2 Timothy 3

To speak on behalf of the Lord has always been challenging. The accounts of the Old Testament prophets confirm this. Certainly the lives of the apostles were also full of challenges. What about those, like Timothy, who would be ambassadors for Jesus in later years beyond the apostles of the New Testament age? Should we expect something better, something easier, for them?

Paul warns Timothy that the entire era of the New Covenant, called here “the last days,” will be a time of difficulty. Some people have taken these words “last days” to refer to a briefer period immediately prior to the return of the Lord or the culmination of the resurrection era, but this interpretation will not withstand careful biblical scrutiny. The same expression is used by Peter in Acts 2, quoting from Joel 2, and Peter clearly indicates on that occasion that the last days have already begun at the time of Pentecost. We should all expect that the entire New Testament era will include many periods of great trial for the church. Sometimes church leaders will face prison and even death, sometimes they will merely suffer through years of being marginalized and ignored. Either way, times of difficulty should not surprise us.

The world will remain the world, with some notable high points and low points, until the time when Christ returns with the holy angels to renew all things. People will be people, with all their sin. What is particularly infuriating is that the evil of sin will sometimes be in the church and in her leaders, perhaps cloaked in a robe of godliness. There will be leading men who may appear holy, but they will not display true holiness of life, which can only come by the power of God. But hypocrites may appear to be God's gift to the church right up to the day that they are exposed as those who are caught breaking up homes.

It would appear that genuinely hell-bound people will be not only among the baptized, but even among those who have entrusted with the special duty of preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a sad fact, but it is good for us to be warned ahead of time, lest we think that evil has caught God by surprise. Eventually the truth will come out, not because we are so good at knowing and judging character among church leaders. It is God who will make it all plain to the church at just the right time.

The pathway of pride, contention, and immorality does not have to be the majority report concerning the character of ministers and elders. There is another way for us to follow. Paul has taken this good pathway. He gives us a picture of the better pattern and habit of sacrificial and faithful living that fits in with the example and teaching of Jesus Christ. As readers of the Bible, we follow the adventures of the Apostle Paul through the book of Acts with great interest. He recounts some of the places where he suffered for the cause in a brief summary in this chapter. He does not present his experience as unique on this point, but says that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” But Paul adds one other important fact beyond his own endurance of persecution: “The Lord rescued me from all of them.”

The Lord is the author of our salvation, and He knows how to rescue His people from the hand of disaster. Our way of life in a world of danger where we know that our God is sovereign must be characterized in both our teaching and conduct by faith, patience, love, and steadfastness. Throughout the centuries of ministerial history, the church has seen many examples from two very different groups of church leaders. There are some who Paul calls “evil people and imposters,” and they will go from bad to worse, living in a web of deceit and often deceiving themselves as much as others. But there is the pathway of Christ, of Paul, and of so many others who have faithfully represented the dying love of the Savior both in the church and throughout the world. That good way, Paul says, is the way of the Scriptures. It is the way that we have been taught in the sacred writings preserved for us for both our faith and our life.

This Word of the Bible has the imprimatur of the King who died on the cross, the One who alone is the eternal Word of God. We are blessed if we are able to learn of Him and to honor Him from our earliest years by attending to that written Word of Scripture. This Word teaches us the way of salvation through faith in Christ, and it trains us in the way that we can serve the Lord as ministers in the church. It is able to expose our errors when we need correction and reproof, but it is most certainly able by the power of the Holy Spirit to building us up in Christ and in the way of righteousness.

For anyone who would be a man of God in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, for any such man who would be an ambassador of Jesus Christ, for him to decide that he can do this today without the Scriptures is like a blind man going into battle without any weapon. Christ is the ultimate man of God and the final Word of God. He fulfilled His own glorious mission in accord with the Old Testament Scriptures. He calls His spokesmen and leaders to be appropriately and competently equipped for every good work by using both the Old and New Testament, and by living a life that fits well with the facts of the gospel.