Dennis Tuuri

Sermon transcript cleaned below:

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Sermon scripture is found in Acts chapter 16. Please turn in your scriptures to Acts the 16th chapter. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. And actually, I’ll pick up reading at Acts 15:40, speaking of when Paul chose Silas and reading on from the text in Acts 15:40. And they departed, being recommended by their brethren under the grace of God, and he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches.

Then came he to Derbe and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed, but his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters. For they knew all that his father was a Greek.

And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. Let us pray. Father, we stand before you in reverence for your holy word. And we pray now that your spirit would be amongst us. We thank you Lord God for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We thank you for who he is. And we pray that his ministry of opening your word to us may be real and important to us this day. Help us Lord God to have open ears to hear things from your scriptures. May your spirit open them. Cause us to come to conviction and a further sense of consecration and great joy over the salvation we have sung of in these this last song that we are indeed debtors to mercy alone.

We pray Lord God on the basis of Christ’s shed blood and his imputed righteousness that you would send your spirit forth unto us now through your word and reform our lives and so also begin the reformation of our culture. We pray these things in the name of our blessed savior Jesus Christ. Please be seated. In any event younger children from ages 9 through 11 will stay in the service today and we’re going to be talking today of things that’ll be important to you and this is somewhat by way of a test.

I know you like to go and hear things from Mr. and Mrs. Garrett. They’re studying worship actually the worship service and that’s a good thing. But today God and his providence wants you in here to hear this message.

I read the verses relative to the travel of Paul in this beginning account of the second missionary journey. And Paul chose a different route to go than he did on the first journey. Well, I’ll try to bring a map next week for you all, sort of show you where we’re going with this, but Paul, instead of taking the sea route up into Galatia, southern Galatia, he instead goes the land route, swinging around to the north, so to speak, and going through a couple of gates, so-called gates, pieces of architecture that were high mountain on one side, gulf on the other, and the other one where there were big hills on either side.

This last one is called the Cilician gates. And through these very same gates, through this piece of architecture in that part of the region of the world, Alexander had gone forth down through the Cilician gates to conquer Persia, the great Persian Empire some 400 years prior to Paul’s movement through this same piece of architecture. And I want that to stay in our mind because what we see in the second missionary journey and actually in the first and the third as well throughout the book of Acts is the march of the gospel.

Paul is another conqueror similar to Alexander going forth conquering and to conquer but dissimilar of course because the way the Lord Jesus Christ goes forth in the person of his representatives is with the preaching of the gospel the sword of the spirit that cuts men in terms of bringing them to repentance as living sacrifices bringing them to the altar of Christ and consecrating them afresh and anew to him in service to the Lord Jesus.

Jesus gains his converts not through the power of the physical sword but through the preaching of the sword of the word. And so Paul goes forth now in the power of the greater Alexander, the greater conqueror, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he goes forth marching to war.

In this account of the march of the gospel, we read of the story of Timothy. And Timothy was ordained some think as a missionary, some think as an elder in the church, some think both. We don’t know for sure. Probably ordained during this account that we read, but we do know that Paul later gave him instructions in 1 Timothy 1:18. He committed a command. He charged him. He committed unto Timothy according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that Timothy, and this is the charge he gave to Timothy, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Timothy, Paul’s selected assistant in the work in which he goes forth is seen as a man who would wage good warfare.

The gospel is on the march in the book of Acts and here as we begin the second missionary journey and we close off the work of the gospel in Asia Minor. The gospel is on the march. Now this march is seen there is a sense in which these verses we just read conclude an area of work as well as being the beginning of the second missionary journey. They conclude the work of Paul and his entourage in Asia Minor.

What will happen in verse 6 will be in the account following in Acts 16:6 and following, Paul will be directed by the spirit of God to go into Europe, opening up a brand new field of work. In this beginning of the second missionary journey, he goes back and revisits the works that he had established in the first missionary journey. And those works are in that piece of architecture known as Asia Minor.

