Jacobs Thoughts and Doings

Elizabeth, who spent the day with us, taught us how to eat strawberries by using a straw to blow out the core and stem on top.  She is here about to munch on her labor of love!  Two sweet ones.

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.  Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

2 Timothy 3:24 – 26

My eyes fell on these words today, The Lord’s servant must be kind to everyone.  I ask, even to those with whom we disagree, people who are wrong?  I suppose, because they are included in the “everyone.”  This set my spirit to work, asking if my attitudes are pleasing to the Lord.  I tend to disdain those I find fault with.  Ouch!

How about this for a negative paraphrase?  Be quarrelsome because some people will not respect you unless you are.  Do not even try to teach anything at all to dimwitted people!  Carry a critical attitude for everyone but yourself and those who agree with you. Blast your opponents out of the water with hard arguments and even harder criticism. And hope that God will strike dead the people who do not think like you.

That is the worldly approach. It is of the enemy, not of God.  Instead, Paul urged Timothy, be kind. Gently teach.  Carry no resentment toward anyone. Instruct opponents lovingly. That is the way of Jesus, the way of the Spirit of Holiness.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.  1 Timothy 1:1

I have lived in Paul’s second letter to Timothy for the past two months or so now. I did not realize when I began to seriously read the letter that my eyes and heart would be opened to spiritual realities that I knew by experience but did not verbalize.

As I lay my own life alongside Paul’s experience I am struck with the similarity.  Of course, I do not dare compare my life with that of the honored Apostle Paul, but I learn much from seeing the template of his life and my own.

A basic truth emerged.  It is imbedded in the very first verse.  We know, as did Timothy, that this young Saul of Tarsus hated the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth with all his being.  He had no equal in his determination to wipe off the face of the earth those who loved Jesus.  His fellow Pharisees loved him and encouraged him in his crusade to destroy the church. He was the darling of radical Judaism.

While enjoying his notoriety, something happened to him that changed everything.  He met Jesus Christ himself, risen from the dead, but active in establishing his Kingdom on the earth. Saul melted.  His personal dreams were shattered.  The compelling hate was gone, replaced by a love for Jesus that dominated all his thinking.

What happened to him? In opening this second letter to Timothy, Paul states clearly that God commanded him to be not only a believer but a follower of Jesus Christ.  He says that he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the Command of God.”  Saul was, in a sense, captured as a leader in persecuting the church to serve the very church he was trying to destroy.

As for myself, I was not hostile to the church.  I was simply a nobody trying to find out who I am.  I was not seething with anger, but was acutely aware of my lostness.  Jesus met me when sixteen years of age.  I thought I needed Him, an obvious fact.  But as I look back on my life something else was happening, God needed me!  This became more and more apparent as the years went on and even more so as I could look back over my life as Paul did his, and proclaim, God commanded me!  I would have never used that word but Paul did.  Now I am comfortable with it.  If asked why I am who I am, I have a ready answer, “God commanded me.”

So be it now and forever.

You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me.  2 Timothy 1:16 – 18

Onesiphorus.  We know almost nothing about the details of this man’s life. We see him only in this letter where he has gone far out of his way to bring comfort to Paul

We do know a few things. He lived in Ephesus. He may have come to believe in Jesus through the witness and teaching of Paul who spent about three years there on what we call his third missionary journey.  In any case he, like many of us, had a deep and pressing feeling of gratitude to the one or ones who led us to Jesus Christ. I know from my own experience how those feelings rise to the surface, time and again. I cling to those who showed me Jesus.

That same feeling of indebtedness drove Onesiphorus to travel to Rome, an arduous sea journey, to seek out Paul and help him if he possibly could. After searching with all diligence he finally found him chained to a Roman prison guard in an obscure common Roman prison, alone and in a sense abandoned by the brothers and sisters there in Rome who may have felt that if they owned Paul openly the hostile Emperor Nero would strike them.  Onesiphorus took the risk of befriending Paul. Obviously the Roman authorities did not know him.

