Letters to Two Young Men

One name kept turning up in those letters. Timothy. He came from Lystra, the town where the stones had been thrown. His mother was a Jew who trusted the Lord and his father a Greek. His grandmother was Lois and his mother Eunice, and they had taught him the holy writings since he was small enough to sit on a lap.

There was a second young man too: Titus, a Greek, who had been with him a long while. In the end he left them both in hard places. Timothy at Ephesus, where the silversmiths had rioted. Titus on the island of Crete. Then he wrote to them, an old man to two young ones, about a job he would not be there to do.

“I left you at Ephesus so that you could tell certain people to stop teaching a different teaching, and to stop with the myths and the endless family lists. What the charge is after is love — out of a clean heart, a good conscience, and honest trust. They want to be teachers of the law and do not understand what they say. The law is good, if a man uses it the way it is meant to be used. Law is not laid down for a person who is doing right. It is there for the lawless and the wild, the irreverent and the sinful, for people who kill their fathers and their mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for slave dealers, for liars — and for whatever else is against the healthy teaching.” “And I left you behind on Crete to straighten out what was left undone, and to appoint elders town by town.”

“He gave me work to do — me, who used to hunt his people down. I was shown mercy, because I did it not knowing. Here is a saying you can take hold of with both hands: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the first of them. This charge I put into your hands, my child Timothy: fight the good campaign, holding on to trust and a good conscience. Some have shoved that away, and their faith has gone down like a ship on rocks. Hymenaeus and Alexander are two of them.”

“First of all I want prayers made for everybody there is — asking, pleading, thanking — and for kings and everybody in high places, so that we can get on with a quiet and settled life. That pleases God our rescuer, who wants everybody saved and brought to know the truth. There is one God, and one go-between: the human being Christ Jesus, who gave himself for all.”

“I want the men in every place to pray with their hands lifted up, and no anger in them, and no arguing. And the women to dress in an orderly way, modest and sensible — not braided hair and gold and pearls and costly clothes, but good works, which is what suits women who say they honor God. Let a woman learn quietly, in all submission. I do not allow a woman to teach, or to have authority over a man; she is to be quiet. For Adam was formed first, and Eve after; and it was not Adam who was fooled — the woman was fooled all the way, and stepped over the line. But she will be brought safely through the childbearing, if they go on in faith and love and holiness, with good sense.”

Then he wrote out what to look for in the men who would lead. “If a man reaches for the work of an overseer, it is good work he wants. So he must be a man nobody can point a finger at. The husband of one wife. Sober. Sensible. Orderly. A man who takes strangers into his house. Able to teach. Not a drinker. Not a man who hits people. Fair. Not one to pick a fight. Not in love with money. A man who stands well at the head of his own household, whose children mind him, and the whole house kept with dignity — because if a man cannot run his own house, how will he look after a gathering of God? Not somebody newly planted, or he will swell up and fall into the same judgment the Accuser fell into. And people outside must speak well of him, or he will walk into disgrace and into the Accuser’s trap. On Crete the list is not quite the same. “A man with nothing against him. The husband of one wife. His children trusting, with nobody able to charge them with running wild or being out of hand. Not self-willed. Not quick to anger. Not a drinker. Not a man who hits people. Not greedy for money got the shabby way. A lover of strangers. A lover of good. Sensible. Right. Holy. With a hold on himself. Holding hard to the faithful word he was taught, so that he can put heart into people with healthy teaching and answer the ones who talk against it.”

“The servants of the gathering, the same. Dignified. Not two-tongued. Not stuck to the wine jar. Not greedy for money got the shabby way. Holding the secret of the faith with a clean conscience. Test them first, then let them serve. The women, the same: dignified, not tale-tellers, sober, faithful all through. And let the servants be husbands of one wife, standing well at the head of their children and their own households.

“If I am slow in coming, you will know how to behave in the household of God, the gathering of the living God, a pillar and a prop for the truth. And everybody agrees how great the secret of honoring God is: he was made plain in flesh, was announced among the nations, was trusted in the world, was taken up in glory.”

“The Spirit says it in so many words: in later seasons some will stand back from the faith and hold on to lying spirits and the teachings of demons. They forbid people to marry, and tell them to keep off foods God made to be taken with thanks. Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be thrown away if it is taken with thanks.”

“Set these things in front of the brothers. But the common old tales — refuse them. Train yourself for honoring God. Training the body is worth a little; honoring God is worth everything, and holds a promise for the life that is now and the life that is coming. Charge these things, and teach them.”

“Let nobody look down on you because you are young. Be a pattern for the faithful instead — in what you say, in the way you live, in love, in trust, in keeping clean. Until I come, keep at the reading and the urging and the teaching. Do not leave the gift in you lying idle; it was given you when the elders laid their hands on your head. Live inside these things, so everybody can see you going forward. Watch yourself, and watch the teaching. Do not go at an older man harshly. Urge him the way you would urge your own father. Younger men, like brothers. Older women, like mothers. Younger women, like sisters — and keep it clean.”