As I said, next week I’ll bring a map of all of this to help you cement it in your minds. But there is the sense in which these verses we just read conclude the recorded events of Paul and his entourage in Asia Minor. And so as he goes forth conquering and to conquer, he goes first to an area already conquered, solidifying and establishing those churches. Then he’s directed by the spirit of God to move forward into Europe.

And with the vision of the man from Macedonia, and we’ll talk about that next week. And we’ll talk about the impact of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men as the march of the gospel proceeds on. And that’s what we’ll accomplish next week. And then two weeks from today, we’ll talk a little bit about the first example of what happens on this new phase of missionary work in Europe. And that will be the story of three individuals.

We’ll see at as Paul goes to Philippi. First, the conversion of Lydia, the seller of purple. Then we’ll see the judgment. God casts a sorceress, a divining spirit out of a woman there in that same city. And then he will also we’ll see the conversion of the Philippian jailer. The story of three people. And we’ll talk about that two weeks from today.

Now, three weeks from today, Doug H. is planned to be here to be with us. He’ll be visiting in the area for a couple of days. Elder H. and myself and Elder Mayher as time permits for him will participate in the be observers to the presbytery meeting of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church which will be held in Portland. And so 3 weeks from today we’re planning at least at this point God willing that Doug will be here to preach for us. And for those of you who have heard rumors of us not being in the sanctuary, that is true.

We will be meeting now. The plan is to meet in the chapel, the junior chapel, which is through this hallway here. So just don’t worry about where we’ll be in 3 weeks. We will be in this structure but there’ll be no meal at the end of the service. So we’ll have communion in that service as well.

But getting back now to this flow of the book of Acts I mention what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks because it’s important that we see that the second aspect the second area of work in Europe opens up in much the same way the area of ministry in Asia Minor opened up in the first missionary journey and that is with stories of individuals.

I’ve talked about these correlations. The first and second missionary journeys have many correlations and we’ll talk about them as we go through the second missionary journey. But here is one of them. At the beginning of both the work in Asia Minor and the beginning of the work in Europe, we have the story of individuals. You remember who they were in Asia Minor as Paul begins that first missionary journey.

Two guys, a good guy and a bad guy. Bad guy was Bar Jesus. Remember he was a sorcerer. And then the good guy was who remember Sergius Paulus Roman man head of a large contingency there in the city in which he lived. So we have a conversion and we also have judgment. The work in Europe will begin also with the story of individuals Lydia and then the sorcerer woman who will spirit will be cast out of her and the conversion of the Philippian jailer.

Again a man an official man in the city of Philippi as the greater Alexander Jesus Christ goes forth the power of the spirit through his representatives to wage war at the preaching of the word bringing salvation and judging others. So the individual is be spoken of and then we’ll move on to a series of cities where groups are formed and the groups are being addressed and this is just like in the first missionary journey in Asia Minor groups were addressed as well.

Why am I belaboring this point? Because that’s the outline for today as well. What’s more important as the gospel marches forward? Individual lives or the corporate lives of churches that are established through that work? What’s more important? Well, if you’ve been at this church very long, you know that we believe that both things can be seen as in a sense equally ultimate or equally important. This goes back to our understanding of the doctrine of God’s trinity its triume nature that he is a trinity that he is one God and yet existing in three persons and because of that we always want to avoid the error of ultimatizing the individual or ultimatizing the group.

The problem has been stated by R.J. Rushdoony and others is the problem of the one and the many. What’s more important the individual or the collective group of people? The many? What’s the difference? Or actually the many refers to the individual. But in any event, what’s more important, the individual or the collective? And what we see here at the wrapping up of the work in Asia Minor is an account both of an individual Timothy and his coming to ordination as an officer and as a fellow laborer with the apostle Paul.

And we also see the account of the churches themselves collectively being established and made firm. And so it is that the march of the gospel goes forward both through the lives of individuals and through the lives of corporate entities. And we don’t want to ultimatize either one of those two things.

