Not Ashamed by Kitty Fung

NOT ASHAMED 2 TIMOTHY

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CON CAMPBELL

NOT ASHAMED 2 TIMOTHY

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FROM

2 TIMOTHY L

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DAILY READINGS

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D E V O T

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BIBLE ALIVE BRIDGING SCRIPTURE AND DAILY LIFE, VOLUME 2

17 C

CON CAMPBELL

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PO Box A 287 Sydney South NSW 1235 Australia

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Ph: (612) 8268 3344 Fax: (612) 8268 3357

E: sales@youthworks.net W: www.publications.youthworks.net Published April 2008 Copyright Aquila Press 2008 © Con Campbell Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the publisher. Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. National Library of Australia ISBN 978 1 921460 04 3 Cover Design and Typesetting by Lankshear Design.

CONTENTS Introduction

Not ashamed of the Gospel

No fear

Do not be ashamed

The light of the Gospel

Guard the good deposit

Training others

The good soldier

Remember Jesus

Saving the elect

The good worker

The good servant

Following the truth

Wise for salvation

The key to godliness

Preach the word!

Itching ears

Crown of righteousness

105

Conclusion

111

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L P M A S

43 49 53 59

For Marcus Reeves

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Introduction

INTRODUCTION

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I think I was about twenty at the time. I was on a train in Sydney going into the city to hear some jazz music. Like any budding jazz musician, I had my axe (translation: saxophone) with me—just in case I might get the chance to sit in with the band. Two girls about my age struck up a conversation and asked what my name was. When I said my name was Con, one of the girls said that it was an unusual name, and wanted to know how I ended up with a name like that. I explained that I am half Greek—my mum is of Greek descent—and that I’m named after my grandfather (who, by the way, was a fruiterer at one time). I was used to that reaction, and I figured that some people found my name interesting, but not too weird. Then they wanted to know about the saxophone. I explained that I was a jazz musician. I was studying jazz performance at the time, and often worked professionally playing jazz. It was obvious that I loved jazz music and was pretty seriously into it. Now that was odd. ‘Who listens to jazz?’ one of the girls asked. ‘Aren’t you too young for that? Only old people listen to jazz, don’t they?’ Again I had to explain myself. Jazz is greatly underrated, ignored by mass

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media, suffers bad public perception, but always has had a solid base of young listeners. I explained that I got hooked on the music and was entranced by improvisation and the powerful rhythms of jazz. Needless to say, I could feel the weirdness metre climbing up a few notches. Anyway, after some reflection they seemed fairly OK with this odd combination: Con, the half Greek jazz musician. Then one of the girls said, ‘So, it sounds like jazz is your passion. Is that, like, what your whole life is about?’ I hesitated. ‘Well, not exactly, no.’ ‘But I thought you said…’, she countered. ‘I do love jazz…’ I said, ‘but I’m a Christian. Jesus is number one in my life’. ‘What?’ Their dropped jaws and puzzled looks confirmed that the weirdness metre had just blown itself to bits. So began just one of the strange conversations that I have had with people who are not Christians, who do not understand why anyone would be a Christian, and haven’t the foggiest idea what Christianity is. As a teenager I had got used to having a slightly odd name and being obsessed with a pretty odd type of music. But going into my twenties, having become a Christian at university, I faced a whole new level of ‘oddness’. There is so much that people don’t understand about Christians. There is such cultural cringe associated with being a Jesus freak. Reading the Bible and praying is so weird, it’s not funny. Getting really involved with your church smacks of Ned Flanders-ism. My guess is that if you’ve been a Christian for any time at all, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve been a Christian for a long time, well you really know what I’m talking about. Your worldview is so different from the people around you—at work, at uni, in your neighbourhood—that you could be from another planet altogether.

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Introduction

And yet I probably don’t have to persuade you that being a Christian is the greatest privilege on earth. We share in the perfect, free, and everlasting forgiveness that is offered to all and any who will trust in Christ. We belong to Christ and we are in him as he is in us by his Spirit. Life with God is what we were made for, and we know that nothing else will satisfy us. Being part of God’s family connects us to millions of his people across the globe, who welcome us with love and acceptance wherever we go. Being a Christian is a great joy indeed. The gift of being a Christian includes many blessings, one of which is to know the truth about our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a wondrous joy that God makes himself known to us through Jesus, that we are forgiven through Jesus, blessed through Jesus, and relate to God as our Father through Jesus. Knowing God, knowing the truth about Jesus, and knowing his plan for humanity is a delight for all Christians to enjoy. While knowing Christ is a privilege and a joy, there is no doubt that as God’s people we can sometimes be tempted to deny the truth. Acknowledging that Jesus is the truth in this world can be hard. Believing that much of our society and culture lacks the truth can be difficult to admit. Telling others that Jesus is what life is all about—our Lord, our Saviour, our only hope—can feel enormously burdensome when people around you think, quite frankly, that such ideas are ridiculous. The challenge of holding on to the truth—in a world that rejects it—is what this book is about. Holding on to the truth is a challenge for all Christians, whether you’re a new Christian or you’ve been a Christian for fifty years. The challenge exists for the Christian lawyer and the Christian pastor, for the Christian parent and the Christian university student, for the Christian politician

