Living in Chaotic and Violent Times, Pt 2
In 2 Timothy, a letter recognized as Paul's last will and testimony, the Apostle is thinking of the challenges Timothy and others in the Church are going to face in "the Last Days"--which he foresees as characteristic of the time between his death and the Lord's return. Depending on the translation you use, this period is described as being "terrible times" or "difficult times." Yet when you read his description of this period (cf. 2 Tim. 3:1-9), it sure sounds like present day America: Violence, sexual abuse and immorality, greed and the pursuit of endless pleasure, arrogance and narcissism, empty formal religion, and strange religious cults. And in this letter, Paul admonishes not only Timothy, but us as well, to do four things between now and the time Christ Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom in its manifest glory: Guard the Gospel, Persevere in the Gospel, Proclaim the Gospel, Suffer for the Gospel. So now let us do some unpacking of these points made by Paul.
1. Guard the Gospel: The Gospel We Guard and How We Guard It (cf. 1:13-14; 2:8-11).
The Gospel we guard has its roots in OT Messianic prophecy, and its form and content from the Apostles who first communicated it orally, and then passed it on to us in the full and permanent form we find it in the NT writings. Paul summarizes the Gospel in this way: "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel for which I am suffering, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained." (2 Tim. 2:8-9, NIV). This summary of Paul's message is pregnant with meaning and significance: The Gospel is about Jesus of Nazareth, who truly lived, died, and rose again; so it is rooted in historical fact, and is not some fabricated myth or legend. It declares that because Jesus was both divine and human therefore he, and he alone, is the only Redeemer and Mediator between God and humanity. And this message emphasizes that it was King Jesus, as the Crucified and Risen One, who not only conquered sin, death, and the powers of darkness; but that he is the One who will return to judge the living and the dead, and set up God's Kingdom in its manifest glory at the end of the age. This was Paul's Gospel, this is what he proclaimed, and it was the message he expected to be passed on and guarded by all those who succeeded him.
He expected Timothy and all others who received this "good deposit" or "the pattern of sound teaching" (1:13) to "guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us" (2 Tim. 1:14, NIV). What Paul has taught about the Person and Work of Christ; about the Way of Life Jesus himself taught and practiced, and which we are to pursue as his followers--with all the wisdom and discernment the Spirit of truth gives us--we are to keep this sacred treasure pure and undefiled by the corruption of worldly philosophy and false religious teaching. As Gordon Fee comments: "Timothy must not allow it to be purloined or eroded by false teachings. But for such a charge, Timothy is not to think of himself on his own. He is to fulfill his responsibilities with the help of the Holy Spirit (see 1:7) who lives in us" (cf. 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, UBCS, p. 333). And so when we seek to faithfully and effectively proclaim the Gospel in all its fullness and power, we too must rely on the help and support of the Spirit of truth.
2. Persevere in the Gospel: The Gospel is A Way of Life We Must Persevere In (cf. 1:9-10; 3:13-17). To many people, the Gospel is primarily about Christ dying to save us from our sins and rising to give us new life. And though true enough, people don't seem to think about this question regarding salvation deep enough: "Yes, Christ, has saved me from sin and given me new life. But why, for what purpose?" Evidently Paul had given some serious thought about this question, and so made several statements on the matter. "God saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace" (1:9). And then Paul tells Timothy that if he has experienced God's saving grace and his call to service, he will, like Paul himself, "live a godly life in Christ Jesus" following the instruction the Spirit gives through the Scripture and faithfully proclaiming the message of Christ.
