MENTORING: 6) Paul and Timothy

Our last mentor/mentee relationship we look at is Paul and Timothy.  Acts 16 records early events of Paul’s second missionary journey.  Here is a brief recap of that journey:

It was a year or two after completing their first missionary journey, Paul suggested that he and Barnabas revisit the churches they had planted. Paul and Barnabas disagreed over whether John Mark, who had left them on the first journey, should join them on this journey. Barnabas decided to take John Mark to Cyprus while Paul took Silas to modern-day Turkey. 

Paul and Silas picked up Timothy, a young but well-spoken of believer in Lystra. The three men then continued to strengthen the faith in those churches and the number of new believers increased daily. Paul, Silas, and Timothy desired to enter Asia to spread the gospel there, but the Holy Spirit prevented them. Finally in Troy, Paul received a vision of a man asking them to go into Macedonia. 

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, joined by Luke, sailed from Troy to Greece and made their way to Philippi.  The remainder of their journey included the stories of Lydia, Paul casting demons out of a slave girl whose owner then brought Paul and Silas before the city magistrates for what they had done who were then beaten and thrown in prison. That night, God caused an earthquake to release all the prisoners, but none fled the jail. Because the prisoners stayed, Paul was able to share the gospel with the jailer who believed and was baptized. In the morning, the magistrates freed Paul and Silas, who then demanded a public apology for the way his rights as a Roman citizen had been violated.

After this incident, Paul, Silas, and Timothy traveled to Thessalonica where Paul preached in the synagogue.  The non-believing Jews formed a violent mob so Paul and Silas had to escape at night to Berea where Paul again shared the gospel in the synagogue. The Bereans listened to Paul's teaching and carefully examined Scripture to determine if his teaching was true. Thus, many in Berea believed the gospel message. Unfortunately, the non-believing Jews from Thessalonica arrived in Berea to stir up trouble, so Paul was sent off to sail to Athens by himself while Timothy and Silas stayed behind. 

When Paul reached Athens, he preached both in the synagogue and in the marketplace. He used references to their own "unknown god" in order to appeal to the Athenians. Some Athenians believed, others mocked, and others seemed interested only in intellectual stimulation, so Paul continued on to Corinth.  Paul arrived in Corinth "in weakness and in fear and much trembling" after the repeated persecution he had suffered in the previous cities.  Paul met fellow Jews and tentmakers Aquila and Priscilla and decided to stay and work with them. Paul began his year and a half ministry in Corinth by teaching in the synagogue and was soon joined by Silas and Timothy. The Corinthian Jews opposed and reviled Paul so he turned his attention to the Gentiles. Many Corinthian Gentiles believed and were baptized. 

When it was time to return to Antioch in Syria Priscilla and Aquila accompanied Paul as he sailed to Ephesus and shared the gospel there. The Ephesians were eager to have Paul stay, but he declined, hoping to return at a later time. Priscilla and Aquila settled in Ephesus while Paul sailed on to Caesarea. He then visited the church in Jerusalem before returning to his home church in Antioch in Syria. 

As we conclude our studies on mentoring we see that we should focus displaying and teaching growth in Christ and in His Word. 

Acts 16:1-5

1 Paul went on to Derbe and Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, but his father was a Greek.

2 The brothers and sisters at Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him. 

3 Paul wanted Timothy to go with him; so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, since they all knew that his father was a Greek. 

4 As they traveled through the towns, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem for the people to observe. 

5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. 

Derbe and Lystra were cities in ancient Galatia, now modern Turkey. Paul had first visited Lystra and Derbe with Barnabas during the first missionary journey. They had been chased out of Iconium by those who had rejected the gospel. In Lystra, some of the people misunderstood God’s power in healing a crippled man and began to honor Barnabas and Paul as gods. Upon clarifying Who had healed the man, some of the people who had driven them out of Iconium incited the crowd to stone Paul to the point he seemed to be dead. However, he and Barnabas went on to Derbe. 

Timothy was in Lystra and is noted to be a disciple even before Paul and Silas arrived.  Timothy’s mother was a believing Jewish woman. Timothy’s first mentors were stated to be his mother, Eunice, and grandmother Lois.  It is not absolutely clear that Timothy’s father was an unbeliever, but since his mother is called a believing woman, and his father is merely referred to as a Greek, it does seem we should conclude he was either tolerant of his wife’s conversion to Christianity, had already been removed from the scene, or had died.

Though Timothy was a young man (probably a teenager), he had a good reputation among the believers in Lystra. Timothy became Paul’s very close friend and companion. He is listed as present with Paul in six of his letters and is mentioned in two others. All told, Timothy is present in ten of Paul’s thirteen letters. In other words, Timothy became invaluable to Paul in his missionary efforts to the Gentiles.

