Both Scripture’s roles of formation and communication come together in Paul’s charge to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”[12] When the church leader has been rightly formed in Christ and by the Scriptures, he will exude confidence in presenting himself to God as approved in Christ. His sense of approval comes both from continual commitment to formation by Christ through the Scriptures as well as his own right handling of the Scriptures. Whereas some might see Paul exhorting Timothy to make sure he interprets Scripture correctly, Gordon Fee says he is instead urging him to “truly preach and teach the gospel, the word of truth.”[13] When the church leader is rightly formed by Christ through the Scriptures, he will be fit to inform others of Christ through the Scriptures.

Paul tells Timothy there are a variety of ways in which Scripture is to be communicated. Three foundational ways, he says, are the public reading of Scripture, exhortation (or preaching),[14] and teaching.[15] Reading is the pure act of communicating to one’s hearers what is clearly on the pages of Holy Scripture. Exhortation (or preaching) is the act of strongly urging or persuading one’s hearers to change in any manner of life (personally and relationally), based on the church leader’s interpretation of Scripture.[16] Teaching is the act of communicating to one’s hearers in a more in-depth way of the whole of Scripture, all its parts, how they relate, and their practical application to all of life.

Paul shares with Timothy that since Scripture itself is inspired by God, it is profitable for all of life—to be communicated in various ways, in various situations, to members of Christ’s Body. For example, he says that all Scripture[17] is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”[18] Scripture is sufficient for church leaders to handle every season of life, and every situation in each season.[19] There will be certain seasons in which members of the church will need to be reproved and corrected for their misdirected affections, disobedience, and false teaching. Martin Dibelius notes, “The understanding of the Scriptures (i.e., of the OT) which is transmitted by the tradition makes the leader of the congregation fit for the fight against the false teaching.”[20] However, in all seasons they will need to be taught and trained in righteousness. In light of Scripture’s all-sufficiency in all seasons of life, the church leader is competent and well equipped for every good work.[21]

Lastly, another role Scripture plays in the life and ministry of the church leader is that of evangelistic content or good news to be communicated. Immediately before Paul charges Timothy to fulfill his ministry, he says, “Do the work of an evangelist.”[22] Only with the Christ-centered Scriptures can the church leader fulfill such a task. “Paul instructs Timothy in terms of the ‘gospel’ (cf. 1 Tim. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:8, 10; 2:8), which certainly includes proclamation to the unconverted. However, Paul does not typically distinguish between ‘evangelism’ and ‘discipleship’.”[23] Either way, Paul instructs Timothy and all other church leaders to make good use of the Scriptures in communicating Christ to both the Christian and the non-Christian.

Summary
God has graciously and generously given Scripture to church leaders for their spiritual formation and so that they may more ably communicate it in a variety of seasons and ways to the church. In light of Scripture’s all-sufficiency, church leaders ought to: 1) Take full advantage of this inimitable resource for their own spiritual growth; 2) Keep a close watch on their own lives and teaching for possible inconsistencies, and correct when necessary; 3) Strive to interpret, teach, preach, and apply the Scriptures rightly in every season and situation; 4) Keep Christ and the gospel central in all of life, that you may be approved, competent, and well equipped for every good work. The Holy Scriptures are indeed an invaluable gift from God, enabling the man of God to train himself for godliness and righteousness—while communicating Christ to all who have ears to hear.

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[12] 2 Tim. 2:15

According to Paul, Scripture should play at least two primary roles in the life and ministry of church leadership—formation and communication. That is, Scripture is given by God for the personal and spiritual formation of church leaders. As the church leader is being formed spiritually by God through Scripture, he communicates it in various ways in various situations to members of Christ’s Body. In the following posts, I aim to explain these two roles more thoroughly by looking at a few select passages in Paul’s two epistles to Timothy, but primarily 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.

Formation
The first significant way in which Scripture serves in the role of spiritual formation is noted by Paul when he tells Timothy that the sacred writings are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.[1] In other words, Scripture can lead to the “knowledge of the truth.”[2] It has the power to bring its readers and hearers to faith.[3] Paul tells Timothy that the Scriptures which he learned and firmly believed, leading to his conversion, are to be that which he should continue to learn and believe.[4]

A second way in which Scripture serves in the role of spiritual formation is training for godliness. Paul tells Timothy if he communicates certain things to his brothers and sisters in Christ, he will be trained in the Scriptures.[5] He will be trained in these things by communicating them to the Church. By his next command, Paul shows Timothy that such training in the Scriptures produces godliness.[6] Godliness is one of the goals God has in mind by giving the Scriptures to his church leaders.