“Honor widows — the ones who really are widows. If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to be good to their own household first, and pay back what they owe the people who raised them. A real widow, left on her own, has put her hope in God and is at her prayers night and day; but the one who lives for her own pleasure is dead while she is still alive. Charge them with this as well, so that nobody can find a thing against them. And anybody who does not provide for his own, above all his own household, has denied what he says he believes, and is worse than somebody who never believed.” He set a rule for the list of widows the gathering supported: not under sixty, the wife of one husband, known for good done — if she brought up children, took strangers in, washed the feet of the holy ones, helped people in trouble. The younger ones he told to marry, have children, run their houses, and give the man against them no opening to say a word; and a woman with widows of her own was to keep them, so the gathering could help those who had nobody.

“The elders who lead well are worth double honor, most of all the ones who work hard at the word and the teaching. The Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle the ox while he is treading out the grain,’ and, ‘The worker is worth his pay.’ Do not take an accusation against an elder unless two or three people saw it. The ones who go on sinning, show up in front of everybody, so that the rest are afraid to. Do not make your mind up beforehand, and do not lean to one side. Lay your hands on nobody in a hurry, and do not go shares in other people’s wrongs. Keep yourself clean. And stop drinking only water. Take a little wine, for your stomach, and because you are ill so often.”

“The ones teaching a different teaching are sick over questions and word-fights, and out of it come envy and quarreling and suspicion. They think honoring God is a way to get rich. It is — but not the way they mean. Honoring God and being content is a great fortune. We brought nothing into the world and cannot carry anything out. If we have food and something to put on, that will do. The ones set on being rich fall into a trap. A root of every evil there is, is the love of money. Some have reached for it and wandered off into a great deal of pain. But you are God’s man. Run from all that. Chase what is right, and honoring God, and trust, and love, and staying power, and a gentle temper. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the everlasting life you were called to, and owned up to in front of plenty of witnesses. In front of God, and in front of Christ Jesus, who owned up to it in front of Pontius Pilate, I charge you: keep the command clean, with no mark on it, until our Lord Jesus Christ appears.”

“And tell the rich of this present age not to look down their noses, and not to pin their hopes on money, which nobody can be sure of, but on God, who gives us everything we have and means us to enjoy it. Tell them to do good, to be rich in good works, quick to give a share away, glad to hold things in common. Then they will get hold of the life that really is life. Timothy — guard what was put into your hands, and turn away from the empty talk and the arguments out of what people wrongly call knowledge.”

“Slaves under a yoke are to count their own masters worthy of every honor, so that nobody can say a word against the name of God and the teaching. And the ones whose masters are believers are not to think less of them for being brothers; they should serve them better. Teach these things, and keep on at them.”

To Titus he wrote the same for everybody on the island. “The old men are to be clear-headed, dignified, sensible, healthy in faith and love and staying power. The old women the same: carrying themselves the way holy things are carried, no slandering, not enslaved to the wine, teachers of what is good — so that they can bring the young women along and teach them to love their husbands and their children, to be sensible and pure, to work at home, to be good, and to be under their own husbands, so that nobody can speak against the word of God. The younger men: tell them plainly to have good sense. And be the pattern yourself in everything — in your teaching, in being straight, in carrying yourself well, in healthy talk nobody can fault, so that the man on the other side is left ashamed, with nothing bad to say about us. Slaves are to be under their own masters in everything, and pleasing, and not talk back, and not help themselves to what is not theirs, but show all through that they can be trusted, so that in everything they make the teaching of God our rescuer look good. For the kindness of God has appeared, and it brings rescue to everybody. And it is training us to say no — no to living as though there were no God, and no to the wants of this world — and to live in this present age with good sense, and rightly, and in a way that honors God, while we wait for our great God and rescuer Jesus Christ to appear in his glory. He gave himself for us to buy us back out of all our lawlessness, and to make himself a people of his own, keen on doing good. Say all this, and urge it, and put people right, with every bit of authority you have. Let nobody look down on you.”

Crete gave Titus his own trouble: talkers turning households over, teaching what they should not, for money. Paul quoted one of the island’s own poets: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.’ “Their mouths have to be stopped,” he wrote. “And the poet told the truth. So tell them off, and sharply — sharp enough to make them healthy, and done with myths and with rules made up by people who have turned their backs on the truth. To the clean, everything is clean. To people who are dirty inside and will not trust, nothing is clean; their minds and consciences are dirty too. They say they know God, and deny him with everything they do.”

“Keep clear of stupid arguments, and family lines, and fights about the law. They are useless. And a man who splits people into parties — warn him once, warn him twice, and then have nothing more to do with him. Remind them all to obey the rulers, to be ready for every good work, to run nobody down, not to be quarrelsome, to be fair, to be gentle with everybody. We were all stupid ourselves once, and disobedient, hating each other. Then the kindness of God our rescuer showed up, and he rescued us — not for anything right we had done, but out of his own mercy, in a washing that makes people new. Keep on at them about this, so that the people who trust God take the lead in doing good. And let our own people learn to take the lead wherever there is real need, so they do not come to nothing.”

“When I send somebody to take your place, come to me at Nicopolis; I have decided to winter there. Send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way, and see they go short of nothing. Greet the people who love us. Favor be with all of you.” That was the plan: a winter in a harbor town.