We’ll begin to see next week when we talk about the work of the spirit that when the doctrine of the spirit is ignored all too frequently the group becomes the most important thing as opposed to the spirit’s life in individuals or with other groups such as some in the more charismatic movement, the life of individuals and the individual becomes important and the corporate identity of and the movement of the spirit of God through the corporateness of people is denied.

And we’ll talk more about that next week. But in any event, either one results in a denial of the work of the spirit and a forgetfulness of the doctrine of the triume nature of God. Very important. The trinity doctrine of the trinity is not some arcane doctrine that’s not involved in our lives directly. It is a touchstone by which we can examine our own lives in the life of our culture as it seeks to either in its rejection of God ultimatize the state as an institution politically for instance which is statism communism etc or the individual which is anarchy the scriptures see both things melded together in representative government as a way of application and here’s an application as well we have the individual Timothy being spoken of very importantly in the lives of that individuals and then the corporate context of the church as well.

Now what I want to talk about in terms of Timothy is three aspects then you’ll note on your outline. First we’ll see the importance of Timothy relative to his upbringing. Then we’ll talk about his proven character and then we’ll talk about his submissive spirit.

So first of all Timothy’s upbringing is pointed out for us in this text. Verse one of Acts chapter 16. He came to Derbe and Lystra. Remember these are two of the four cities that the first missionary journey highlighted for us. And we’ll talk more about the correlations of that to the cities that are highlighted for us in the work in Europe in a few weeks.

But any event, they go through these same areas and these are the areas indeed where Timothy according to the King James version rendering is found. Now that Timothy gives a is a good way to remember what his name actually means. Timothy is a rendering of a more formal term Timothy. Timothy’s name consists of two Greek words put together. Tim which means to have honor, a price, dearness because of the price that’s paid for it, etc.

And theos, which of course you should know is God. And so Timothy actually literally translated means dear to God. And Timothy is a picture of us of someone who is indeed dear to God. And hopefully that’s what we want to be. We want to be dear to God as well. And so as we look at Timothy and the characteristics given for us in scripture of him, hopefully it’ll be a model and a reminder to us also of how we can be in the same way.

Dear to God as his name describes it.

Well, the thing we’re told about Timothy originally here is in verse one is, “Behold, a certain disciple,” so we know that this is a disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed, but his father was a Greek. Timothy here is described in terms of his family life. He is the son of a certain woman. And indeed, in other places in scripture, we are told more details about his family life.

In 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul said that he calls to remembrance the unfeigned faith of Timothy that is in him which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice and I am persuaded that is in thee also. So we know that Timothy’s mother and grandmother had faith existing in them. They were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ prior to the announcement of the gospel of Christ through the coming of Paul.

A believer in justification by faith which was what Old Testament saints all were taught to believe. So the faith of his grandmother, we don’t have to see that as limited to the time in which she first heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These women had been exposed to the word of God in the Old Testament. And through that Old Testament were brought to salvation with a reliance not upon their own works, not a reliance upon the animal sacrifices, but a reliance upon the one who would come, God himself, to pay the price for their sins.

And so Timothy was raised in the context of a mother and a grandmother who taught him the scriptures. We’re told in 2 Timothy 3:14 and 15, we read the following. Paul writing to Timothy now in his second epistle to him. Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them, that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

And then of course the verse that most of us have put to memorization. All scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

We don’t know why Timothy wasn’t circumcised. The indication is that because his mother had married a man outside of the faith, a Greek, a gentile so to speak, that the husband would not allow Timothy to be circumcised. We don’t know why that marriage took place. It seems to be in disobedience to the scriptures of the Old Testament relative to unequal yoking. And yet the scriptures confirm the faith of Timothy’s mother and his grandmother. We know for certain that in spite of the fact that his mother was unable to give Timothy the sign of the covenant, she did give him the substance of which the sign is simply a signifier or indicator.

