As we begin our journey through 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and eventually Philemon, we start with the relationship between Paul and Timothy. Timothy was someone Paul mentored, taught, encouraged, and trusted—and that relationship gives us a picture of something we all need in our lives. We need people who walk beside us, people who walk ahead of us and teach us, and people who come behind us whom we can encourage and mentor. We are called to remain teachable, always learning and growing, while also passing along the wisdom and faith that others have shared with us. As we begin Timothy, consider these three questions: Who walks beside you? Who is pouring into you? And who are you pouring into?
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Good morning, friends. It’s good to be with you on this Monday morning. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope you had a great weekend.
We had a great weekend. It’s always good to worship and be together.
And there was a big development at the parsonage this weekend: my wife and her sister hung pictures on the walls Friday.
So now we officially have a parsonage with pictures on the wall.
That’s a win.
I think we’re now, more or less, really settled. Everything’s out. Everything’s up. Everything’s pretty much where we want it to be. I’m sure we’ll find more stuff to put somewhere over the next few months, but I think we’re officially settled here in Starkville.
And it’s good to be here.
It’s also good to start walking together through Timothy.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to work through what are sometimes called Paul’s pastoral epistles: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.
And then I think we’re going to do Philemon because it’s short and I like it.
That’s the theological reason we’re doing it.
I like it.
But I also think Philemon raises some really deep questions for us, so we’ll get there eventually.
Today, though, I want to do a little background before we jump into 1 Timothy tomorrow.
Paul’s letters are interesting because they are incredibly personal.
Paul is almost always writing to people or churches with whom he has some kind of personal connection. He’s writing to churches he helped establish, churches where he has ministered, or people he knows and has poured into.
Romans is a little different.
The church in Rome is the major church to which Paul writes where he doesn’t appear to have had the same kind of personal relationship. Paul is on his way to Rome, and Romans is almost like his introduction.
“Hey, I’m Paul. I’m coming your way. Let me tell you who I am, what I believe, and what I’ve been preaching.”
And that helps explain why Romans is so deep and so comprehensive.
But most of Paul’s letters are deeply connected to people and relationships.
And that’s especially true of the pastoral epistles.
These are letters to people Paul has mentored, taught, encouraged, and cared for.
And Timothy may have been Paul’s closest companion and co-worker.
Of course, Paul worked with Barnabas for a long time. And then, as we see in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas have a disagreement over John Mark.
Paul doesn’t want to take Mark with them.
Barnabas does.
And Barnabas takes Mark and pours into him.
Paul takes Silas.
And then, in Acts 16, Paul encounters Timothy.
Paul decides he wants Timothy to accompany them, and Timothy becomes part of Paul’s ministry team.
And over time, Timothy becomes one of Paul’s closest co-workers.
In many ways, Timothy becomes someone who carries Paul’s ministry forward.
And I think there’s something really important for us in that relationship between Paul and Timothy.
Because in our lives, we need to be both.
Sometimes we need to be a Timothy. And sometimes we need to be a Paul.
Let’s start with Timothy.
Timothy understood that Paul had something to teach him.
Timothy was teachable.
And friends, we all need a teachable spirit.
We need to be willing to learn.
We need to be willing to be corrected.
We need to be willing to admit that maybe we don’t know everything.
One of the phrases one of my former bishops, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, taught us was, “Teach me with the tongue of a learner.”
And I’ve always loved that.
Teach me with the tongue of a learner.
We should always be learning.
We should always be growing.
We should always be trying to become more faithful.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my life to have been a Timothy many times.
I’ve had pastors and bishops and friends who have poured into me, taught me, corrected me, encouraged me, and helped me grow.
Bishop McAlilly, Giles Lindley, Steve Casteel, Embra Jackson, and so many others.
And I’m going to stop naming people because I know if I keep going, I’m going to leave somebody out.
But I’ve been incredibly blessed to have people pour into me throughout my ministry.
And we need that.
We need to be teachable.
We need to be teachable.
We need to be teachable.
All of us have something we can learn.
We never need to become so calcified in our lives that we stop learning.
And I’m learning that right now.
Here I am in Starkville, and I’m learning a lot.
There are some things where I think, “Okay, I understand this.”
And there are other things where I think, “Oh gosh. I may have said that wrong. I may have done that wrong. I may have carried myself the wrong way in that situation.”
And that’s okay.
Because we’re not done growing.
Not this side of glory.
We’re still learning.
So may we always be able to say:
Teach me with the tongue of a learner.
But then there comes a time when we become Paul.
Paul saw something in Timothy.
Paul said, essentially, “Let me share with you what I’ve learned. Let me teach you. Let me help you.”
And we need that, too.
We need to pass along what we’ve learned.
We need to share what we’ve experienced.
We need to mentor.
That’s one of the reasons I love doing these reflections.
I love passing along what I’ve gathered from Scripture, from experience, from people who have taught me, and from the mistakes I’ve made along the way.
I love teaching God’s Word.
And I love mentoring.
God has been very kind to me by putting some incredibly talented younger pastors in my life who I’ve had the chance to hopefully pour into in some small way.
Usually, I’m better at telling them what not to do.
I don’t know if I can always tell you what to do.
But I can tell you what not to do.
“Don’t step on that. It’ll blow your foot off.”
Sometimes that’s useful information, too.
But I’m always impressed by the generation coming behind us.
There are so many talented pastors, so many people whom God has called, and so many people whom God is using.
And I’ve come to a conclusion recently.
I’m 50.
I’m not done.
I’ve got plenty of work left to do.
But if I’m fortunate, I’ve probably got 15 or 20 years of full-time ministry left.
I’ve been under appointment for nearly 30 years now.
And while I hope I have a lot of ministry left to do—and I’ll probably always preach somewhere because I like to preach—I also want to use whatever time I have left in public ministry to pass along what I’ve learned.
I want to help make systems healthier.
I want to help make the church healthier.
And I want to make sure that the pastors who come after me inherit something healthier than what we’ve sometimes experienced.
We’ve been through a lot over the last decade.
And I want to do whatever I can to pass something healthy on to the next generation.
Because when we become Paul and teach others, our faith grows, too.
It is a double blessing.
We are blessed when someone pours into us.
And we are blessed when we have the opportunity to pour into someone else.
Bishop Swanson has talked about apprenticeship as a key value of discipleship, and I think that’s exactly right.
We need relationships in our lives that go in all three directions.
We need people who walk beside us.
We need people who walk ahead of us and teach us.
And we need people who are coming behind us whom we can teach and encourage.
So let me ask you today:
Who are your colleagues?
Who are the people who walk beside you?
Who are your mentors?
Who are the people pouring into you?
And then:
Who are you pouring into?
Who is learning from you?
Who are you encouraging?
Who are you helping along the way?
We need all three of those relationships in our lives if we’re going to remain healthy and faithful.
We need people beside us.
We need people ahead of us.
And we need people coming behind us.
So today, think about those three relationships.
Who walks beside you?
Who walks ahead of you?
And who are you helping along the way?
And maybe, if you realize one of those is missing, that’s something to pray about.
Because we are not meant to do this alone.
All right, friends.
I didn’t mean to take quite that much time on the background, but I wanted to lay out why these relationships matter and why Timothy is such an important person for us to study.
Tomorrow, we’ll get into 1 Timothy chapter 1.
Thanks for being with me.
Have a great day.
See you tomorrow.