Timothy II 3:10-15
The battle of polemic, from Paul’s point of view, is one of hair-splitting, but the decisions are critical to the future doctrine of Christianity. In his exhortation, Paul encourages Timothy to take a strong approach, but to do so in a way that is faithful, not angry. He is able to use himself as an example of those who seek the true Christ – those who follow the false doctrine will find a lot of support from Paul’s contemporaries, but he has not been as lucky.
During the course of Paul’s greater mission, he is confronted with some of the most difficult diplomacy battles a person could ever face. Internally, he had to struggle with the futility of the cultural battles he had been given custody over. There were not many men who could have even been given the assignment he was given, but God assumes the ability to make a rod of leadership and discipline from anyone He chooses. Having been a member of both traditional and innovative communities of faith, Paul faced the difficult task of telling both warring communities that Christ’s appearance has presently made their entire political and religious struggles irrelevant.
It no longer matters that the official councils of the elders tried to destroy Judean communities who continued to blaspheme against Moses, because Christ fulfills the role of the Davidic heir and was fully capable of living out the ideal role that was at the root of Isaianic prophecy.
Likewise, this link prevents those who were being persecuted from hating the Jews as people they can be without – Christ is not just a replacement for Moses, but both communities are fulfilled by the example and ministry of Jesus.
In speaking to Timothy about suffering, Paul reminds Timothy of the extent and veracity of his suffering – Paul really suffered for the sake of preserving the identity of Christ to all those who opposed it – either because they didn’t believe in Christ, or because they believed things about Christ that did not mesh with the revelation that Paul and the disciples had originally affirmed.
The tumultuous time is about distortion of the gospel of Christ as much as it is about its denial and suppression. For Paul, these groups all exist as ‘deceivers and deceived’ and without the ministry of the apostles there is no one left to resist.
So for Paul it is essential to get across to Timothy that there is continuity in his teaching, that he passes on this knowledge to the community.
Paul makes one other interesting note here, however – the source of Timothy’s faith and firm beliefs is in his indoctrination with the texts from his youth. Such a powerful message! Paul tells Timothy that everything he needs to understand and preserve the true message of the gospel has already been in his possession. Paul cannot be speaking of anything besides the scriptures from the old covenant.
In other words, Paul is telling Timothy to retain the TEACHING that he had been received REGARDING the scriptures. His exhortation affirms the desire that Paul instills in all of the faithful to maintain knowledge of the root documents of Judahite faith – and not to give them up in the process of declaring faith in Christ.
Therefore the orthodox doctrine of Christ requires the declaration of Christ’s works according to the rules and guidelines of the original sacred texts – not to yield these texts to philosophical pondering or other external references.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2006 Jacob Gorny