For The Next Generation

I received these two cards a week apart at our church. They are funeral cards, giving the birth and death dates of two ladies I’ve known for twenty years. They each died on a Sunday, a week apart. For both of them, friends and families met a week apart to celebrate their life and their legacy of loving and service our Lord.

When I think of their lives – and so many other people whose cards I’ve read – I think of:

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. (James 2:17-18 KJV)

These ladies did not go around waving flags about their works, but their faith was shown in the works they did at church, regular attendance, active in youth activities, physical labor, and most of all – teaching people younger than they were. For decades. They shared their faith through their words and their works.

Paul did the same with Timothy. I’m grateful that his letters to Timothy were included in our Bible, and I do feel they are just as inspired by God as the other books of scripture. It is to Timothy that Paul gives the source and the reason for scripture:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV)

God inspired the scriptures for our profitable examples so that we could perfectly do good works.

That is not impossible, no matter what you think. We don’t achieve that perfection – God through scripture and our response to it furnishes good works.

One of the best works is sharing His message with others. II Timothy is chronologically Paul’s last letter. Here we see how a man whose life was so changed by his belief in Christ that he was able to face his death by teaching a man to carry on the work that Christ gave him.

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:1-2 KJV)

Paul requires, before God, that Timothy continues to do what Paul has done since meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. In the previous chapter, I like:

But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; (2 Timothy 3:14 KJV)

“Continue” indicates to me that Paul knew what Timothy had been doing, and wanted him to continue. In the verses before that, Paul tells Timothy why:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5 KJV)

Are you aware of any who would meet these descriptions? More than a few? Paul tells Timothy to turn away from them – and that’s good advice for us. I’ve also heard from people who fit into the next chapter – the ones who will not continue in the scriptures:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV)

Many times in the recent past I’ve heard Christianity referred to as a myth about a white-aired old man who lives in the sky. I do pray for those who spread that word. For me, I’d rather take Paul’s advice for Timothy:

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. (2 Timothy 4:5 KJV)

What does an evangelist do? Shares the scriptures. Shares his personal witness. Shares what God inspired people to write. In addition, I would charge the readers to read the Bible with an open mind, and I would  hope with a prayerful heart. Start with II Timothy – and as you find questions, read further.

I pray this generation will share with the next, just as the two ladies I mentioned, whose memory I hold dear and believe with all my heart I will see again. Ask me about that if you wish.