The events in the first part of Acts 15 had just established that circumcision is not essential to Christian conversion. So, why was Timothy circumcised? Because Paul was demonstrating the principle of contextualization–circumcision was not necessary for salvation, but it was necessary for Timothy to be an effective evangelist among the Jews. In other word Timothy chose to “become one of them” rather than to remain a cultural outsider.

In verse 4 we read of  “the decisions reached by the apostles and elders” at the Jerusalem Council that Christian conversion does not require circumcision nor does one have to become a Jew in order to become a Christian. This was good news to these new believers who had been converted by the missionary efforts of Paul and Barnabas and were now being encouraged by the missionary work of Paul, Silas, and Timothy.

This news from the Jerusalem Council had the effect that the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. Eternal salvation is not something a person can earn by any practice. It comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. God wants us to come to Him regardless of our backgrounds. His Spirit will transform us as we submit ourselves to Him. We might call the growing in numbers evangelism and the strengthening in the faith discipleship. This verse shows us both are a part of what churches should be doing. We should not neglect either. 

We should also notice that mentoring occurs best when we walk alongside people and they see our examples. Traveling with Paul, Timothy gained ministry insight firsthand. He saw Paul in all the moments of life, including how he handled the “mundane” moments. He saw Paul “doing life” and living his faith.  Paul eventually sent  Timothy to be a missionary and preacher to the early churches after he (Paul) left to start other churches.

Paul took on Timothy, a student of Jesus, as his apprentice and friend.  He ultimately develops a closer relationship with him over time, and is ultimately labeled Pauls’ “Co-worker”… an equal.  Paul continued to mentor Timothy throughout their lives.  In the next verses we will see some of that mentoring.

2 Timothy 2:1-2

1 You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 

By this point in their relationship Paul had come to consider Timothy in a parental light and he continues to coach him as a father would.  Near the end of 2 Timothy, chapter 1, Paul encouraged him to “hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me” and to “guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who lives in us”. He then recounted the names of three men. Two of these men had quit Paul and the work of the gospel, while one had remained faithful. Paul was telling Timothy that adherence to sound doctrine was the best solution to the problem of unfaithfulness. 

When we mentor and disciple, our goal is to lead those we disciple to a place of greater spiritual maturity. Mentoring is not about us.  It is about Jesus and leading those we disciple to follow, love, and obey Jesus. Parents may miss the days when the child was young and dependent on them, but the child’s achieving adulthood is the ultimate goal of parenting. By referring to Timothy as my son, Paul was demonstrating this kind of parental love for Timothy.

Throughout the New Testament, believers are given commands to obey that are based on solid theological truths they should understand. Just a few verses after this passage, Paul wrote, “Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything”. In other words, we must think about and contemplate the words and meaning of Scripture, but we should know it will be God who enlightens our minds and hearts to truly comprehend its truth. For example, in Ephesians, Paul commanded us to walk in love based on the reality of Christ’s love for us. We cannot truly love unless we understand God’s love for us. And Peter commanded us to be holy based on the theological truth that God is holy. 

All such commands in the Bible are grace-based commands. Without God’s grace, we can do nothing.  “Grace” is when God gives us what we do not deserve through merit. The place true grace is available is in Christ Jesus. His perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection are the center points of all of history. He is the only reason we are able to know God, and He is the only reason we can have abundant and eternal life. 

In the second verse Paul urged: What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. It is often pointed out that there are four generations of teachers in this verse. The first generation is Paul. The second is Timothy. The third is the generation to whom Timothy would commit Paul’s teaching (“faithful men”). The fourth is the generation the third generation would teach (“others”). The spirit of this verse is that the task of making disciples should always be forward thinking. We should always be thinking about the generations that will come after us. Ministries built on personalities seldom outlive their founders.  Personalities may change with time. Ministries built on the truth of God’s Word in the power of the Spirit will reverberate in lives for generations; Truth is eternal.  We might re-state this concept as science based on theories may, or will, one day be overturned.  Science based upon observed LAWS of nature will never fail. Has any “law” in science that has been documented to have failed?  I know of none.

Paul was instructing Timothy here to find “faithful men” who were also “able to teach.” In this context being faithful meant being true to sound doctrine. Paul was telling Timothy he should not be looking for “popular people” to serve as teachers, nor for trendsetters and cultural creatives who would primarily be thinking about new and inventive ideas. Rather, he was to seek out those who would be faithful to the doctrine Paul had taught him – those who would consistently SEEK the Truth. These men needed an attitude of submission to revealed truth, but they also needed the ability to communicate that truth to others. This combination of attitude and ability, or character and competence, was also emphasized in 1 Timothy 3 where Paul gave instructions about the qualifications for pastors.