A third way in which Scripture plays a spiritually formative role in the life of the church leader is that it is to be practiced or lived out in his own life. Paul tells Timothy, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them.”[7] “These things that Timothy is to practice and immerse himself in are the things commanded in vv. 12-13, encompassing his behavior and teaching.”[8] The things which encompass his behavior are reflective of what Timothy would have learned in Scripture concerning his speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. For Paul, behavior itself was an inevitable and natural overflow of how one is formed spiritually. He knew that as Christ was being formed more and more in Timothy, all would see his progress in both his behavior and his teaching.[9]

A fourth way in which Scripture serves as a means of spiritual formation in the church leader’s life, is as a sort of mirror by which he can reflect on the congruity of his own life and ministry. Even though Paul acknowledges Timothy will progress in his faith and life as he practices the things discussed in the previous section, he urges him to keep a close watch on himself and on his teaching.[10] Paul knows the human heart can so easily be deceived and in effect deceive others. He knows and trusts in Scripture as the trustworthy safeguard against this. By persisting in keeping a close watch on himself and on his teaching, Timothy will save both himself and his hearers. “Timothy’s perseverance in sound doctrine and practice will save him, i.e., it will lead him to persevere in the faith,  confirming his salvation. This type of ministry will be effective in preserving his hearers as well.”[11] “Sound doctrine” or Scripture is that which church leaders should persevere in believing and practicing in all of life and ministry. They will know whether they are doing so or not by keeping a close watch on how they live and what they teach, as they reflect on its accordance with Scripture.

Note: This section was largely adapted from Porterbrook’s booklet, “Evangelism.”

In the Book of Acts, the gospel is mainly proclaimed through the form of a story. On the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter interprets their experience of hearing foreigners speak in their own language, by quoting the prophet Joel and King David. Joel speaks of this day as the beginnings of an age when “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Indeed, here Peter pulls from the grand story line highlighting the theme of redemption. He calls David “a prophet” who “foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ.” Peter compares Jesus of Nazareth to King David, saying essentially, “‘This Jesus, whom you crucified,’ is the better King. David died and was buried. Yet, Jesus ‘was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.’ God raised him up. ‘Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, has poured out this that you are seeing and hearing.’”

In order to tell the gospel story along the timeline of the Bible, one does not necessarily need to include every theme in the story—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. The important thing is to highlight the essentials as they point to the Christ of the story. The gospel message that Peter tells in story-form can be highlighted in these essential parts: 1) Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins. 2) God raised Jesus from the dead. 3) He is now exalted at the right hand of God. 4) God has made him both Lord and Christ. Only after reading these snippets of the gospel story through a wide-angle lens—in its full breadth, can one now begin to more fully understand and see the gospel in its depth when reading the Bible through a narrow-angle lens.

Seeing the Gospel with Two Lenses
The Bible contains both examples of reading and seeing the gospel—diachronically and synchronically. When one reads the Bible diachronically, he sees the gospel with a wide-angle lens. This enables him to see the gospel as essentially a story of redemption God has written from eternity, within the pages of inspired Scripture (from Genesis to Revelation), and in the lives of everyday people—until the day Jesus returns to consummate his story. However, when one reads the Bible synchronically, he sees the gospel with a narrow-angle lens. Read this way, he sees the gospel comprised as a set of doctrines (e.g., election, atonement, regeneration, justification, adoption, faith and repentance), mostly organized by biblical propositions. It is vitally important that one carefully evaluates the manner in which he reads the Bible, for the sake of seeing the gospel rightly, that he might proclaim and live the gospel effectively. One way of reading is not more right than the other. However, only when having read the Bible through a wide-angle lens—in its full breadth, for example, can one more fully understand and see the gospel in its depth when reading the Bible through a narrow-angle lens.

Note: This series of posts was largely inspired by Porterbrook’s booklet, “Evangelism.”

Such love for God’s people even when they know not what they’re doing, provokes Jeremiah to grieve for them. “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me. Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land.” He expresses emotions of grief and sorrow for “the daughter” of his people. This language evokes deep ties in which he feels for his family—those who are following the stubbornness of their own hearts. “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has overtaken me.” This is love, that he feels their wound as if he himself was wounded. He knows his God, and the justice required by him. He also knows the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. This is the love which pursues God’s people, even when it causes them to hurt.

Man of Prayer
For the man who knows God and whose heart beats for him, it is only natural that he breathes a life of prayer to him, even during nearly unbearable circumstances. Jeremiah’s prayers often consist of praise, complaint or confession, petitions of deliverance, intercession for God’s people, and petitions of understanding. Jeremiah’s “persecution and confusion over his role influenced his manner of communication (prayer, lament, and autobiography).”

As the prayerful prophet, Jeremiah unwaveringly depends on the God he knows and loves, and in whose word he delights. The following prayer is that in which Jeremiah prays for understanding: “Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.” Such a prayer shows Jeremiah’s intimate knowledge of God and his love for him. The same prophet who cried out judgment on Judah, also interceded for them.

Conclusion
Jeremiah is like no other prophet in that the book in which he recorded his prophetic ministry, was more autobiographical in nature than that of any other prophet’s writing. From it, the reader gathers that Jeremiah knew God deeply, loved him passionately, delighted in his word constantly, loved his people, and prayed for them unwaveringly. Jeremiah is the persevering prophet who knew God and made it his mission to make him known.

Jeremiah’s love for the one true God influences not only his public calling of others to return to the LORD, but also his own personal walk with him. He acknowledges the LORD in all his ways, since he knows that “the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.”  Because of this inner reality, he humbly asks the LORD to correct him, yet in justice and not in anger.