Indeed, he tells another coworker, Titus, that God's saving grace as revealed through Christ and the Gospel "teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for...the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify us as his own people, eager to do what is good" (Titus, 2:12-14). God saved us and gave us new life in Christ for a purpose: that we might eagerly serve Christ and carry out the kingdom work he has assigned to each one of us as members of his Body, the Church. And in Phil. 2:5-11, Paul tells us that we are to have the same mindset as Christ himself, serving God and one another in humble, self-giving love. Moreover, when you read Rom. 8:28-31, Paul makes it clear that God's purpose in saving us, adopting us, and implanting his Spirit in us is that we might become like the Lord Jesus in our thinking, living, loving, and serving. Or as John Stott simply comments on this text: "God wants his people to become like Christ, for Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God." ("Christlikeness," The Radical Disciple, p.182) And living like Christ is a way of life that is lived, at all times and in all circumstances, solely in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
3. Proclaim the Gospel: The Gospel is to be Proclaimed in Word and Deed (cf. 2:22-26;3:10-12). Whether we do so as ordained leaders or as lay ministers, both men and women--we are to proclaim the Gospel of Christ (which is what Paul means when he says, "Preach the word!" in 4:2) in both word and deed. I think this is evident from what Paul tells Timothy in 2:22-26 and 3:10-12 about the kind of life a preacher and teacher of the Gospel should pursue; the manner in which they not only communicate the Gospel, but in also how they respond to those who oppose them and their message; and then presents himself as a role model of what a messenger of Christ should say and do. Proclaiming the Gospel involves more than preaching a sermon; it also involves credibility rooted in a Christlike life of love and service that confirms that we "practice what we preach."
St. Francis of Assisi once said, "Preach the Gospel every day; and when necessary, use words." Though often misunderstood, the point of his saying was that the Gospel we say we believe must be evident in our every-day life activities and relations, otherwise our words are hollow and lack credibility. So, why are Christians not having a greater impact on society today? There are several reasons, no doubt. But one reason often heard by critics is that too many Christians don't look like the Christ they proclaim. Concerning this, John Poulton states in A Today Sort of Evangelism: "The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying...Authenticity gets across from deep down inside people...What communicates now is basically personal authenticity." One of the best compliments I ever received was from someone who said they liked me because I was "an authentic person." So being a real, genuine person, without pretense was highly regarded by this younger person.
But this does lead me, at times, to ask myself, "How authentic am I as a Christian? Do I really embody the Gospel of new life in Christ I'm sharing with others?" For I know that only an authentic Christianity is going to have an impact today. A most disturbing book I read about five years ago was by a California pastor, Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus But Not The Church, in which he sets out 10 reasons why people, between 45 and 18, though attracted to Jesus were repelled by the modern Church. Why? Mainly because when they looked at what the NT recorded about the words and deeds of Jesus and the earliest Christians, as compared to what was being said and done by most Christians in America, they found the discrepancies shocking and repellant. Authentically proclaiming the Gospel in word and deed is, therefore, a deadly serious matter not to be lightly dismissed.
4. Suffer for the Gospel: The Gospel, Faithfully Lived and Proclaimed, will result in Suffering (cf. 3:12-13; 4:1-5). If anything is obvious from Scripture or the history of the Church, it is that when Christian individuals and congregations faithfully proclaim and live out the truth of the Gospel of Christ--sooner or later--it provokes anger, hostility, ostracization, and even suffering at the hands of non-Christians. Why is that? Not because Christians are deliberately seeking out and inviting persecution, to be sure. Rather, it is the nature of the Gospel we preach and practice. In proclaiming and living by the Gospel, we go in a direction counter to that of our current culture which is pluralistic, materialistic, amoral, and narcissistic in its orientation.
Our pluralistic culture affirms that every religion and philosophy have their own independent validity and so have an equal right to our respect. It therefore rejects Christian claims as to the uniqueness and finality of Jesus as the incarnated revelation of God and as the One alone through whom we can be saved and have a vital relationship with God as Father. But that is what is affirmed by the Gospel we are to guard and that is what we are to preach. As John Stott says, "Nobody else possesses his qualifications. So we may talk about Alexander the Great, Charles the Great and Napolean the Great, but not Jesus the Great. He is not the Great--he is the Only. There is nobody like him. He has no rival and no successor." ("Nonconformity," The Radical Disciple, pp. 101-102)
Our materialistic culture is definitely preoccupied with materialism in the sense of a general passion and obsession with wealth, social prestige, and pride in human achievements, which the Bible defines as idolatrous greed. And this kind of materialism has always been a peril to spiritual life and vitality. But there is a form of philosophical materialism widespread in our society, especially among the scientific community, known as naturalistic materialism. Naturalistic materialism is an atheistic philosophy that, with pretensions of being scientific, teaches the material world is the only reality there is or that can be known; that the universe came into being by chance and without any prior cause; that the physical laws and fine-tuning of the universe that make life possible are the result of blind, purposeless processes; and that if there is a God, since he is not subject to "scientific" investigation and definition, he is irrelevant to any "scientific" explanation of origins.
