The True Pastor’s Call

Or these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. A.V.

Remind men of these things, adjuring them as in the presence of God not to fight over words, to no useful purpose, but so as to involve rather the ruin of the hearers. Be in earnest to present to God yourself, tested and true, a workman wnashamed, holding straight onward through the Word of the truth. Tue thought turns now from Timothy’s personal ex- 2 Tim. ii. perience and its underlying principles to his influence 14, 15upon others. Particularly the Apostle has in view here A Message the pastors and preachers whom Timothy is called to; superintend, to counsel, to encourage. This comes out in one way or another all through the rest of this second chapter, but most explicitly here, in verse 14, where the first thought is directed to the ruinous effects of ‘ word-fighting’ upon ‘ the hearers. We gather hence that the men to be ‘reminded of these things,’ that is to say, of this great law of the discipline of suffering, were to be men whose function it was to speak to their listening brethren.

Here is an instructive order of topics, suggestive for The Order all time to the ministers of Jesus Christ. The chief f T°Pis-Pastor is first dealt with, as to the state and history of his own soul, his own proficiency in the school of the Cross. Then, and only then, as one who can indeed hand

2 Tim. ii,
14, I5.

The Misery of ‘ Word-fighting.’ on that truth ‘through personality,’ he is to press a genuine conformity to the Cross upon his brethren in the work. Theyin their turn are to remember, unweariedly, their ‘hearers.’ They are to ‘believe, to suffer, and to love,’ 1 never for themselves alone, but largely also for the flock. They are to think, to reason, to teach, to discourse, with the flock deep in their hearts.

‘ Adjuring them as in the presence of God not to fight over words.’ Would that the soul, the spirit, of that appeal had ruled the Church and its pastors from the first; we should see another face upon the world to-day. Let us not misread the thought, as if the Apostle meant that ‘words,’ from all points of view, are trifles. No, there are positions and moments when a word is of infinite import. ‘God,’ ‘faith,’ ‘death,’ ‘life,’ these are but words from one aspect, but to use them aright may mean the whole difference between supreme reality and deadly illusion. To own from the soul, and with the lips, that Christ is God, ‘my Lord and my God,’ may be to take sides decisively and for ever with eternal truth and fact against a dream. Yes, but man has a tendency to ‘fight over words’ when those words stand less for great realities, ultimate and sacred, than for his own favourite opinions, the constructions of his own mind, sometimes rather the creatures of his own wish and will. He sets them up sometimes as idols to be worshipped, sometimes as curiosities to be examined in a microscope, sometimes as objects on which merely to exercise his mental dexterity. And then, as regards

1*To believe, to suffer, to love, was the primitive taste.’ Joseph Milner: History of the Church of Christ.

The True Pastor’s Cali

the soul, and the Lord, and the life eternal, they 2 Tim. ii. become dead things, white bones upon a field of battle. 14, 15. The strife about them, though connected with religion,

can then become as totally irreligious as anything can

be. For it may give those ‘hearers’ the illusion of

being religiously interested when ail the while ‘God

is not, in all their thoughts.’

Let us watch ourselves with peculiar attention when we find ourselves drawn into controversies on religion. Then is the time above all others to resolve that our souls shall live behind and above ‘ words,’ in conscious touch with the eternal THINGS.

Meanwhile for himself Timothy was to keep close The Chief to his divine Master, in order that it might be thus eat) with his own soul. He was to ‘present to God homself’ (the word is emphatic in the Greek), to stand ever at his Lord’s beck and call, ‘tested and true’ before His eyes — ‘good metal’ all through, in respect of the single-hearted will to please Him. He was to be shy of his own notions, and indomitably faithful to ‘the Word of the truth,’ the precious revelation of Christ Jesus, His work, His love, and His will; ‘unashamed’ as he looked up to His blessed face, ‘and laboured on at His command, and offered all his works to Him.’

He was (rendering literally) to ‘cut a straight line through ’ that Word, even as the ploughman draws his long furrow true across the breadth of the fertile field. In other words, ‘the counsel of God,’ and the whole of it, is to be his meditation and his message, from the first and to the last, whoever around him may still be ‘fighting over words.’

2 Tim. ii.
16-19.
A Solemn

Encouragement.