2 Timothy 4.1–8
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 19 June 2022
We have been learning about church. The last two Sundays have taken us away from the centre, as we matched our theme with Pentecost and Trinity, but now we are back on our main course. We started with Jesus’ words in Matthew 16 that he would build a community that death would never succeed in destroying. Next, we looked at Paul’s description of the church in 1 Timothy: the household of God, but also a public institution, and the repository and defender of the truth. Then, we looked at Acts 20 and thought about Christian ministers: not sacrificing priests but teachers of the word of God. Now we come to 2 Timothy, written when Paul was in prison in Rome—not the first time. He has survived his first hearing before an imperial court, but he thinks the next will bring a sentence of death.
His words are precious. A person’s last words will tell you what really matters to them. He writes to Timothy, the young man he took on as an assistant, who for fifteen years has been his tireless helper; but Timothy has suddenly gone quiet. And Paul fears he may have become frightened by the wave of unpopularity towards Christians that has recently swept the world. Things have become difficult. Churches have multiplied and people are speaking against them. The government is taking notice, and that can be dangerous. I don’t think the emperor has them in his sights just yet, but in the disaster that lies probably less than a year ahead—a large part of Rome will be destroyed by fire, Nero will need someone to blame, and the Christians will be the natural target. Thousands will be slaughtered to entertain the crowds in Rome’s Colosseum: wild animals will be let loose on some, others will be crucified, some turned into flaming torches to light up the night, others made to fight gladiatorial battles. All this was maybe a year in the future. It is a strange thing about the future: until it happens, life goes on as normal. The storm had not yet broken, but clouds were gathering. Paul writes to his young lieutenant urging him not to give up on the church, and to stand up for what he knows is true.
In chapter 4 he gets to a very solemn point in his letter. “I charge you …” he says. He lays on him a terrible responsibility for the future. It’s as though he says, “Very well, Timothy, now I will stop beating around the bush. Now I will commit to you a solemn task.” Humanly speaking, the fate of Christianity was about to be in Timothy’s hands. The word translated “charge” means to bear solemn witness to something. Paul calls Almighty God and the Lord Jesus Christ to hear him deliver this charge. They are witnesses. What great responsibility will the apostle to the nations now lay upon Timothy?
Preach the Word!
This is important for us to hear. For the letter is meant for more ears than Timothy’s. You have come to a church that places a lot of emphasis on preaching the Bible. You may have wondered why. It is not to be taken for granted. Society no longer pays even lip service to it—certainly doesn’t believe it is God’s Word. Richard Dawkins cans it as misogynistic, homophobic, patriarchal, genocidal and much else. Many churches have left it behind, and devote themselves to this cause or that. The Principal of an Australian theological college recently published a book whose subtitle asked, “What do we do with the Bible now we no longer believe it?” The Archbishop of his diocese wrote the foreword to the book. So, what do ministers do, if they no longer listen to the Bible? Some find satisfaction in liturgy and symbolism. Others urge their congregations into battle for this or that chosen cause: the environment, climate change, for the LGBTIQ+ cause, for wokism, Black Lives Matter, or whatever. The Bible only gets a look-in, if it supports their special interest. They would look with suspicion at a church which focused on preaching the Bible, and think us out of touch, irrelevant, and possibly even enemies of their cause. It should cause us to do a reality check. Are we really doing what we should be doing as the church of Jesus Christ, or have we lost our way?
If look for the answer in the Bible, Paul’s last words to Timothy stand out. It may seem strange looking to the Bible when it is the relevance of the Bible we are questioning. But think about what it is!
There was a chap who lived in the block of flats opposite my church in Perth. He was ex-SAS, one of those Scwarzenegger types—all muscle—but he fell apart when his wife went off with his best friend, and was wasting away with anorexia. He stopped me on his way to the Deli one Saturday morning: “Hey man,” he said, “I’ve been reading the Bible, and it’s a story; I didn’t know that.”
It is a story: the story of God’s dealings with the human race, from the beginning, up until the coming of the king who is to rule for ever. If we call ourselves Christians we are part of this story. Whether we are a true part depends on how well we fit with the rest of the story. The last words of the man who under God brought the message about Jesus from its Jewish home to the rest of the world are important.
Paul has struggled and suffered much to carry out the mission Jesus gave him. Now he knows that others must carry it forward. He might have told Timothy to make it his mission to abolish slavery. Slavery was a huge problem, but he doesn’t mention it. He could have campaigned against blood sports, or to raise the position of women. He could have worked against poverty. There were any number of evils, and numbers of possible good causes, as there are today. But his central concern is for the welfare of the Church of God, and for that he charges Timothy: “Preach the Word.
So, it is not some special hobby horse of the ministers here that we devote ourselves to preaching the Bible. We are doing what all churches everywhere are charged to do. We are doing what Paul did, and what Jesus did before him. Jesus taught that his kingdom would come from the patient planting and watering of the seed of his Word. We are getting on with what will build the Church, which Jesus said will inherit the earth; everything else will pass away.
But let me deal with a mistake we can easily make ourselves. There are always problems to deal with, always causes, and always popular movements. This is as it should be. I remember Frank Retief returning from a bishops’ conference, and quoting to us the words of the chief Methodist bishop in South Africa. “At our time in history,” he said, “for any church to have credibility it must be seen to be helping the poor.” This was true, and still is in South Africa. For churches to be involved in the fight against poverty or racism does not mean we have abandoned Paul’s charge. The charge to preach the Word means we are also called to live by the Word. That will draw us into any number of people-upliftment issues. But they must never take over and become the main concern of the pulpit; they may become an individual’s life work, or a society, but then, if it is to be carried out as a Christian thing, it will need to be guided, motivated and encouraged by the Word of God. The task of the church is to preach the Word.