In other words, he was raised in the faith and he was raised in the faith of the Old Testament scriptures and he knew them well. Timothy’s upbringing helped establish him as a solid worker in the mission field that Paul was now calling him to because of his acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, which also brought him to faith, a belief, and a reliance upon God for his salvation and ultimately, of course, upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, Timothy’s upbringing is given to us in scripture as a model hopefully for us as well. It reminds us again of the importance of the upbringing of our children. It reminds us again hopefully that if we want the gospel to march on in our day and age that it’s going to march on through the work of individual men as well as corporate bodies. But those individual men will be men who have been instructed in the scriptures.

Now most people in this congregation have not received that kind of an upbringing. Some of us have, but many of us haven’t. And we’ve had to work very hard to study the scriptures and to come upon a knowledge of them that equips us for work today. How much better it will be for our children if we apply ourselves diligently as Lois and Eunice did, mother and grandmother to Timothy, to instructing him in the word of God.

Now, we’re going to talk about Timothy’s character education in a couple of minutes, but let’s remember that the basis for all of what Timothy is, knows, and understands is the word of God. If you don’t teach your children mathematics. If you don’t teach them literature, history, whatever it is, that’s too bad. It’s good to teach them those things. But above all things, the thing we should instruct our children in obviously is the one book that is unlike every other book, giving us wisdom, knowledge, and faith based upon the revelation of God, who he is and who we are by way of contrast.

And so, I want you to reflect upon your own lives and the importance of teaching your children the scriptures and whether or not you’re doing a good job. This next week, I plan to prepare a tape for the heads of households. I want to do this on a regular basis. This will be the first time I’ve done it. I was listening to a tape this week, several of them actually on attention deficit disorder. And one of these tapes I got from a group called Sound Word Associates, which is involved with putting out tapes by nouthetic counselors.

They’re men who have been trained in nouthetic counseling. That name coming from Jay Adams. Essentially, it’s biblical counseling, counseling from the scriptures. In this particular tape on ADD, the man characterizes the indications, the symptoms of attention deficit disorder in children and he lumps them. He says they fit very nicely under two categories, anger and self-control. Failure of self-control, of course.

And those are two aspects that all these symptoms of ADD seem to fit under. Then he goes over anger and from the verse where we’re told not to provoke our children to anger or to wrath, he then cites 20 examples of how we can provoke our children to anger and so put a stumbling block in front of them in terms of moving them toward a posture of lifestyle that is now characterized as ADD but is simply rebellion to God’s word.

I’m going to make a tape this week summarizing those 20 things. I’m going to try to produce an outline of the 20 points with scripture references my own comments as well. But it’s important for us to understand that all these symptoms of children that are completely out of control to the point now in our culture where they’re being drugged on a regular basis to provide for their stability in life. These things are addressed in the word of God.

The word of God is sufficient, as that text from 2 Timothy 3 points out, it is sufficient to thoroughly equip us for every good work and for righteousness in the life and for the marching forward of the gospel of Christ. This tape, when you receive it, and if you listen to it, men, and this is for the heads of the households, it will be convicting to you. And that’s what I want it to do. I want it to convict us all of the shortcomings we have relative to the training of our children, but hopefully also give us and equip us with tools by which we can train our children more diligently in the way of Christ that they may be young Timothys growing up not rebellious to God and not having God’s wrath against them but rather dear to God being found not just positionally dear in the Lord Jesus Christ but also dear because of the way they conduct their lives in the guidance of the holy scriptures as the spirit teaches them to it.

I also will suggest sections in Proverbs for our children to memorize to make sure that they don’t fall into these two besetting sins of anger and a failure of self-control that is warned against throughout the book of Proverbs. The scriptures are able to diagnose our children when they’re misbehaving. The scriptures give us the means. It’s the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives to bring us under control, to root out sinful anger, and to make us similar to Timothy with a good upbringing before God.

