Stott Reading Timothy and Titus with John Stott

13 Weeks for Individuals or Groups
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8308-9242-6
Verlag: IVP Bible Studies
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Reihe: Reading the Bible with John Stott Series

We live in a land where truth is subjective, individualized, and culturally conditioned. That same troubling thinking had invaded the churches led by Timothy and Titus, so Paul's pastoral letters to them focus on the objective and universal truth revealed in Jesus. John Stott's teachings from The Message of 1 Timothy and Titus and The Message of 2 Timothy are offered here as brief devotional readings suitable for daily use. Designed as a church resource for small groups, this book includes thirteen weekly studies that take you passage by passage through the pastoral letters, allowing readers to enjoy the riches of Stott's writings in a new, easy-to-use format.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) has been known worldwide as a preacher, evangelist and communicator of Scripture. For many years he served as rector of All Souls Church in London, where he carried out an effective urban pastoral ministry. A leader among evangelicals in Britain, the United States and around the world, Stott was a principal framer of the landmark Lausanne Covenant (1974). Stott's many books, including Basic Christianity and The Cross of Christ, have sold millions of copies. In the Bible Speaks Today series, for which he served as New Testament editor, he wrote eight volumes, including The Message of Acts and The Message of Ephesians.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stott, John

Leseproben

2

1 Timothy 2

Worship and Women

Pray for All

1 Timothy 2:1-2

1I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

As Paul had “urged” Timothy to remain in Ephesus to combat error, so now he exhorts him to give priority to public worship. The church is essentially a worshiping, praying community. This emphasis on the priority of worship has particular importance for us who are called evangelical people. For whenever we fail to take public worship seriously, we are less than the fully biblical Christians we claim to be. I sometimes wonder whether the comparatively slow progress toward peace and justice in the world and toward world evangelization is due more than anything else to the prayerlessness of the people of God.

Paul mentions four different kinds of worship: petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving. Although Paul uses this cluster of four words, they all focus on a single theme, namely, that they should “be made for all people.” In particular, Paul directs the churches to pray “for kings and all those in authority.” This is a remarkable instruction, since at that time no Christian ruler existed anywhere in the world. The reigning emperor was Nero, whose vanity, cruelty, and hostility to the Christian faith were widely known. The persecution of the church, spasmodic at first, was soon to become systematic, and Christians were understandably apprehensive. Yet they had recourse to prayer.

Paul is quite specific in directing why the church should pray for national leaders. It is first and foremost “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives.” The basic benefit of good government is peace, meaning freedom both from war and from civil strife. Paul had many experiences of this blessing when Roman officials intervened on his behalf.

Prayer for peace is not to be dismissed as selfish. Its motivation can be altruistic, for only within an ordered society is the church free to fulfill its God-given responsibilities without hindrance. Two blessings of peace are mentioned, “godliness and holiness,” and a third (the propagation of the gospel) is implied. Godliness is a favorite word in Paul’s pastoral letters, where it means the worship of God or religious devotion. Holiness in this context seems to mean moral wholeheartedness.

What stands out in this passage is the universal range of the church’s responsibility. Because God’s purpose and Christ’s death concern everybody, the church’s prayers and proclamation must concern everybody too.

God’s Desire for All

1 Timothy 2:3-4

3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

“This” is prayer that those in authority will maintain peace. Here Paul implies another positive benefit of peace, which is that peaceful conditions facilitate the propagation of the gospel. The ultimate object of our prayers for national leaders, then, is that in the context of the peace they preserve, religion and morality can flourish, and evangelism can go forward without interruption.

The reason the church should reach out and embrace all people in its prayers is that this is the compass of God’s desire. We need to repent of the monopolizing spirit of racism, nationalism, tribalism, classism, and parochialism, and the pride and prejudice that are the cause of these narrow horizons. The truth is that God loves the whole world, desires all people to be saved, and so commands us to preach the gospel to all the nations and to pray for their conversion.