Finally lets look at Paul’s warning about the Godly life.

2 Timothy 3:10-12

10 But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance, 

11 along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured—and yet the Lord rescued me from them all. 

12 In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

In this passage Timothy is now a pastor himself, but Paul was still mentoring him. When Paul said, But you have followed my teaching, he was contrasting Timothy with those mentioned earlier in chapter 3 who were abandoning and resisting the truth.  Humanity ALWAYS believes itself to be “smarter than God” in editing the teachings of God.  Our culture today is FULL of such examples from bending to the will of sexual deviancy from Godly norms, or gender deviance from natural norms, to many other examples of clinical insanity (defined as mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.). Some, if not many, churches are including such insanity into their church doctrines and dogma (beliefs and authoritative principles).

Paul commended Timothy for standing firm:

• Teaching. First, Paul commended Timothy for following his teaching. Paul believed sound teaching was the key to sustaining discipleship, being a student of the teachings of Jesus. The characteristics that follow are based on the sound teaching Paul had delivered to Timothy. 

• Conduct. Paul commended Timothy for walking the walk, following the example Paul lived.  This is not the only time Paul encouraged people to follow his conduct. His confidence was not in himself but in the Spirit who sustained him.

• Purpose. Paul’s purpose was to make Christ known to all people and places—including, and maybe especially, where He had not been known.  Timothy was a pastor and shared a common purpose with Paul in making Christ known among the nations as churches at to do today.

• Faith. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he had instructed Timothy to set an example for the believers in faith.  Here Paul commended Timothy for doing just that—setting an example of faith for people in the church, even for those who were older than he was. 

• Patience. Patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit and a clear theme of the Bible. It conveys the idea of not seeking revenge. Its lack reveals a heart that is not completely given over to trusting God and His providential hand. The older English word “longsuffering” gives a good word picture of what Paul probably had in mind. The Christian life is marked by suffering, and faith is marked by a willingness to suffer in the short-term knowing in the long-term God works all things together for good for His people. Paul commended Timothy for being patient in his faith.

• Love. This is applying faith to how one conducts oneself with other people. Once again, Paul commended Timothy for his love toward others. Love is another consistent theme in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament and in Paul’s letters. Perhaps the most famous chapter in Paul’s writings is commonly known as the “love chapter” (1 Cor. 13). The full description of love given in that chapter is a helpful reminder that love is not the pitter-patter of the heart but a heartfelt compassion and commitment that results in action. 

• Endurance. This book was written from a jail cell and is the last letter we know Paul wrote. Paul was coming to the end of his earthly life. He wanted to commend Timothy for following his example of perseverance. This idea is similar to the idea of patience earlier in the verse. Paul had endured much during his ministry, and he commended Timothy for doing the same. We should be encouraged to take a long view of life and ministry, for life is usually a marathon and not a sprint….but either way we don’t really know where the finish line is.

As Paul mentioned previous persecutions with which Timothy was familiar, Timothy undoubtedly reflected on the price Paul had paid for the faith he had passed on to Timothy. Despite the persecutions he endured, Paul testified, yet the Lord rescued me from them all. We should also remember that Jesus rescued Paul from a whole other life when He confronted him on the road to Damascus. If it were not for that confrontation, Paul would never have stopped persecuting Jesus seeking to murder Christians in an attempt to stamp out the young church. 

Paul reminded Timothy that suffering and persecution are normal in the Christian life. They are not exceptions but norms. In a world where most choose to remain animalistic, immature, and immoral or amoral, there will always be contention with those that choose to be spiritual, mature, and moral.  Believers completely surrendered to Christ will be persecuted. 

Writing from a jail cell, Paul encouraged Timothy to avoid the kind of thinking that says if we are suffering then we must be doing something wrong. In fact, the logic of the sentence is the opposite. If you have never experienced any kind of persecution in your life, you need to question whether you are really living a godly life.

Persecution varies, but the body of Christ as a whole is always suffering. In fact, more Christians are suffering for their faith today than at any time in the past. As American Christians who enjoy freedom of religion, we should be aware that many of our brothers and sisters are enduring persecution in the form of ostracization from family, torture, imprisonment, and even execution. Prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters should be a normal part of our lives.

We should focus on displaying and teaching growth in Christ and in His Word. We need to recognize our parental role in mentoring other believers, help them to grow, support them in their faith, and mentor them in their faith to the end of our earthly lives.