We know that Onesiphorus was Greek.  His name means “he who brings something profitable.” He was a member of the cluster of churches in Ephesus that included both Jewish believers and Gentile believers.

We also know that Onesiphorus visited Paul. Paul wrote, “He often refreshed me.” He was not shocked to see the great Paul chained.

Behind Onesiphorus was his family so when Paul was praising God for him, he thanked him and his family as well.  I like to think that Paul knew the family very well, having lived for those memorable years in Ephesus himself. That was about fifteen years ago.

I am humbled by Onesiphorus who longed to bless the person through whom he learned of Jesus and I am touched by Paul’s heartfelt gratitude for his love that drove him beyond what was safe or expected.

I love this story.  How about you?

Hear the Apostle Paul as he writes to young Timothy. Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.  But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 2:3 – 4,5

I am reluctant to leave 2 Timothy!  So, I tarry again in the heart of the story – the relationship between being free in Christ and being bound, so to speak, to lift up Christ no matter what, even if suffering comes.    Sit here with me, please.

In my own life I had no idea what I was getting into when I fled to Jesus to have my sins forgiven.  It was heaven on earth!  The miracle of what the Blood of Christ could do for me just astounded me.  I was on cloud nine, as they say.  Wow, free of sin, a friend of Jesus, lots of new brothers and sisters – an avalanche of blessings overcame me.  I think the best was knowing that my sins are forgiven and that I am now on an entirely new basis with God, an openness that I would have never dreamed possible.

I lived in the glory of that grace that gave me the power to forgive and to move forward.  In retrospect, that was a wonderful way to establish my new faith.  Of course, I knew that I would face new problems because of what was happening to me but that did not disturb me greatly.

Only later did I learn that one side of discipleship is to enjoy oneness with God through Christ, the other, I found, was suffering because of my identity with Him.  It seemed to me that there must be some conflict between my sense of freedom and the realization that my walk with God will, inevitably and often, entail suffering that at first glance seems to conflict with my freedom.

If I fear suffering I will certainly collapse.  Also, if the joy of walking with Jesus grows cold I am indeed most miserable. Enabled by the Spirit of the Lord I must and do embrace both – freedom and suffering.  I am reminded that Jesus embraced both even though with difficulty.  He is in me to do it again!

Would you agree?

One of my joys is going out to the end of our little drive to pick up the Sunday paper.  I did this morning but I could not just resist poring over these pinkish and yellow roses that are now opening their beauty to all.  I must admit, I am smitten with roses.  They will soon be gone so you need not worry about being bothered with pictures much longer – this year.

So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.

2 Timothy 1:8, 9

I am thinking about Paul as I read this letter to young Timothy, the last letter that we have record of before Paul’s execution by Rome and entrance into glory by the grace and power of God, the Father, Jesus the beloved Son, the Lamb, and the blessed Holy Spirit who led Paul.

I am reminded, again, of what I tend to consider an unfortunate end to a poured out life.  I feel good when people appreciate me and what I have done. That comforts me in my old age.  I can hardly imagine what Paul is going through.  In his second letter to Timothy what comes through is not how to handle success, but how to transform suffering into offering.

Paul is as certain as certain can be that it all begins with the love and call of God.  He wrote, He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. God is working out his loving redemptive purpose in the way He knows is best.  Jesus Christ appeared to Paul when he was making war on the followers of Jesus.  As for Timothy, we do not know how or when God called him.  Paul certainly knew because he confidently said, He has saved us and called us to a holy life.  I underline us.  In this regard there is not an inch of difference between Paul and Timothy.  Both were sought out and saved.  That made them brothers.

Having lived his life in the light of this revelation Paul proclaims that God is working out his own purpose and grace even if we cannot figure it out.  So everything goes back to God, even the relationship between the older Paul and the younger Timothy.

This God-given insight empowers Paul to life the holy life, no matter what.  Is this not a gift to all, even (or especially) me?