2 Timothy 1:2 – Daring Vulnerable Words by Faith
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, a beloved son: 2 Timothy 1:1-2, New King James Version
In Shakespeare's masterwork, Lady Macbeth is giving herself even in her subconscious to doing whatever it takes for ambition to succeed. Surrendering any remaining softness in her nature, she pledges, "Take my milk for gall."
In whatever aspects our parents have blessed us, we fed on gall as well as milk. The relationship between parents and children in a fallen world is a tangle of delights and unfulfilled ambitions, gratitude and disappointed expectations. Cults wishing to start the world anew uproot people from such relationships and urge them to forget them as quickly as possible.
Yet, inspired Paul in 2 Timothy 1:2 enters directly into this metaphorical minefield for the word choice with which to name his passion for Timothy. Spurgeon imparts in Morning and Evening, "The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of matter hangs upon every word, yea, upon every title of Scripture," and surely this is true here.
Paul, who calls himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews of the tribe of Benjamin, who either didn't have genetic children or was estranged from them because of his faith trusts the Lord enough to heal that that he speaks the word, "son" over Timothy whose father wasn't even Jewish. There are no half breeds, he knows, in Christ. Identity is whole, and wholly new.
Just as Paul surrenders part of himself and his expectations in using that inspired word, so he trusts by faith in its sanctified receipt. Timothy's genetic father was Greek. He did not circumcise Timothy. Timothy's faith, humanly speaking, came through his mother and his grandmother. One would expect the word father to have been loaded for Timothy, and someone using it toward him to have undertaken a risky relationship. Yet, by faith, Paul ventures down that neural highway, confident that the life of the Spirit that he and Timothy are undertaking together is more authentic and resilient than anything genetics or history can impart.
There is a word for us here beyond even the staggering reality that Christ can heal the serial disappointments on both ends of our relationships. He can, He demands to, use those relationships in the vocabulary associated with them.
No matter for his perfect. All of them, as with any honest recounting of our history, expose wounds, vulnerabilities, and the certainty of miscommunication. Yet, we speak by faith. We speak, by grace, in the context of relationships proven in deeds and time in a way that allows them to persevere and deepen past potential triggers and sources of bitterness.
In Christ, we read or hear a word that hurts, and because we are confident of His love for us and increasingly confident that this love can be expressed through humans is broken as we are, we keep listening and keep reading. Our confidence that Christ will finish what He has started in us revolutionizes our relationships and the ways in which we speak in them and about them.
No longer, Christian, will we use the excuse that we want to avoid speaking at all, or avoid speaking beyond a level of service, civil politeness because we might unintentionally touch the bruises of someone's heart. It is through that dance of distance and reconciliation, we know, that Christ is glorified and prevails over societal assumptions.
2 To Timothy, a beloved son: 2 Timothy 1:1-2, New King James Version
In Shakespeare's masterwork, Lady Macbeth is giving herself even in her subconscious to doing whatever it takes for ambition to succeed. Surrendering any remaining softness in her nature, she pledges, "Take my milk for gall."
In whatever aspects our parents have blessed us, we fed on gall as well as milk. The relationship between parents and children in a fallen world is a tangle of delights and unfulfilled ambitions, gratitude and disappointed expectations. Cults wishing to start the world anew uproot people from such relationships and urge them to forget them as quickly as possible.
Yet, inspired Paul in 2 Timothy 1:2 enters directly into this metaphorical minefield for the word choice with which to name his passion for Timothy. Spurgeon imparts in Morning and Evening, "The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of matter hangs upon every word, yea, upon every title of Scripture," and surely this is true here.
Paul, who calls himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews of the tribe of Benjamin, who either didn't have genetic children or was estranged from them because of his faith trusts the Lord enough to heal that that he speaks the word, "son" over Timothy whose father wasn't even Jewish. There are no half breeds, he knows, in Christ. Identity is whole, and wholly new.
Just as Paul surrenders part of himself and his expectations in using that inspired word, so he trusts by faith in its sanctified receipt. Timothy's genetic father was Greek. He did not circumcise Timothy. Timothy's faith, humanly speaking, came through his mother and his grandmother. One would expect the word father to have been loaded for Timothy, and someone using it toward him to have undertaken a risky relationship. Yet, by faith, Paul ventures down that neural highway, confident that the life of the Spirit that he and Timothy are undertaking together is more authentic and resilient than anything genetics or history can impart.
There is a word for us here beyond even the staggering reality that Christ can heal the serial disappointments on both ends of our relationships. He can, He demands to, use those relationships in the vocabulary associated with them.
No matter for his perfect. All of them, as with any honest recounting of our history, expose wounds, vulnerabilities, and the certainty of miscommunication. Yet, we speak by faith. We speak, by grace, in the context of relationships proven in deeds and time in a way that allows them to persevere and deepen past potential triggers and sources of bitterness.
In Christ, we read or hear a word that hurts, and because we are confident of His love for us and increasingly confident that this love can be expressed through humans is broken as we are, we keep listening and keep reading. Our confidence that Christ will finish what He has started in us revolutionizes our relationships and the ways in which we speak in them and about them.
No longer, Christian, will we use the excuse that we want to avoid speaking at all, or avoid speaking beyond a level of service, civil politeness because we might unintentionally touch the bruises of someone's heart. It is through that dance of distance and reconciliation, we know, that Christ is glorified and prevails over societal assumptions.
Comments
Post a Comment