Fight The Good Fight – Letter to Timonthy
This letter presents to us the picture of a young man called to the service of Christ and facing great difficulties in that service. He had to be God’s man, God’s representative in the world in which he lived among his fellow Christians and in every aspect of his personal behaviour.
Like the apostle Paul himself (1 Tim.1:12) he was entrusted with the good news of Jesus Christ. He had that good news to preach and the glorious truths of Christ to teach to others. But he was surrounded by the influences of non-Christian thinking and non-Christian beliefs and there were those even inside the Church who were giving wrong teaching, or who were emphasising things that didn’t really matter at all. There were also those who thought of rules and regulations as being more important than the gospel. (1 Tim. 1:3-7). Timothy for years now had been nourished on the words of the faith and had followed ‘the good doctrine’. (1 Tim.4:6). He had to make sure that he kept the faith, taught the faith and warned others not to depart from it. He had to be God’s man, with God’s word for the world.
Timothy’s work was to continue what the apostle had done before him (1 Tim.1:3). Not only did he have to preach the gospel to the world; he had also to strengthen and help those who had become Christians. He had to be wise in all his dealings with every section of the Christian fellowship; towards men and women, young and old, he had to act as God’s man (1 Tim.5:1-2). He had to advise concerning the choice of elders (1 Tim. 3:1-13), concerning the care of the poor and especially of widows (1 Tim. 5:3-16), concerning how slaves should behave (1 Tim. 6:1-2). He needed to know how to deal with accusations made against those in responsible positions in the Christian fellowship (1 Tim.5:19-20).
Prayer needed to be priority in his life (1 Tim.2:1) and in the lives of all Christian people, prayer for all men, prayer especially for leaders and rulers (1 Tim.2:1-4). Then he also had to give special advice concerning the conduct of public prayer, the place of men and of women in leadership, and the way that both should conduct themselves when they met together for worship (1 Tim.2:8-15).
Both preaching and teaching were Timothy’s responsibilities and he had to use all the gifts that God had given him for these (1 Tim.4:13-14); but just as important was his own living as an example to others (1 Tim.4:12); his living as a man of God, faithfully persevering and constantly making progress in the Christian life (1 Tim.4:15). The letter is full of exhortations about these things. He, like all the other Christians around him, was living in a non-Christian world, and its standards and aims pressed hard on him to influence him. He, and those around him, faced the temptation to love money, to desire the favour of men, to get for himself rather than to give for himself (1 Tim.6:3-10). “Man of God,” he was commanded, “shun all this, aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.” (1 Tim.6:11). He had to hold fast to the truth – in teaching and in living – but to do so in a loving way. Paul urged this on Timothy at the beginning of the letter – the one thing that matters supremely is love, “love that issues from a pure heart, and a good conscience and sincere faith.” (1 Tim. 1:5). The whole letter is a call to the young Timothy to live as a man of God, to live a God centred life in faith and love and truth.
This letter does not contain great passages that teach of the glory of Christ, expounding God’s plan of salvation in the way that Romans and Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians do. He does not show us how a young church faced its problems as 1 Corinthians does. But perhaps more than any other letter of the New Testament, it gives practical advice and counsel for a young man or woman trying to live in the world and among his fellow Christians as a “man of God”. The age in which we live is very different from Timothy’s; but many of the tasks and temptations and problems are not very different. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (power of God) we can find much in this letter to teach us, and to stir us up to live as men and women of God. Prayer – We praise thee, Lord, for thy word given to us in this letter. Give us also, we pray, the gift of Thy wisdom, that we may truly understand and carefully apply this word to ourselves; above all we ask that all we learn by Thy grace, we may obey and live out by Thy grace, and so live in the world as men and women of God, and servants of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Bro. Friday Umesi, Ikwueke, Nigeria
