Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - January 24, 2021

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on 2 Timothy 2:8-15.

Ever take a stroll down memory lane?  Which memories do you like to visit the most?  I had an old friend from high school who always took a stroll along the halls of Granby every time we talked.  It was always the same questions.  What ever happened to Bob Chapin?  Have you see Dorothy Nolan lately?  I’ve been trying to get a hold of Eddie Cook.  Do you have his address?  Now, I haven’t seen or wanted to see any of these people since 1952 when we graduated from Granby High School.  He had had an interesting life since graduation.  He was the principal of a middle school, coached swimming at UVA and was elected into the Virginia football official’s Hall of Fame.  And, yet, all he wanted to talk about was people we knew at Granby.  High school was fun, but, there has been a lot of water flowing under the bridge since then.

Memory lanes aren’t much fun if you have memory lapses.  Do you have memory lapses?  At our age we generally feel that it is because we’re getting old.  But, doctor’s tell us that we probably have had those memory lapses all our lives, but, we are more sensitive to them when we become senior citizens.  Are there things that you have always had a hard time remembering?  For me it is names.  It’s always been a problem for me.  I get introduced to somebody and a minute later I was asking Jackie what that guy’s name is.  The most embarrassing moment was to run into somebody in the Mall when I was with Jackie.  I know that I have to introduce her to the guy, but, I can’t think of his name.  It gets pretty awkward when I had to say to Jackie, “Jackie, this is my old friend.  And, old friend, this is my wife, Jackie?”  That’s about the time Jackie started rolling her eyes.  I heard that not remembering things like names is because I wasn’t paying enough attention when I heard the name.  At least that is what Jackie thought. 

 In today’s lesson, Paul shares a memory with Timothy. What memory was that?  Let’s find out.

2 Timothy was probably the last letter Paul wrote.  Some feel that this was Paul’s last will and testament.  He is a lonely old man who has been deserted by most of his friends and is facing the probability of death.  In the fourth chapter he tells Timothy, “I am already 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.”  Can’t you imagine Timothy sitting in Ephesus reading that his dear friend and mentor was coming to the end of the road?  I imagine that Timothy was conflicted when he read this.  He must have wanted to catch the next train to Rome, but, Paul had sent him to Ephesus to do a job and that had to come first.

As we learned a few weeks ago, this letter was written when the church in Ephesus was under attack from a heresy which was gaining strength in a lot of churches - Gnosticism. Ready to remember something?  Remember what we learned about Gnosticism.  Gnostics basically believed that all matter was evil and only the spirit was good. They took this philosophy and then tried to explain Christianity in these terms. Endless hours would be spent arguing accepted Christian doctrine and bending and fitting this doctrine into their belief of what was evil and what was good. These Gnostics were intellectuals who were stimulated by debate and argument, so, words meant a lot to them. They were smart people who just wanted the church to be relevant to the times. Some were even church leaders. Intellectuals tend to intimidate us.  Why do you think that is?  They know so much, we don’t want to look like a dummy trying to defend our position.  Well, back then, there were ordinary people in the church who didn’t want to be ridiculed by the intellectuals or just didn’t want to get mixed up in confrontations, so it was just easier to go along with what the gnostics said.  

Words can be fun. How many like cross word puzzles? Debating societies used to be popular in colleges. Today we have news shows that have panels that consist of conservatives and liberals who spend the whole show spinning the latest events to conform to their own political persuasion. We tune into candidate debates to see how the candidates dodge or lie about a topic.  My oldest son and I used to enjoy arguing some point. He would take one position and I would take the opposite whether I agreed with the position or not.  The challenge was in coming up with a argument that floored your opponent. Sometimes it got out of hand and tempers flared.  That is when the ultimate referee, Jackie, would call a halt to the game.

So, you can see that Timothy was dealing with a contemporary threat to the stability and faith of the church.  If he failed then Christianity would be dealt a setback that would have impacted on it’s future.  Paul saw Timothy as the man who would take over for him when he was called home.  His support and encouragement in this letter would make Timothy that kind of leader.

The chapter starts out with Paul telling us how he felt about Timothy.  He calls Timothy his child.  As any father would do, Paul wants to pass on the wisdom of faith he has gained over his many years.  Timothy and all of us are involved in two aspects of faith.

(1) The reception of faith.  How did we get our faith?  Receiving our faith depended on two things.  First we heard the Gospel.  Timothy first heard the gospel directly from Paul.  But just as important as hearing the Gospel is having these truths confirmed by other people we know and respect.  I'm an engineer, but if I tell you that putting white shingles on your roof will make your house cooler in the summer, you may or may not believe me.  But if other people tell you, “I’ve put white shingles on my roof and, boy, did it make a difference last summer.”  This is proof attesting to the truth.  Paul says, “Don’t take my word for it.  Ask other people what effect the Gospel has had on their lives.”  

