SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/7/2025 10:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Teacher”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy 2:2
Message of the
verse: “The
things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men
who will be able to teach others also.”
Yester we ended up talking about church leaders who
have just dropped out of the Lord’s service, some were just like the runner
that MacArthur wrote about in his commentary.
Timothy had not yet reached that
point of defection, however it is clear that Paul knew his young friend, who
was his son in the faith, was being tempted in that direction. Before such a serious crisis occurred,
therefore, Paul was saying something like “Don’t even consider dropping out or
even curtailing you work to suit your own desires. The truth is that this isn’t even your
ministry but the Lord’s, and you have no right to quit or to slack until He “takes
you out of the game,” as it were, either by death or by the rapture. I cannot let you become a broke link in God’s
chain of faithful witnesses. You not
only have to keep going yourself but you have to help others get going and keep
going as well.” This section was pretty
much what MacArthur wrote as I just put some of my own words in it.
MacArthur now combines the relay
race he mentioned earlier with the spiritual race: “The first stage in the spiritual ‘relay’ was
the truth being handed from Paul to Timothy, which the apostles describes here
as Timothy’s careful receiving and studying the things which he had heard from Paul over
the period of several years traveling with the apostle and of ministering with
him in Ephesus.
Let us talk a minute about in the
presence of many witnesses, as this carries the fuller idea of “supported by
confirming testimony of other teachers” and this includes the teaching of other
apostles. Peter writes in his second
letter which was written about the same time as 2 Timothy He attested that Paul
authoritatively preached God’s Word.
(See 2 Peter 3:14-16). Those
witnesses certainly would have included Paul’s fellow preachers and also
teachers, such as Barnabas and Silas.
Luke is another one that can be added to these other friend and fellow
workers for the Lord that helped Paul on many of his trips, also would have
been qualified to confirm to Timothy the divine authenticity of Paul’s
teaching. Now from the time he first met
and began accompanying Paul (Acts 16:1-3), Timothy exposed to the public
teaching and private counsel of many godly witnesses in addition to Paul.
MacArthur writes “Paratithemi (entrust) is here an
imperative and carries the idea of depositing something valuable for
safekeeping. It is a verb form of the
noun (paratheke), used twice in the
previous chapter, referring to the treasure Paul had entrusted to the Lord
(1:2) and that Paul had entrusted to Timothy (v. 14)—namely, the treasure ‘of
sound words which you have heard from me’ (v. 13). Now it was time for the treasure with which
Timothy had been entrusted to be entrusted by him to others.”
1/7/2025 10:19
AM
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