2 Timothy 1:2 – Filtered Through Love
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…
E.M. Forster challenges in The Longest Journey, "You cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process." He presses them, "You cannot substitute 'the safer personal influence' for real 'personal intercourse." Real teaching, he writes, is not built on 'formulae, like kindly traps, 'handled within the safe shadow of authority."
Don't we persistently try, though? Sensing our own limitations and mortality, we want to have an influence especially on those who come behind us. We want to have that influence from a safe distance without opening ourselves up to the vulnerability and risk that comes from real relationships between two fallen humans still under Christ's construction.
Challenged by a statement like Forster's we would retreat to tropes about temperament. We would call ourselves, for instance, analytical and explain to the emotional the need we see to help others gain perspective. Shall we be, then, more analytical than inspired Paul in 2 Timothy 1:2? We have already seen in 1 Timothy that Paul has a deep commitment to strategy, unappropriate wariness of the enemy's intentions. Here, we are reminded of the relationship which courses through such interactions. Paul loves Timothy. That love positions him to encourage Timothy here, to caution Timothy there.
By grace, then, we are granted little by little the bravery for real personal intercourse. God fashions each relationship uniquely as He does each individual. Yet we may see some likeness to what He does between Paul and Timothy, perhaps to what Paul writes in Colossians, practically bleeding on the page as he pleads, "“For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
If by the Spirit's work Paul can reach out in similar love to those he has seen, like Timothy and to the church he has not seen, shall not that kind of brave, sincere, mutual outreach be what we expect of Christ's work in our relationships. That mutual submission to Him, that mutual hope in Him, may transform more than all of our prescribed methods.
2 To Timothy, a beloved…
E.M. Forster challenges in The Longest Journey, "You cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process." He presses them, "You cannot substitute 'the safer personal influence' for real 'personal intercourse." Real teaching, he writes, is not built on 'formulae, like kindly traps, 'handled within the safe shadow of authority."
Don't we persistently try, though? Sensing our own limitations and mortality, we want to have an influence especially on those who come behind us. We want to have that influence from a safe distance without opening ourselves up to the vulnerability and risk that comes from real relationships between two fallen humans still under Christ's construction.
Challenged by a statement like Forster's we would retreat to tropes about temperament. We would call ourselves, for instance, analytical and explain to the emotional the need we see to help others gain perspective. Shall we be, then, more analytical than inspired Paul in 2 Timothy 1:2? We have already seen in 1 Timothy that Paul has a deep commitment to strategy, unappropriate wariness of the enemy's intentions. Here, we are reminded of the relationship which courses through such interactions. Paul loves Timothy. That love positions him to encourage Timothy here, to caution Timothy there.
By grace, then, we are granted little by little the bravery for real personal intercourse. God fashions each relationship uniquely as He does each individual. Yet we may see some likeness to what He does between Paul and Timothy, perhaps to what Paul writes in Colossians, practically bleeding on the page as he pleads, "“For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
If by the Spirit's work Paul can reach out in similar love to those he has seen, like Timothy and to the church he has not seen, shall not that kind of brave, sincere, mutual outreach be what we expect of Christ's work in our relationships. That mutual submission to Him, that mutual hope in Him, may transform more than all of our prescribed methods.
Comments
Post a Comment