Scripture unquestionably teaches divine election both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, yet this truth must never be expressed in such a way as to deny the complementary truth that God wants all people to be saved. Election is usually introduced in Scripture to humble us (reminding us that the credit for our salvation belongs to God alone) or to reassure us (promising us that God’s love will never let us go) or to stir us to mission (recalling that God chose Abraham and his family in order to bless all the families of the earth through him). Election is never introduced in order to contradict the universal offer of the gospel or to provide us with an excuse for opting out of world evangelization. If some are excluded, it is because they exclude themselves by rejecting the gospel offer. As for God, he “wants all people to be saved.”

Wherever we look in Scripture we see paradox: divine sovereignty and human responsibility, universal offer and electing purpose, the all and the some, the cannot and the will not. The right response is neither to seek superficial harmonization by manipulating some part of the evidence nor to declare that Jesus and Paul contradicted themselves, but to affirm both parts of the antinomy as true, while humbly confessing that at present our little minds are unable to resolve it.

One God, One Mediator

1 Timothy 2:5-6

5For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.

A mediator is an intermediary, the person in the middle who effects a reconciliation between two rival parties. Between God and the human race, Paul writes, there is only “one mediator,” Jesus. His unique qualifications as mediator are to be found in his person and work, in who he is and what he has done.

First, the person of Jesus is unique. He is God from the beginning, deriving his divine being from his Father eternally, and he became human in the womb of his mother, Mary, deriving his human being from her in time. Thus the New Testament bears witness to him as the unique God-man. There is no parallel anywhere else.

Second, the work of Jesus is unique, in particular what he did when he died on the cross. He “gave himself as a ransom for all people.” Note the apostle’s remarkable leap from the birth of Jesus (“the man Christ Jesus”) to his death (“who gave himself”). The one led to the other. He was born to die. His death is portrayed as both a sacrifice (he “gave himself”) and a “ransom.” A ransom was the price paid for the release of slaves or captives. Still in our day hijackers hold people for ransom. The word implies that we were in bondage to sin and judgment, unable to save ourselves, and that the price paid for our deliverance was the death of Christ in our place.

Here is the double uniqueness of Jesus Christ, which qualifies him to be the only mediator. First there is the uniqueness of his divine-human person, and second the uniqueness of his substitutionary, redeeming death. We must keep these three nouns together—the man, the ransom, and the mediator. Historically, they refer to the three major events in his saving career: his birth, by which he became man; his death, in which he gave himself as a ransom; and his exaltation (by resurrection and ascension) to the Father’s right hand, where he acts as our mediator or advocate today. Theologically, they refer to the three great doctrines of salvation: the incarnation, the atonement, and the heavenly mediation.

Since in no other person but Jesus of Nazareth has God first become man (taking our humanity to himself) and then given himself as a ransom (taking our sin and guilt upon himself), therefore he is the only mediator. There is no other. No one else possesses, or has ever possessed, the necessary qualifications to mediate between God and sinners.

Heralds and Teachers

1 Timothy 2:7

7And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

How are we to understand the three nouns herald, apostle, and teacher? Paul was all three, but nobody is all three today. The designation “apostle,” when used of the “apostles of Christ” in distinction to the “apostles of the churches,” alluded primarily to the Twelve, to whom Paul and James were later added. They were eyewitnesses of the historic Jesus, especially of his resurrection, were promised the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit and were given authority to teach in Christ’s name. In addition, Paul was appointed the “apostle to the Gentiles.” His strong ejaculation that he was telling the truth and not lying was probably necessary because the false teachers were challenging his apostolic authority.

Although there are no “apostles” of Christ today who are comparable in inspiration and authority to the writers of the New Testament, there are certainly “heralds” and “teachers.” It was the task of the apostles to formulate, defend, and commend the gospel. It is the task of heralds to proclaim it and the task of teachers to give systematic instruction in its doctrines and ethics. What do they proclaim and teach? Jesus Christ, the God-man, the ransom and the mediator, and all that is implied by those truths. To whom do they minister? To “the Gentiles,” all people of all nations. How do they do so? By...