The scriptures are what we need to teach our children. And I want you to think about your own teaching of your children. This last week, I wore a tie tag that is a little video camera that one of my children gave me. And imagine if your life was videotaped last week, all your interactions with your children. Think first about the ways you’ve sinned against your children. What do the scriptures tell us to do when we sin against our children?

We’re to repent. We’re to model repentance before them. Being truly sorry for our sins, asking forgiveness of our children should we sin against them. And then moving to righteousness in that area and model that before them and evaluate your own life. And if you need to repent of sin before God and man, then do so. Repent. This is the basis for all that Timothy is, and this is the basis for what we need to be as well.

Our foundation is the word of God the Holy Scriptures. Our second point is the character of Timothy. I mentioned before about Paul’s discerning that Ananias was a faithful man. You’ll remember the story of Ananias in Acts. He was a man, I believe, who was to go and restore Paul’s sight after Paul had been blinded by the light of the risen Christ. You remember the story of Ananias. It says in Acts 22, I believe it’s verse 12, that Ananias was a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there.

Then he also was the God’s instrument to remove the scales from Saul’s eyes and bring him back to sight. Acts later on in Acts we read that Paul says of Ananias that he was a man of good report. A good report among men indicates a proven character in Timothy, in Ananias, in Cornelius and then in those seven men that were called to be deacons in the church. Character is important.

People know in a Christian nation that at least has some heritage of Christianity in the context of it, some witness of God in the context of our land. Our land knows that character is vitally important. I watched Larry King this last week and he had a couple of fellows on who were market analysts who you know sell products through doing market analysis and then helping firms orient their advertising in a particular way. These men had done a produced a book on what people want in terms of a president and then they actually had people fill in ballots etc.

They did a talent search and these head hunters go out and look for big executives. They did a talent search for who should be president, etc. Well, one of the interesting conclusions that they came to in their market analysis and polling was that the issues that were important to people were issues of character, truthfulness, clarity. People want character, God-given, proven character from a man to run the country. You know, it is amazing of course that we find ourselves now in a position people continue to ask why is it that we have a president who in the context of economic recovery and all these other things that seem to be going well.

Still, his popularity is down, down, down, down, down. Well, here’s the answer. The country knows that leaders should be men of proven character.

Well, that’s what Timothy wants to be. Remember last week we talked about Paul’s discerning that John Mark was an unfaithful man. He didn’t have good character for the calling of ministry. And so, Paul pulled back from him in terms of him being a participant in the second missionary journey. And we went through a bunch of scriptures taken from the Forster book on teaching your children how to build godly relationships. That section of the book that deals with friendships and it’s very important that we remember that those areas that are talked about are areas of character, not of knowledge.

The scripture doesn’t usually say because a guy doesn’t have enough gifting or enough knowledge, watch out for them. What he tells us to watch out for are people of bad character, people who are given to fits of anger, people that are furious, you’re going to learn their ways. And that’s, by the way, is the first in the list of 20 ways to provoke your children to anger is to model anger to them because they will in terms of the proverbs that we talked about last week. They will learn your ways and they will turn out to be angry people.

Character is important and character is what should make us pull back from some people noting that their character is bad. It is angry or they have evil speech. They have slanderous speech, deceitful speech, whatever it is, these are character issues is really the way we want our children to evaluate their friendships and how we evaluate our friendships as well. Character is important and Timothy had proven character before God and as a result was commended to the service God had called him to do.

The characteristics of elders of course require this good report, this proven character. As well, I’m going to go through a couple of scriptures here very quickly just to give you an overview of Timothy’s character. We read in 2 Timothy 1 verse 7, God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power. and of love and a sound mind. Now, this is in the context of Paul saying in verse six that he puts Timothy in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God which was given thee by the laying on of my hands.