I remember standing on the edge of a steep drop-off, looking down into the Valley of 1000 Hills in KwaZulu Natal. On the slope opposite bulldozers had made a huge cut. I asked what it was for, and was told it was for the bodies. HIV-AIDS was raging in Africa. One of my students spent most of every Saturdays at the cemetery burying the dead. There was a group came from America at the time, who urged us to introduce a special subject into our college curriculum on HIV-AIDS. A few years later they were urging a subject on peacemaking. We declined because we knew we would need to drop other vital subjects to accommodate them. AIDS has now passed; many more are dying from TB. Over their working life preachers will need to address many issues; they need a foundation and a training that will help them apply the teaching of the Bible to a variety of problems. We knew our task was to train people to preach the Word; from that we could not be distracted. But that did not mean that one of our students wouldn’t do his PhD on the ministry to HIV-AIDS sufferers in traditional African communities. He went on the manage AIDS relief in the whole of Zimbabwe, and is now a world leader in that area. It was he who told me cancer was now a bigger problem in Zimbabwe. All the money goes towards AIDS and cancer sufferers are sent home to die in agony. He wrote to me a few years ago from the university where he is now a professor, hoping I could give him a job. “I can’t see the point of writing academic papers that only one of two people in the world will read. I want to teach preachers of the Word.” He has not abandoned the centre. I set him up once to address the chaplains at Graylands Hospital. He told them if they weren’t preaching Christ, they were just religious social workers.
Paul adds to the seriousness of the commission he is giving Timothy by calling to mind three great realities: “Jesus,” he says …
… will judge the living and the dead, and in light of his appearing, and kingdom.
Jesus is coming again to judge; he will judge those who are alive at the time of his coming, and also those who have died. Every human being who has ever lived will be called to give an account of their lives. That includes Paul, and Timothy, and me, and you, and even those who say they do not believe in God. The outcome of that judgement will determine whether we have a place in the coming world, or whether our future is what Jesus called, “outer darkness.”
He also calls to mind Christ’s appearing. If he is to judge, it would seem unnecessary to speak of his appearing, but Paul uses a special word, epiphany. It means his appearance in his full majesty as King of kings and Lord of lords. He will return to the world to judge, and to rule it for ever. The third thing Paul calls to Timothy’s mind is the kingdom of God, the great future for which Jesus lived and died, for which Paul in turn has devoted his life. There is going to be a renewed creation where there will be no more sickness or death, no more evil and cruelty, no more hating and being hated, where all God’s people will live together in peace and harmony, together enjoying God, and his King, and his wonderful new universe. This gets things into perspective. What matters now is to save as many people as we can out of the destruction which is coming. For that, the preaching of the Word of God is critical.
But let me say again, we must be on our guard that we do not become what James calls just “hearers of the word.” We must also be doers, and that will call us to all kinds of action. Though I would caution you against becoming one of those people who feels like they are doing good, when all they are doing is condemning everyone and everything around them. Caring for the sick, visiting prisoners, helping the poor—these are the sorts of things the Bible directs us to do. “Love your neighbour!” Lifting others is the Christian calling, and sometimes it goes beyond our personal circle.
The Clapham Sect was a small group who met in the village of Clapham, at that time just outside of London. “Sect” was a nickname; they were mostly Anglicans, most attended the village church, listened to sermons, and discussed what they could do to advance the kingdom of God in the world. Thomas Buxton and William Wilberforce led the movement for the abolition of slavery, and spent twenty years driving legislation through the British parliament. Charles Grant become Chairman of the British East India Company. Zachary Macaulay became Governor of Sierra Leone, founded as a haven for liberated slaves. Hannah More was a writer and philanthropist. James Stephen was a judge. Lord Teignmouth became Governor General of India. Henry Thornton was an economist and banker; his writings are still read today. His daughter, Marianne, was another member. Henry Venn was Curate of the Church, and founder of the group. Charles Simeon as Vicar of Holy Trinity Cambridge influenced generations of students, and the influence of his preaching is still strong two hundred years later. I was looked after on one occasion by Christians in Chicago who had begun “The Simeon Trust” to promote in the USA the kind of preaching Simeon had modelled in Cambridge. The Clapham group were people of the kingdom, but also of the world, which they set out to make a better place. But the gospel was always at the centre. They also founded the Church Missionary Society (CMS), the Bible Society, and also made sure a Bible-believing chaplain accompanied the First Fleet to New South Wales. It does not follow that placing the Bible at the centre means a lack of engagement with the world.
But Paul is preparing himself to leave the world.
… the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up 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 loved his appearing.
He cares about one thing, and that is the gospel. Whenever Christ may appear—he does not know when—he wants that men and women should hear the offer of salvation, and for this he needs people who will go on teaching the Bible, no matter what is going on around them. The world has grown old. Two thousand years has passed. Jesus has not yet returned, but he is nearer now than he was then—not that Paul had any idea it would last so long. That does not matter. It means only that God’s plan is bigger than we thought. What matters is that people of every generation hear God’s word of invitation, and join his kingdom. Paul’s charge to Timothy is his charge to us:
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
We know that Timothy stepped up to the plate, because we have this letter today, and Christianity not only survived its first bloody trial, but grew, and eventually won the empire over to its thinking. Each one of here today who is a believer in Jesus is probably so because someone preached the word. I will leave you soon, though not in the same way as St Paul. But my concern on departing will be the same. Before the one who will judge the world, and in light of his glorious appearing, and kingdom, stick with the Word, support the ministry of the Word, pray for this cathedral to be a place of the Word, devote yourselves to good works, which I am sure, if you remain steadfast, will result in the salvation of many, and much rejoicing when Christ appears.