Jeremiah’s love for God compels him to complain in complete honesty and trust in him. In his complaint, he affirms the LORD’s righteousness: “Righteous are you, O LORD, when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you.”  His case entails a questioning as to why the wicked proper and thrive. He then acknowledges, again, that “you, O LORD, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward you.”  In other words, he knows that his God knows the motives of his own heart that are driving such questions. Mutual knowledge and mutual love in this God/prophet relationship continue as the LORD graciously answers Jeremiah’s complaint.

Lover of God’s Word
Jeremiah is the man who knows God, loves God, and loves his Word. Apart from the power of God’s Word, it is doubtless Jeremiah would have had the ability to persevere as relentlessly as he did. From the very beginning of his call, the LORD’s words have played an irreplaceable role in Jeremiah’s life and mission. “The LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, ‘Behold I have put my words in your mouth.’”  The very act of God touching the mouth of the prophet-to-be also shows the inimitable level of intimacy at which they began.

Using similar language as the psalmist, Jeremiah describes his love for the words of the LORD. “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.”  As evidenced in this statement of praise, the reason Jeremiah finds God’s word so delightful to the taste is because he is called by his name. In other words, Jeremiah loves God’s word because he loves God and the fact that his own identity as a man and prophet is found in him alone.

Because Jeremiah loves the word of the LORD, he obeys the word of the LORD, both personally and vocationally. Even in extremely difficult times of persecution, Jeremiah perseveres by the power of God’s word, even if under seemingly compulsion. He says, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”  As Brueggemann notes, “He is a man to whom a persistent, inescapable, and overriding word has been delivered. His life consists in coming to terms with that word, finding ways to articulate it to his contemporaries, and living with the hazardous consequences of that reality.”  Indeed, the LORD is with him “as a dread warrior” as he promised he would be from the very beginning.

The Man Who Knew God
In his book with the same title as this section, Mordecai Schreiber argues that “Jeremiah knew God more personally and more intimately than perhaps even Moses.” This comparison partially stems from one’s comment after the death of Moses: “There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.” Indeed, there has not been another prophet since Moses, through whom such signs and wonders have been done like those “in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land.” Schreiber’s comparison, however, refers to the inter-relational dynamic between Moses and God. He calls their relationship “mostly one-sided,” as God commands and Moses obeys. Moses himself does not convey much emotional engagement with God in comparison with Jeremiah’s deeply complex affections for his Lord.

Ironically, some of the first words of the LORD’s call to Jeremiah speak of his own knowledge of the prophet-to-be: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” Even though Jeremiah’s initial response to his prophetic call is expressive of what he doesn’t know, “I do not know how to speak,” a mutual knowledge of one another is eventually reciprocated in their intimate relationship. Moreover, because of this deep and personal knowledge of his God, he is able to persevere as a prophet to the nations. For instance, it is against the people’s wretched idolatry that Jeremiah so often rebukes. They create and worship their own idols because they do not know the one true God. As the LORD himself says, “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.” If the LORD wanted his people to boast in anything at all, it was that they understand and know him, that he is the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. He delights in these things. This is the God that Jeremiah was aimed to persuade the people to return to from their idols. Jeremiah is “the man who knew God.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

Need for Connectedness with Society

Tuesdays with Morrie was published over thirteen years ago. One can only imagine what Morrie would think today regarding the many ways in which people try to connect with others around them—online social networks, email, texting, etc. Mitch describes Morrie’s own immediate connectedness: “When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world.” His thoughtfulness in this regard is both rare and attractive. With conviction, he advises, “I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us.” Morrie reminds me of Jesus here. Surely, Jesus was fully present in every situation, without anxious thoughts concerning what was next on his day’s agenda. Jesus was fully focused on the people he was in conversation with or healing or teaching. We all would do well to heed the counsel of Morrie when he says, “Be more involved in your life while you’re living.” The reason we don’t experience the world fully, he says, is “because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.” God’s wisdom says: Be sober-minded, be watchful (1 Pet. 5.8). All things are lawful. Yet, not all things are profitable. Do not be enslaved by anything (1 Cor. 6.12).

Love Each Other or Perish

“Love each other or perish,” is the reverberating refrain of all Morrie’s words.  After all, he says that the most important thing in life is to “learn how to give out love and to let it come in.” These are very wise words as they reflect the second greatest commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22.39). He adds, “Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.” This definition of love shows Morrie’s familiarity with Christianity and the Bible. As Paul himself says, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2.4). As well, the ideal of love was so significant that he shaped part of the search for a meaningful life by it. “Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” As discussed earlier, Morrie saw the need of being fully human as partially fulfilled by being in relation with others.

Conclusion

Tuesdays with Morrie is an eye-opening and life-transforming little book of wisdom. I am thankful for the common grace given to Morrie Schwartz who lived with such seeming love and humility toward his fellow human beings. As love for the apostle Paul was the highest of all things in life to pursue in relation to mankind, so it was for Morrie. His life of many lessons is a gift of wisdom to any who has ears to hear and take heed.