On Paul’s second missionary journey, Paul takes Silas with him after his disagreement
with Barnabas over John Mark. While on this missionary journey, Paul comes
across a young man named Timothy, whose mother is Jewish and a believer and
whose father is a Greek. Paul sees something in Timothy and so invites Timothy
to join him and Silas. In order to make things easier for Timothy and himself,
Paul circumcises Timothy because of the Jews in the area. When you read Paul
later on concerning circumcision, we can see that Paul is still fairly early in
his own growth around this whole new idea that God loves the Gentiles and has
chosen to embrace Gentiles as he has embraced the Jewish people.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy are travelling to the churches Paul and Barnabas have already planted
to bring the Gentile followers of Jesus the decisions made by the apostles at
the first Synod of Jerusalem: that faith in Jesus calls them “to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual
immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.” These were
areas where the Gentiles had particular weaknesses and things the Jews had big
issues with as they revolved around who do you worship, holiness, and magic
power transference showing a trust and dependency on yourself instead of God.
As Paul, Silas, and Timothy travel from city to city
and church to church, Timothy is able to
see how Paul interprets Scripture and how it points to Jesus. He watches how
Paul preaches, builds relationships in order to plant churches, as Paul mentors
Timothy, teaching him about Jesus and how Jesus fulfills the prophecies from
the Hebrew Scriptures.
It's in the letters to Timothy from Paul that we get a deeper picture of their relationship and
how Paul is Timothy’s mentor. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he begins by
writing, “To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace,
mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,” and then
a few verses later, “Timothy, my son, I am giving you
this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by
recalling them you may fight the battle well.” There’s a close bond
between the two of them, so much so that Paul feels like a father to Timothy,
wanting to see Timothy do well and know Jesus well. Even though Timothy is
quite young, he quickly gains Paul’s trust and becomes a trusted companion and
colleague for more than 17 years.
Paul’s goal is to nurture the “gift of God which is in you through the
laying on of my hands.”
It seems rather appropriate to talk about mentoring on a day when we’ve just
ordained a new deacon. Along the way, different people have influenced the
faith of Pete, whether it was his parents, Sunday School teachers, cadet
counsellors, perhaps teachers or a man in church who took an interest in Pete
and helped him understand more about Jesus and his own gifts. In the church,
mentoring is there to help a person discover gifts that the Holy Spirit has
given them, and then to help them grow their gifts and use them, whether in the
church or our community. When Paul needed someone to return to Thessalonica to
encourage the new believers there, he sends young Timothy. Later on, Paul sends
Timothy to Corinth, where he preaches for some time. Paul mentors Timothy and
then quickly has Timothy begin to use the things he’s learned from Paul.
Even when Timothy becomes a pastor, Paul continues to write Timothy, mentoring him through
words of encouragement and guidance. Once you’ve had the joy of being in
someone’s life as a mentor, there’s a connection that will always remain and
opportunities to continue to offer encouragement, guidance, and blessing,
especially if you hear that they might be struggling. We see this is Paul’s
letters to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul
offers words of encouragement as it seems that there are those in the church
who don’t take Timothy seriously because he’s young. “Command
and teach these things. Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are
young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in
faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of
Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was
given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be
diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may
see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them,
because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Paul
reminds Timothy that his example of how he lives out his faith is the most
important thing and to hang in there.
When the church empowers its youth, young adults, and those new to the faith, to lead and use their
gifts quickly in the church, when it actively encourages and builds them up, it
creates a life and energy in the church from the Holy Spirit. There are
generational differences and gaps, always has been and always will be, how many
of our parents and grandparents didn’t shake their heads and mutter about how
the youth of today aren’t like us when we were young? How often don’t those of
us who are older say or think the same thing right now? Times change, society
and culture change, and it’s our young adults who understand it. They’re the
ones who can, together with older and more experienced members of the church,
lead the church well in speaking into our culture and community about Jesus in
ways they can hear and understand.
We mentor our youth and young adults in the faith so that they can have an answer for what they believe.
Danny Q on the website A Plain Account writes, “I’ll always
remember a moment in one of my evangelism classes where the professor kept
pressing the point that part of what evangelism means is that at some point,
we’re going to have to say words about Jesus to someone else. This came up
within a larger conversation about mission and witness where words like
practices and “just being present” and justice were tossed around. It was a
good conversation, but I haven’t been able to shake the reality that something
about what it means to be a follower of Jesus means that I say something about
it. This hit me even harder when my kids were born. What will I say about
Jesus? How will I talk about God? Will it stick? Will they stay a part of the
church? How does our learning how to speak, or making the story our own help
them learn how to do it?”
Jesus came from heaven and became a person just like
us, so that he could take the curse of sin on himself so
that we can come close to God the Father again, Jesus also came to mentor a
group of young men to carry on his work. We receive forgiveness, we experience
hope, we find new life and strength in Jesus through the Holy Spirit. But we
need to tell the world, we need to learn how to talk about Jesus. Paul knows
this and he encourages Timothy in his second letter, “I
give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season;
correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the
time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to
suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers
to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away
from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all
situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the
duties of your ministry.”
What I love about mentoring is that mentors help us prepare for the good times in life and especially the
hard times. Mentoring often begins with people praying for our young adults and
youth. At YMLT we talked about having prayer cards for our young adults, give
prayer cards to the older congregation members to pray for them, something
everyone can do. Paul encourages Timothy, and
through his own life experience, lets Timothy know that he needs to continue to
invest in his gifts of teaching and leading, but some will reject his teaching
because the gospel call is one of love, forgiveness, and of sacrifice and even
rejection. It’s in those times that we lean on the wisdom and life experience
of our mentors, leaning into the reassurance that we can make it through the
difficult times because Jesus doesn’t abandon us and will give us the strength
and wisdom we will need, often working through others around us.
When
Paul is imprisoned in Rome, it’s Timothy he asks to “come
before winter” to comfort him. Mentoring relationships often turn into
life long relationships that bless both persons. Jesus mentored his 12
disciples, but in the mentoring, Jesus was blessed through their friendship, no
longer considering them servants, but friends, a beautiful gift that comes from
mentoring. May the Lord bless you and lead you into mentoring, whether as a
mentor or a mentee. The blessing will be for a life time.
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