Evangelism in the Air AND on the Ground
From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 To Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Queen Victoria has got to rank among history's more self-assured personages. Yet, even she chafed when, she said, Prime Minister William Gladstone addressed her as if she were a public meeting.
We see the difference in Paul's inspired opening of 1 Timothy. Paul's calling, he says again in this letter is as an apostle, an earth mover of entire cultures. The Authority commissioning him thus is even more vast, as both the Father, interestingly and somewhat counter-intuitively titled Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ put Paul to this work. Moving to the end of verse two mercy and peace, Paul says, come from the same to impressive, sometimes imposing Sources.
Timothy as an individual recipient of this epistle is nearly lost in the middle, the shrimp between two theological whales. Either that, or this is a picture of just how overstretched any of Timothy's opposition is. He has, in a sense, all the energy of a formidable apostle channeling the hope, the mercy, and the peace of the Father and the Son to him.
We need this Scriptural reminder, seconded by the Queen. Especially in a social media age, we tend to spread our influence very thinly, to speak to the faceless masses in generalities that may indeed point to God the Father, Christ the Son, to hope, to mercy, and to peace, as many big concepts as we can cram into one status or whatever we can hold of the public attention span.
Is this aerial assault on the general assumptions of the culture matched with a hand-to-hand relationship with the likes of Timothy? Or, do we too often trade a little more reach, a few more likes, a few more views, for the possibilities of individual application and discipleship? It's possible that even when we address people and their individual needs, we do so as though we were Gladstone addressing a public meeting.
One on one relationships can at times seem wasteful and inefficient, a misuse of the gifts we have been given. Paul could have reasonably deduced this. He didn't. Instead, perhaps he understood the value of one individual transformed by the pouring in of God's grace through a human mentor in relationship. Paul keeps to a confidence throughout the letter that the city of Ephesus in which Timothy ministers will never quite be the same.
Perhaps Paul better understands that these one-on-one relationships, the application of grand theology to an individual life, are what the culture as a whole will notice the most, and what will change it. Seemingly, Paul wants the church at Ephesus to read of his affirmation of Pastor Timothy, and to follow Paul in doing the same, to follow Paul in seeking the empowerment directly from Christ which is on Timothy's life.
2 To Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Queen Victoria has got to rank among history's more self-assured personages. Yet, even she chafed when, she said, Prime Minister William Gladstone addressed her as if she were a public meeting.
We see the difference in Paul's inspired opening of 1 Timothy. Paul's calling, he says again in this letter is as an apostle, an earth mover of entire cultures. The Authority commissioning him thus is even more vast, as both the Father, interestingly and somewhat counter-intuitively titled Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ put Paul to this work. Moving to the end of verse two mercy and peace, Paul says, come from the same to impressive, sometimes imposing Sources.
Timothy as an individual recipient of this epistle is nearly lost in the middle, the shrimp between two theological whales. Either that, or this is a picture of just how overstretched any of Timothy's opposition is. He has, in a sense, all the energy of a formidable apostle channeling the hope, the mercy, and the peace of the Father and the Son to him.
We need this Scriptural reminder, seconded by the Queen. Especially in a social media age, we tend to spread our influence very thinly, to speak to the faceless masses in generalities that may indeed point to God the Father, Christ the Son, to hope, to mercy, and to peace, as many big concepts as we can cram into one status or whatever we can hold of the public attention span.
Is this aerial assault on the general assumptions of the culture matched with a hand-to-hand relationship with the likes of Timothy? Or, do we too often trade a little more reach, a few more likes, a few more views, for the possibilities of individual application and discipleship? It's possible that even when we address people and their individual needs, we do so as though we were Gladstone addressing a public meeting.
One on one relationships can at times seem wasteful and inefficient, a misuse of the gifts we have been given. Paul could have reasonably deduced this. He didn't. Instead, perhaps he understood the value of one individual transformed by the pouring in of God's grace through a human mentor in relationship. Paul keeps to a confidence throughout the letter that the city of Ephesus in which Timothy ministers will never quite be the same.
Perhaps Paul better understands that these one-on-one relationships, the application of grand theology to an individual life, are what the culture as a whole will notice the most, and what will change it. Seemingly, Paul wants the church at Ephesus to read of his affirmation of Pastor Timothy, and to follow Paul in doing the same, to follow Paul in seeking the empowerment directly from Christ which is on Timothy's life.
So many great things in this post, brother. As I reflect it occurs to me that only in a culture consumed with everything bigger and better would we ever question the value of one-on-one mentoring for the purpose of discipleship. This was a given in the ancient culture, and if we would see our culture transformed it must be recovered as strategy number one.
ReplyDelete