Then he goes on to say, God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind. Power, love, stability in one’s mind are aspects of character that God had through the scriptures and through his engagement and involvement with other people built into Timothy. Timothy was told in 1 Timothy 4:12, Paul writes to him, “Let no man despise your youth. Be an example of the believers in word, how you say things, in conversation, the way you walk in your life, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” And this character manifests itself then in several external ways in which he relates to other people.

In the next verse, verse 13, till I come, give attention to reading, that is the reading of the scriptures, publicly in the worship service. His character has him as a teacher to read the word of God to exhortation character drives us then to exhort people to faithfulness to the scriptures and to doctrine as well.

In 2 Timothy 4:2 he is told to preach the word be instant in season and out of season character doesn’t wait for a particular time to manifest itself character runs through all the affairs of our lives and so timothy is to preach the word both in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort strong statements in terms of the manifestation of strong Christian character, not a shrinking back, but a going forth.

And yet with all longsuffering and doctrine, Paul warns them, the time will come when men will not endure sound doctrine. And then he tells him in verse 5 of 2 Timothy 4, watch thou in all things endure afflictions. Later in 2 Timothy 1:4, Paul writes to him that he greatly desires to see him being mindful of his tears to Paul. Timothy’s character would indeed lead to tears and the demonstration of that character in his relationships.

Tears of sadness for those who would walk away from the faith. Perhaps tears of being maligned the way Paul was so often maligned. Tears before God. Christian character is strong and yet it has a sensitivity to God and to other people that come along with it.

I mentioned this before that last year in Chicago George Grant said that the favorite quotation of his I believe from G.K. Chesterton was this that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly, which is a way of saying that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing. And we’re all, most of us here are involved in homeschooling. And all of us feel at this time of the year some degree of pressure, a feeling of insufficiency for the task that God has placed before us, insufficient of means or instructional abilities or whatever time, whatever it is. And yet, it’s a task that God has called us to do. Why? Because ultimately the knowledge is important that we transmit to our children.

But ultimately beyond that the Christian character that homeschooling and raising a child in the context of the home can accomplish that is the most important thing we can probably give our children to equip them for the future. Second only to a knowledge of the scriptures. If all your children get out of homeschooling this year is a good strong knowledge of the scriptures. Memorization of texts from Proverbs relating to the way they conduct themselves and the way others conduct themselves and how we’re to interrelate to them then a knowledge of scripture and a result of that application in terms of your household of that scripture Christian character if that’s all they come out of homeschooling with and are completely devoid of how to do algebra or geography or history now don’t misquote me I’m saying those things are good they’re important we want to influence this culture we want to take what God has given us and the gifts of these things and apply them diligently.

But I’m saying even if you do it badly this year and you don’t give your children those things, make sure that at the end of this year, come next summer, you can look back and say, “I instructed my children in the scriptures and I moved them on to more manifestation of the fruit of the spirit. I moved them on to godly character.” See, these are the two things we’re told about Timothy. And these are the two things that will equip the soldiers of Christ as they go on in that march under the greater Alexander, the Lord Jesus Christ, going forward, conquering and to conquer.

We live in times of desperate need and there are pundits of the world who say that we’re headed for complete collapse, societal degeneration and collapse and a lot complete loss of order in our culture. And that may well be the case. It may well be the case that our children will grow up to see horrific scenes of violence being played out in our community.

That’s the great need that’ll equip them for the future to come, no matter what it looks like. The third thing is also vitally important. However, the third thing we’re told about Timothy is that he had a submissive spirit. This isn’t explicitly taught, but you’ll see that it is implicit certainly in the text.

Verse three, him would Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek. It’s an amazing text. Isn’t it? I mean, in the context, it’s odd to me. This is Paul. This is the man who wrote to the Galatians, “If you circumcise yourselves, you’re under obligation to keep the whole law. If you circumcise yourselves, Christ is worth nothing to you. You’ve denied the faith.” He just has gone to Jerusalem. He’s collected the apostolic decree that circumcision is not necessary for salvation.