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and the Christian garbage collector, for the Christian eleven-yearold and the Christian retiree. This book looks at this theme of holding on to the truth by exploring the letter of 2 Timothy. This is not a commentary on 2 Timothy. In fact, there are many parts of the letter that are not even addressed here. But as we explore the letter together we will think about its major themes and the challenges they bring to us. Because 2 Timothy is a ‘pastoral epistle’, along with 1 Timothy and Titus, it is primarily concerned with the responsibilities of Christian leadership. It is written by Paul to Timothy, who is the leader of the church in Ephesus, and it speaks specifically to people like Timothy, who are in leadership within churches, preachers and teachers. If that is you, there is a lot in 2 Timothy to think about, and the book you are reading now has you in mind. But there is much in 2 Timothy that speaks directly to all Christians, whether you are involved in leadership or not. 2 Timothy is for all Christians, young and old, great and small, leading and being led. The main challenge of 2 Timothy is to hold on to the true message about Jesus, and as I have already mentioned, that is a challenge we all face. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do—if you are a Christian, then 2 Timothy is your book. It is written for you. God speaks to you through its words. It is my hope that this book will help you to hear what God is saying in 2 Timothy, and see why it matters so much in our twenty-first century lives.

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Not ashamed of the gospel

NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL The message of Jesus is counter-cultural.

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If you have been a Christian for very long at all, this may sound familiar. There you are, with your friends, or at a family get-together, and you are talking about all the usual things: sport, movies, the weekend. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, one of your friends says to you: ‘Christians don’t really believe that Jesus is the only way to God, do they? I mean, millions of people follow other religions. Throughout history there have been thousands of ways to God, to the divine. Spirituality can be explored in lots of ways. Are you really saying that unless you believe in Jesus, it’s all rubbish?’ You freeze. Panic builds. You feel your face go red. Everyone is looking at you. They want to know what you are going to say. You want to know what you are going to say. Are you really going to say that you are right, and millions of others have got it wrong? You know exactly what the Bible says: Jesus is the only way to God; no-one comes to the Father except by him. Sure, people may have an awareness of God’s existence through the world around them, but this can only ever be a shadow of the truth. To know the character of God, the promises of God, the eternal

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God and maker of our universe and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—this is only known through Christ. And this is exactly what Christians are taught by the Bible to believe. You know that. But what will you say? Will you water down the truth? Even just a bit? Just this once? But how can you answer such an important question with sensitivity? If you tell the truth, won’t you offend and upset your friend? Won’t you get into an ugly argument? Won’t that just make things worse? Maybe you should dodge the question… Maybe you should change the subject… Maybe you should do a Mexican hat-dance… Doing a Mexican hat-dance would be preferable to changing the truth. OK, so it might not be the wisest move, right at that moment, to explain that millions of people the world over, and throughout history, have been deluded in their attempts to know God, and are lost without hope. Maybe you can work up to that another time. But making something up that isn’t true, or even just nudging the truth a little bit is not the right thing to do either. When we are caught off guard, and perhaps seized with fear, any Christian can be tempted to change the message of the gospel. We know what the Bible says. We believe it because we believe in the God who spoke it. But in some situations it can be tough to stand firm. It can be hard to admit to the truth. It can be difficult not to alter the truth in the face of dominant public opinion. The Apostle Paul knew this well. He was probably in prison in Rome as he wrote this—his last letter—to Timothy. All indications suggest that Paul was near death as he wrote, and he knew it. The letter is addressed to Paul’s spiritual ‘son’, Timothy,

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who is leading the church in Ephesus. And with this letter, Paul is handing on the baton to the next generation. Paul’s ministry is coming to an end while Timothy’s ministry is just getting off the ground, and the central message Paul wants Timothy to take on board is this: ‘Don’t be ashamed of the gospel. Don’t change the gospel’. In Paul’s world, being ashamed probably had less to do with embarrassment and more to do with the culture of shame, which is something that we in Western twenty-first century society might not immediately appreciate. We would do well to remember that in the first century, the idea of a crucified messiah was a deeply shameful thing. A crucified person was a person without honour. Crucifixion was a taboo topic for polite conversation. In this context, Paul calls Timothy to resist the overwhelming culture, and to remember that following Jesus is anything but shameful. To be a Christian in the Roman Empire meant standing firm despite the apparent strength and impressiveness of the social and political milieu. Under this kind of pressure—the pressure of shame—the temptation to change the message was powerful indeed. Like Paul and Timothy, we live in a culture that rejects the idea of a crucified Lord as the only true way to God. We face tremendous pressure to adopt a message that is less offensive to our culture. But the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed is radical, surprising, and unexpected. It was radical in Paul’s day and it is no less radical in ours. To a church leader, this message is absolutely essential. But it does not stop with Timothy. No Christian should be ashamed of the gospel. It is a radical gospel of grace, of God’s love, of forgiveness, of life, of peace and joy, in a kingdom that Christ has

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opened to us. It is the most important message our world has ever heard, about a kingdom that is not of this world. And, no Christian should be tempted to change the gospel. If we get the message wrong, we might misunderstand what God has done for us in Jesus. We might not have a true picture of who God is, and we might misunderstand the nature of his kingdom. Keeping the message true, and having a true understanding of the kingdom of God is an important biblical theme. It is important in 2 Timothy, and it is important that we are all concerned about the truth.

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PRAYER

Heavenly Father, thank you for revealing yourself through your Son. Help me to know you truly and believe the truth with confidence. Protect me from the pressure of this world to alter the message that you have spoken. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Questions 1. What was so radical about Jesus’ kingdom in the first century? Why is it radical today? 2. What difference does the radical nature of God’s kingdom make to life today? 3. In your own words, why do you think the idea of shame was so significant for Paul? 4. Think of a situation that has tempted you to change the message about Jesus. If you had a ‘do-over’, what would you say differently?

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5. Think of three things about Christianity that you would hate to be asked about by a nonChristian friend. Try to think of good responses to those questions.

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