who alone is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all created things.  It is His Word which has spoken life to us, forgiven our sins, and brought us a peace which passes all understanding in this day, and in every day yet to come.  It is this Word that gives us the faith to hold on to Jesus, even if hordes of people reject both Him and us in order to fill their ears with poisonous lies.  And it is this Word which sends us out in the power delegated by Jesus to His Church until the end of the age, that we may give this life-saving Word to all people just as freely as it was given to us.  Hear that Word of Law and Gospel as it speaks to you this day, and in your day according to your vocation, preach, speak, and live that Word as a redeemed child of God, until the Lord comes to gather you to Himself in the communion of countless saints forever.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.