(2) The transmission of faith.   How do we transmit our faith?  As Christians we have a duty to pass this faith on to others.  Every Christian should look on himself or herself as the one link between two generations.  Like in a relay race, we have to pass the baton on to the next guy if the race is to be finished and our side win.  But we don’t pass it on to just anybody.  We pass it on to faithful people who will in turn pass it on to other faithful people.  You see, the Christian Church is dependent on an unbroken chain of passer-oners.  These people are links in a chain the stretches from this moment right where you are right now all the way back to Jesus Christ.  That's an exciting thought, isn't it?

With this in mind, Paul gets to what makes faith tick.  To stick it out during the bad times, we have to stroll down memory lane.  But, it is a special lane.  And that is what Paul shares with Timothy.

2 Timothy 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David---that is my gospel, 9  for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.  10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 

Paul has been trying to inspire Timothy to stick with the job he has to do.  In order to stand firm in his faith when suffering comes his way, Paul wants Timothy to remember three things.  How do we go about remembering something?  Put it in the front of our mind so it is there when we need it.  What were the three remembrances Paul shares with Timothy?

(1) Remember Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  Paul is saying that Christ is risen, alive and present right now.  What do you think people fear the most?  Death.  With that resurrection comes power because the thing people fear most - death - has been defeated.  When things get us down and seem to be hopeless, remember that you have the living Christ on your side and he was strong enough to be beat death so he can handle our problems too. 

(2) Remember Jesus was a descendant of David.  Why does Paul stress this?  If Christ is a descendent of David or any human for that matter, what does that tell us about Christ?  He was a mortal man.  He lived this life and faced all of life’s struggles so he knows what we are going through.  He wasn’t a spirit without any real knowledge of what it takes to live in this world.  You see, this was a direct attack on the beliefs of the Gnostics.  They maintained that Jesus couldn’t have been a mortal man because that would mean that he had assumed the nature of evil matter.  Therefore, Jesus was really a spirit who only appeared to be human.  Paul says, “Not so.  He came from a human line as well as a godly line.  When he stumped his toe , he said , "Ouch."  He got hungry.  He even had cook outs for five thousand people and he died.”  The bottom line - Jesus had a human side too.

(3) Remember my Gospel.  We hear “gospel” all of the time, but, what is it really?  It was the message Paul received and passed on to the churches he started.  It wasn’t about feeling good or contented or being happy or tolerant or liberated.  Oh, they are side effects, but the gospel isn’t a social action plan.  It was from start to finish the record of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  Even when it seems that the gospel demands too much, even when it leads to a challenge which seems greater than we can do and into a future that is frightening with darkness and threats, remember that it is the “good news” that will sustain us.  The “good news” is that we are so important to God, so loved by God, that he sent his son, Jesus, to die for our sins and then Jesus was resurrected to prove to us that it was all true.  No matter how hard it seems sometimes to believe in the “good news”, it is the only message offering us freedom from sin and victory over the evils that plague this world.

When Paul wrote to Timothy, he was again in prison.  Unlike the last time when he was really under house arrest and able to see his friends and move around freely, this time he was literally chained to one of his guards.  Romans did this when they thought there might be a possibility of escape.  Twenty four hours a day Paul was shackled to a guard.  The cell was dark and damp with the moldy odor of decay.  Rats fought over the crumbs of his meals.  Paul was cold and asks Timothy to bring him a cloak for warmth.  He was bored and asked that his scrolls be brought to him.  The only person able to see him was Luke.  He had had a preliminary hearing and was waiting for his trial and didn’t believe that he would be acquitted.  Paul desperately wanted Timothy to come to him.  This letter was taken to Timothy by Tychicus who would take over for Timothy in Ephesus so Timothy could travel to Rome.  As he writes this letter, Paul is chained like a criminal, but, what isn’t chained?  The Word of God.

Paul tells Timothy he had to endure a lot.  What had Paul endured since he became a Christian and set out on his missionary journeys?  Beatings, stoning, ridicule, shipwreck, bitten by a snake.  Name it and it happened to Paul.  For whom did he go through so much?  The elect.  Who is the elect?  Believers.  Folks, that's you and I.  Paul passed on the gospel so others will be saved like him.

2 Timothy 2:11 The saying is sure:

     If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

12 if we endure, we will also reign  with him;

     if we deny him, he will also deny us; 

13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

     for he cannot deny himself. 

What follows is believed to be part of one of the first hymns of the church.  When persecutions came, the church turned to hymns to buoy their spirits and make remembering the gospel easier.  Paul has heard this hymn and used parts of it to illustrate the point he is making to Timothy.  Paul recognizes that these verses of the hymn contain truths that were unassailable.  Each truth starts with an “If”.  Notice the “if” part describes a past condition and it is followed by a resulting future condition.  What are the four truths?

(1) If we have died with him, what will happen?  We will also live with him.  What does it mean “to die with him”?  To die with him means that we have taken up the cross of Christ.  Like the guy who helped Christ when he stumbled on the way to Golgotha, we pick up the cross and carry it on our shoulder.  It is like we are going with Christ to be crucified and are nailed to our own cross.  But, it doesn’t end with the crucifixion.  Just as Christ was resurrected, so shall we.  So, what this truth says is that our reward for  accepting the rejection of the world is that we will spend eternity with the resurrected Christ.