And what does he do? Right out of the chute, as he goes out to deliver the letter to these churches, what does he do? He circumcises Timothy. He just taken Titus to Jerusalem, said, “I’m not going to circumcise this guy no matter what they say.” And what does he do? He takes Timothy and has him circumcised. This is a test for Paul. I think a test again, which he passes with flying colors. There are some that say this was a big mistake.

There are some that say, for instance, Ramsay in his commentary says that no act of Paul’s whole life is more difficult to sympathize with and none cost him dearer. Something when he wrote to the Galatians later on that if I preach circumcision then this and this he was being accused of preaching circumcision somehow it’s because he had Timothy circumcised. So some people say he just gave enemy ammunition rather to his enemies by circumcising Timothy.

I don’t think it’s that way at all. I think what we see in this account very much is the counterbalance to what we’ve seen in chapter 15. I mentioned Paul had to discern that John Mark was not ready for ministry and he discerned on the other hand that Timothy was ready for ministry. Now, it’s important to be able to discern negative characteristics that cause us to pull back from people either in personal relationships, ministry, work, whatever it is.

But it is just as important that the other side of that is to train our senses to discern not just evil, but good. And so, we see Paul had the ability to discern good in Timothy, just as he saw bad in terms of faithfulness to ministry in John Mark. It’s a counterbalance. And this is the counterbalance relative to circumcision. If circumcision was seen as a requirement for salvation, Paul would have nothing to do with it.

He’s made that clear. He has staked his life on this. He said he staked his whole ministry on the fact that circumcision is unnecessary. We cannot add to the work of Jesus Christ. It is through grace and grace alone. A debtor to mercy alone. Underline alone. We don’t achieve salvation with Christ plus. anything. It is Christ alone. And Paul is ready to stake his ministry to that truth. And yet, and he can be strong in that assertion, as we should be strong in those sorts of assertions, and yet he can bend like a reed to accommodate and to try to give Timothy more entrance into communities in which he can preach the gospel.

He took away to some degree a stumbling block for those who would stumble at Timothy’s uncircumcision. Having made clear that circumcision is not required for salvation. He will indeed let Timothy and he will have Timothy be circumcised for the sake of Timothy having access to Jewish households, Jewish synagogues to preach the gospel of Christ.

See, by way of correlation, I thought, well, another example of this would be more contemporary the life of our church, ordination. There are those who think that ordination must be a particular way. And if you’re not ordained in that particular way, you’re not ordained and baptisms are no good. and your church is illegitimate da da and we want to we want to strive and we have but no that is not true ordination comes from God and it can be recognized by men in many ways we have a man in eastern Oregon that I think very highly of in terms of his ministry Mr. Mackoy I don’t even know that his church has called him to office he said that people ask him how do you know you’re a teacher what makes you a teacher I have people that listen to me he said I have followers who believe what I teach them and what other answer can you give that’s the work of God’s spirit that’s going on there.

So, we want to fight for that. But on the other hand, after we’ve made our position clear that we do not believe that is necessary to follow your form, it is certainly not wrong. And in fact, it may be a very good thing to have ordinations of men at this church or Mackoy Church, Reverend H., whatever it is, recognize, submit to other bodies of believers who like it done a particular way. A demonstration of our humility before them. A demonstration that gives us access into pulpit and into churches that need to hear the preaching of God’s word and particular stresses and emphases that God has given this particular church as he’s given other churches other emphases.

Well, that’s what Paul is doing here. I believe I could be wrong. He has some discussion about this in the question and answer time, but that’s what I think Paul is doing. They knew his father was a Greek. It says the Jews did and they knew he was uncircumcised. And Paul says, “Okay, we’ll circumcise him. Sure, because I’ve got this thing here in my hand that says we don’t have to do it, but we will do it.

for the sake of gaining access. So Paul, I think is the counterbalance here. And we want to on one hand be very strong in our assertions about biblical truth, but we also want to on the other hand be humble and yielding to demonstrate to people while we believe firmly this. We are willing to work with you in terms of these other things for the greater good of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I talked about Paul, but think about Timothy. I mean, he’s probably at least 20, 25 years old here. Circumcision is not a small matter. You don’t like to think about it, do you? If you’re a man, uncomfortable. I mean, this is the way they waged war, right? A couple of the sons of Jacob did this to a group of people and completely disabled an army and as a result wiped them out. It’s a painful thing. Why did Timothy do it? He could have argued, well, I want to stand by my rights here.

