The Preaching of the Word

I cHARGE thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. A.V.

I solemnly charge thee, before God, and Christ Jesus, who is hereafter to judge quick and dead, and J call to witness His appearing and His kingdom! — proclaim the Word, devote thyself to this in and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and teaching.

Tur Letter is approaching its end; a few brief paragraphs and the dictation will be over and the sheet of papyrus will be full. But those closing lines contain a mass of matter of supreme interest, and the tone throughout is eloquent with the lofty urgency of the final words of a great message. A strong line of connexion ties the present passage to the last, although we have to omit from our text, on good authority, the ‘therefore’ given in the Authorized Version. St. Paul has been speaking of the Message of eternal truth, to be delivered by Timothy to his flock and to be passed on by him to ‘faithful men’ for another generation. Lastly he has called his thoughts particularly to the Scriptures, as the vehicle to man of the knowledge of the love and will of God, ‘holy writings’ which, lighted up by ‘faith in Christ

1 My translation of this clause attempts to explain the difficult reading which has the best authority.

The Preaching of the Word

Jesus,’ are found to be full of His Gospel and of His 2 Tim. iv. holiness. Can we doubt that the sentence now before I, 2. us has a kindred reference? We are not indeed to make ‘the Word’ mean precisely the Bible, no more and no less; there is a sense in which every true utterance of the message of redemption and holiness, even to ‘the end of the age, is ‘the Word.’ But we may assuredly say, what the primeval Church assuredly believed, that the Bible is the Word par excellence. For it is the one authorized record of the workings of divine Love in meeting our sin and death, and it is the only Book on earth which carries upon it, from end to end, in one way or another, the imprimatur of the Son of God as the authentic revelation of Himself, and of His Father’s mind through Him, and of ‘the glory to be revealed in us’ because of Him. Well then may St. Paul pass from his testimony to the greatness of the Scriptures to this last appeal to Timothy to preach ‘the Word,’ preaching it, like that ‘grave person’ whom Christian saw in the house of the Interpreter, with ‘eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written upon his lips, and the world behind his back.’

But now — ponder this urgency of the Apostle’s A Call of appeal. What is it which thus lies upon his heart oe as he looks death full in the face? What is it over which he thus recalls the presence of the Father and the Son, and summons up the prospect of the Coming, and the Judgement, and the Kingdom? It is — the preaching, the proclaiming, the telling out by the Lord’s cormhmissioned herald to the world, of ‘the

2 Tim. iv.
72.

A Call to

the Christian
Ministry
to-day.

Word.’ Upon that proclamation all the man’s energies are to be bent, and all the resources of an unweariable ‘long-suffering,’ in face of prejudice, and opposition, and mistake, are to accompany the ‘teaching.’ His voice, speaking the message which had first passed through his own heart, is to seize every occasion for this supreme labour; he is to speak for Christ to man ‘in and out of season’; that is to say, regardless altogether of his own convenience, and not too anxiously regardful, though doubtless, for his work’s sake, not forgetful, of the opportuneness of the moment as to others.

‘Preach the Word’; proclaim the Message; place the Lord Christ Jesus, by your words in His name, to the very utmost possible, alongside human sins and human sorrows, while there is time, ‘while it is called to-day.’

This, in the Apostle’s view, as he stood upon the threshold of eternity, was the thing of all things for Timothy to do. True, he would have other duties; he would have to minister ordinances and to be the administrative leader of the mission-churches. But supremely, he was to ‘proclaim the Word’; this before all things was man’s great need, and this therefore was the Lord’s pastoral servant’s highest and incessant task.

Is it not so to-day? We reverently remember the place and claims, in the life of the Church, of ordinances of worship and of ‘governments and helps.’ But let the ordained minister of God remember afresh, over this dying Letter of St. Paul, the holy greatness of ‘the pulpit, in the widest significance

The Preaching of the Word

of that word. Away with neglect and contempt of 2 Tim. iv. preaching, as if it were a secondary thing and of I, 2. inferior sanctity. Rightly done, it is the Church’s absolutely vital requisite in order to efficiency for her

Lord. Therefore we will ‘charge’ one another, before

God and Christ, and looking to the coming end, to

‘proclaim the Word.’

3, 4-

A Motive
from
Difficulties.