So, these naturalistic materialists hate Christianity because not only does it teach that God exists and created the universe, but that his existence and power are evident throughout the universe, which is the work of his hands. And they also hate the fact that Christianity affirms that certain things can be known about God as creator and sustainer of all things because he made it evident to all willing to see it. "Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities--God's eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, because they are understood from the things God has made. So humans are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20, CEB). And of course, if God is our Creator and Ruler, and we ignore the revelation of himself through creation, then we are ultimately facing judgment. Hence their fierce antagonism toward Christianity
Our culture is amoral because morality is no longer held as having objective and universal standards. Every moral or ethical system is considered relative to one's time, culture, and social status. In other words, our society is infected with the cancer of ethical relativism. And this is especially true in the area of sexual ethics, which have undergone drastic change since the sexual revolution of the 1960s. It used to be that when the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition was taken seriously in America, it was universally accepted that marriage was a monogamous, heterosexual, loving and lifelong union, and the only God-given context for sexual intimacy. But now, in addition to widespread "no fault" divorce, cohabitation without marriage is widely practiced, and same-sex partnerships are accepted and promoted as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage. However, if Christ is indeed our Lord and we are truly living by the moral standards set forth in his Gospel (cf. Matt. 19:3-12 with 1 Cor. 7:25-40), we will find ourselves in opposition to all this ethical relativism, and so likely resisted aggressively by those who disagree with our moral stance. As John Stott says concerning the acceptance of the Gospel and following Christ: "Fundamental to Christian behavior is the lordship of Christ. 'Jesus is Lord' remains the basis of our life" and since he is Lord, we do not have any "liberty to edit and manipulate" Jesus's teaching" accepting what we like and rejecting what we dislike ("Nonconformity," The Radical Disciple, p. 134).
Our culture is narcissistic, which involves an excessive self-love and pursuit of self-realization even to the point of deification, as evidenced in the Human Potential Movement and the New Age Movement of 1970s and 1980s. The late Shirley Maclaine, a New Age leader, expressed the self-centeredness of the movement in the mantra: "I know that I exist; therefore I am. I know the god force exists; therefore it is. Since I am part of that force, I am that I am." Since we and the Divine are one, the New Age calls us to look inside ourselves for solutions to our problems, not to some savior outside ourselves. And to love the Divine is to love ourselves as well, since we are one with the Divine. "But, no, this is surely a mistake for three reasons. First, Jesus spoke of the 'first and great commandment' and of 'the second,' but did not mention a third. Secondly, self-love is one of the signs of the last days (2 Timothy 3:2). Thirdly, the meaning of agape love is the sacrifice of oneself in the service of others. Sacrificing oneself in the service of oneself is clearly nonsense! What then should our attitude be to ourselves? It is a combination of self-affirmation and self-denial--affirming everything in us which comes to us from our creation and redemption, and denying everything which can be traced to the fall." ("Nonconformity," The Radical Disciple, p. 156.)
Conclusion
Since acceptance of the Gospel leads to a mindset and a new way of life that is counter to that of our culture, we should not be surprised if non-Christians react against us in angry, hostile, and aggressive ways. "If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name" (1 Pet. 4:14-16, NIV). So may God through the Holy Spirit always grant us the wisdom, courage, power, love, and self-control to guard the Gospel, to persevere in the Gospel, to proclaim the Gospel, and suffer for the Gospel, if necessary. Amen!