(2) If we endure, what will happen?  We will reign with him.  What does it mean to endure?  To see it through to the end.  A lot of people are great starters, but, have a problem completing what they started.  When I had a sheet metal business, there were men who were great at hanging a lot of duct.  They went and got the job started.  But, when it came to finishing up, they lost interest and just poked along.  So, I had a group of men who just loved to finish things.  They liked to see the finished product.  The combination made for a financially successful job.  Paul tells us that if we stick it out and finish strong, we will be saved.  And that salvation will be accompanied by a ruling crown.  Not of thorns, but of God’s glory.

Paul has given us two positive truths.  Now comes a negative one.

(3) If we deny him, what will happen?  He will deny us.  This one needs to be examined carefully or we might get the wrong idea.  What does it mean to deny someone or something?  You reject something or someone for a reason.  A lot of times if it is a person, we might have started with a positive relationship with the person.  They do something that makes you re-evaluate your relationship with him and decide that he has crossed the line.  So you deny him.  Here is the tricky part.  Is Paul saying that if we ever deny Christ we are lost for ever?  No.  If that were true, what about Peter?  How many times did he deny Christ?  Three times.  So, the denial that Paul is talking about isn’t one that is transient.  The guy who stepped over the line comes and tells you he is sorry, you accept his apology and forget your denial.  Paul’s denial involves settling on a position and never changing your mind.  The guy comes and apologizes and you reject it and keep denying him.  This is the person Paul is talking about.  Denying Christ regardless of what others tell you or what you might know yourself.  Your total rejection of Christ will forever prevent you from accepting Christ again.   The ultimate denial of Christ will result in an equal ultimate denial from Christ.

(4) If we are faithless, what happens?  He remains faithful.  First we have to get straight what faithfulness means.  What do you think it means?  We break the faith.  We cannot be faithless without first having faith.  So we aren’t dealing with unbelief, here.  What we are talking about is momentary failure.  We weaken and give in to temptation, but, does that doom us for the rest of our lives?  No.  But, this does not mean that slipping doesn’t have consequences.  What it means is that Christ never slips.  He promised that if we ask for forgiveness, he will grant it.  What a boon for us.  It means that as a believer, if we just for a moment make a mistake and break faith with Christ, we can count on his promise to remain faithful and forgive us.  It just isn’t in Christ’s nature not to be faithful.

2 Timothy 2:14 Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

Remember that this letter was written to argue against the Gnostic influence in the church.  To Gnostics, words were everything.  With their words they developed these weird theories of God and Jesus Christ.  But, for Paul, words can never substitute for action.  A wife asks her husband to hang a picture in the living room.  He says, “I’d love to hang that picture.  What if I hang it and you don’t like where it’s hanging?  I’d have to move it, right?  I’d have to pull out the nail and that would leave a hole in the wall.  So, I’d get the spackling and fill the hole but the white spackling against the blue wall stands out like a sore thumb.  I’ll have to paint the patch, but, the paint doesn’t quite match so I’ll have to end up painting the whole room.  We walk out of the newly painted living room and the dining room walls will look like they just survived a tsunami. So, I’ll have to paint all of the rooms.  Then we will look down and the carpet will look pretty worn compared to the newly painted walls.  So, we will need to get new carpets.  After the new carpets and newly painted walls, our furniture will look pretty old and worn out.  So, we will have to go to Haynes if they ever have a sale and buy new furniture.  By then, I figure we have spent about $10,000.00.  So you see, Honey, I would love to hang your picture, but, we can’t afford it right now.” This husband is a guy who talks a good game but is a "no show" when it comes to execution.  None of the worlds problems will be solved with just words.  If it would, our country would have peace right now.  You see, understanding often comes from doing and not talking.  If you had to set up your smart phone, is it easier to read the instruction manual which is on line and was written by a Chinese guy or to have somebody who has gone through setting up an smart walk you through the step to set it up?  You see too much talk and too much discussion in the Christian Church may give the impression to outsiders that that is all Christians do - talk.  A lot of time it ends with the same people talking and the rest of the us listening and being left out.  The bottom line is that talking is fine if only it leads to action.

Unlike the guy who is so anxious to win an argument that he will stoop to half truths and outright lies to win a point, but enough of talking about politicians, the Christian should do what?  Not be ashamed and rightly declare the word of truth.  That is what we are supposed to do.  It isn’t our responsibility to convince anybody or convert anybody.  We rightly explain the gospel and leave it to the expert - God’s Spirit - to write it on their hearts.

So, how are we to communicate our faith?  Write long sermons?  Grunt like Tim Allen did on Home Improvements?  Shrug our shoulders?  Look up to heaven?  We don’t need the words of men like the gnostics because we have the Word of God, Jesus Christ.  I think what Paul is saying here is that we best communicate our faith when we stroll down memory lane and remember who brought us to the dance.  That’s the truth that will literally set us free.

Prayer: May the words we speak lift up others.  May the discussions we have, advance the Gospel.  May we have the wisdom and words to share our faith journey with others.  Amen