I don’t have to be circumcised. And he could have, and Paul would have walked away and not used him. Because Paul needed a man for the mission field to go forward conquering and to conquer who was submissive and who understood the need to put down a right as well as when to assert a right. And so Timothy’s spirit here is part I guess you could say it’s part of his Christian character, but it’s given as a third verse here.

He has a submissive spirit. He has a humility before God that equips him for the service that Paul has called him to do, God has called him to do through the Apostle Paul. And so again there video camera. Evaluate your life. Are you always standing for your rights or are you sometimes not claiming those rights for the greater sake of entrance to preach the gospel of Christ to minister in the context of broader groups?

And do you have a submissive spirit to the authorities in your life? Children, are you studying the scriptures? Are you working on your Christian character? And are you submissive to your parents instructions even when it makes no sense to you. I don’t know if Timothy understood it. He probably did, but he probably still didn’t want to do it. And yet, he was submissive to his father in the faith. He was submissive to the apostle here, submissive to the officers of the extended church that God had given to him.

And so, this submissiveness, this humility before men is a mark of Timothy that makes him dear to God. And if we wish ourselves to be dear to God, and we should, then indeed we also should make sure that we have a submissive, humble spirit before men, not always claiming our right.

Now what we see here then is a man who is characterized by a upbringing in the scriptures, a knowledge of the scriptures through his upbringing of his mother and grandmother. A man who demonstrates Christian character and a man who in terms of that character has a submissive spirit to give away his rights, “If need be for the greater sake of the gospel of Christ, a humility before men that leads to a submission to God’s ordained authorities in terms of the church institutionally here as well as in a general sense.” And this is the kind of man that Paul picks.

Remember, Paul is in a bit of a state here because he’s lost not just Barnabas but also John Mark, right? Didn’t want to take John Mark, but he still needs an assistant. So, as Paul went out before with Barnabas and John Mark as an assistant, now he goes out with Silas replacement of Barnabas. We said that the Greek makes that very explicit in the latter part of chapter 15. But he also now has an assistant to replace John Mark and that is Timothy. As we said, he’s discerned the bad. He discerns the good now and selects him.

Paul is carrying out what he has called us to do in terms of the transmission of the gospel through faithful men. The scriptures, Paul indeed tells Timothy later to commit these things to faithful men who will then commit them to others. We have here a preparing of the leadership for the next generation when Paul will be gone. He’s thinking of the future. He’s not just thinking, I don’t think, of the present task and the needs of the present task.

He’s thinking long term. When Richard and I were in Chicago this last summer, one of the men, I think it was George Grant, said, “The best thing we can do to prepare for the continuing manifestations of egalitarianism and the kind of culture we’re moving into is to prepare leaders for the future. Kind of an odd thing. You’d think you’d want to have solutions in the next two years to this problem. And there are things we can do in the next two years to present the gospel of Christ, etc.

in a more thorough way. But it’s very important that we think long-term, intergenerationally, and that we bring up disciples in the context of all of this. All of these things we talked about Timothy is what prepares him to be a proper disciple of the apostle Paul. He moves on in discipleship. as Paul had committed him to do as well to those who were with him.

I don’t want to belabor the point by looking up a bunch of verses. You can look them up yourself. But the final characteristic we want to put on somebody that you’re going to commit your life to in terms of preparation for discipleship to carry on your work, the final mark here in Timothy’s life must be faithfulness. It’s required of a student