140. Beginner Bible Course: Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus (Pastor Letters)

EPISODE 140:  Simple Bible overview:  PAUL’S LETTERS TO TIMOTHY AND TO TITUS

Called the dance. They do it on cold Minnesota nights to stay warm porcupines huddled together in their nest. But when they snuggle, they poke each other. So they back away, which of course makes them cold again. And they repeat the cycle, the dance they're pokey Pines. I've spent six decades in a local church. And what I haven't told you yet is 25 of those years, I pastored in three local churches based on that experience from the pews and from the pulpit. I think that porcupine dance is perhaps the best imagery of life in the local church. Porchia people call to a nest by God needing to snuggle and community, but poking each other.

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We now move to three letters. Paul wrote to pastors, Titus and Timothy people that God had placed into leadership in these local nests to pastor these pork you pets. Did you know, that's what they called. Little Parky Pines. Isn't that cute? Timothy and Titus are Porchia shepherds. Yes. I know I'm mixing my metaphors in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul taught that God had raised up certain people past their teachers to equip the saints for ministry so that the body of Christ could be built up into the fullness of Jesus. Two of these pastors are addressed with letters in the new Testament, Timothy and Titus.

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Paul writes these letters to these two pastor teachers overseeing their nests in emphasis and on the Island of Crete. Just a couple of things about these pastors. Timothy was Paul's closest apprentice. He was like a son to Paul. We're going to get more on this in our next episode, on the last words of Paul and his death on the second missionary journey, Paul had met and picked up Timothy enlist Dre. He followed Paul around for almost two decades as his closest to Prentice. Paul likes to send them off to churches that especially need a good man right now. This good man. Timothy is at Ephesus. When Paul writes the first letter to Timothy Titus by his name is a Gentile.

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We learn. He was led to Jesus by Paul. He was with Paul at that important Jerusalem council in acts 15. Paul sent him to Corinth on his third missionary journey, caring to them the second letter to Corinth and collecting from them. The offering they had promised Paul leaves, Titus in Crete to use his administrative gifts to organize the work there. He was eventually replaced. So Paul could send him North to Dalmatia present day Yugoslavia, know a little about their nests. We learned quite a bit about FSS on the third missionary journey. It was the home to Artemis, the God of the Ephesians. Do you remember their two hour chant?

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Greatest Artimus God of the Ephesians. It was quite a refined place. Crete on the other was well Crete. You may have heard the term don't act like a cretin. That is a knuckle dragging Neanderthal in his letter to Titus. Paul cites one of their own poets. Quote, cretins are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons unquote. So these pastors pastored in two very different settings. Before we get into the dance. Porchia pets in the nest of the local church. I want to remind us what Paul has taught so far about porcupine pets. We wiggly people in the church.

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He taught in Ephesians prior to trusting in Jesus. We were lost dead in our sin without God and hopeless. He also stated in Romans, we were squeezed into the world's mold, cookie cutters, following the world's systems and priorities, but then we got saved by going all in on Jesus. Jesus had already warned, not all who would be in the nest would be saved. He gave several parables how the church like a field would be sprinkled with tears, not just real wheat. That's important for us to remember, but most in the local church are God's ragamuffin. Kids saved by all in trust in Jesus.

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Several times, Paul has also written that we are slowly being sanctified. God is taking us precious little pig pens, and slowly over the course of our life, washing us up. He said in the letter to the Corinthians, whoever's gone all in on Jesus. The Christ, the Messiah is becoming a new creature. All things fade away, new things come. Sometimes the old fade out and the new fade in is very slow. Paul wrote to us in Thessalonians and in Ephesians, we can slow it down further. The Holy spirit is responsible for that change of our lives. That reforming into God's image.

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He wrote in Thessalonians, we can throw a wet blanket on the Holy spirit, quench his work in our lives. And in Ephesians we learned we can grieve the Holy spirit with our attitudes and behavior, all this to say pork pets can drastically slow down the process of having the old life washed off us and God creating a new life in us. We've also been told it's important that we gather together as pork, your people into community, into our nest, our local church. Now just think about these things, both the saved and the lost in the nest and those who are saved in the nest being slowly changed.

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God, filing down our pokey places as it were. And now we're called to huddle together. Even closer in community that we need each other. We need each other's gifts to be built up into what Jesus wants us to be. Can you see a problem in the letters to Timothy and Titus? Paul States clearly what the precious little pokey people in local NIS will be like. Paul gives both Timothy and Titus, remarkably similar descriptions about the pokey people in their nests. The tightest description is in the second letter to Timothy. I want to read it for you. What will local church people be like?

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Here's what Paul says for people will be lovers of self lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanders disobedient to parents, ungrateful unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control brutal haters of good treacherous, reckless conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God holding to a form of godliness. Although they've denied its power weighed down with sin led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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Pastors could take Paul's list and turn it into a checklist. Every single time, there was a knock on a pastor's office store with one of his or her parishioners coming in for a counseling appointment. He or she could basically check off which items on that list are driving the problem. But before the knock comes, each of those pastors in their offices could walk down that particular list, checking off areas. He or she deeply struggles were parked. You pastors, this really derail some people they expect to come into a local church, a nest and find less pokey people.

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And in that nest, there will be certain people who are far less pokey people that God has shaved off their prickly points to a much greater degree. Every church I've ever been in as a pokey parishioner or a pokey pastor have had some saints that are remarkable. They're not about themselves, but about others. They're not conceited, but humble. They're transformed. You might say I've never been in a church and not found some of those kinds of people, but most in the nest are still awfully pokey. Paul then moves on to Timothy and Titus and encourages them.

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What kind of pork you pastors, they should be. These letters are rich instruction manual. For those who would lead the local church. I'm just going to give you a few things that leap off the pages of these letters and turn you loose to study them more for yourself. Paul urges these two men to set things in order in their local nests. Paul starts by saying, gentlemen, don't do this alone. In every city. Paul planted a church. He appointed overseers elders older, and the Lord park. You people or park your pastors in Timothy and Titus. Paul gives a list of the kinds of leaders to look for.

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He gives a list for both men and women for elders and deacons. Here are some of the things on that list. Being the husband of one wife, one who manages his own home nest. Well for if he can't manage his little Porchia nest, how's he going to manage the church? Nest, someone who has a good reputation, even among those who are not God's people, someone who's not self-willed, who's an others oriented person. Someone who isn't quick tempered that can happen in a nest of pokey people, someone who's not given too much wine. Yes. It could lead a man or woman to drink someone who is self-controlled hospitable disciplined, and who holds firmly to God's word is his or her standard.

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Paul goes on further to focus on Timothy and Titus. He urges them to be men of prayer call for the helper. This job gentlemen is way over your head here, just Timothy and Titus. To start with yourself, absorb God's word, like a sponge, keep your conscience soft. And your account's short with God don't personally grieve or quench. The Spirit's work in your own life. Paul gives Timothy three metaphors for how to view his own shaping and ministry. The metaphors of a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer, the soldier who's focused and under the direct command of God, an athlete who's disciplined and training himself for God's use and a farmer who's hardworking and patient doing what he can do and trusting God to do what he can't.

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Then with these men, Paul turns toward their outward activity. I've already mentioned, surround yourself with quality fellow elders. Don't grab elders who are brand new in the faith. Make sure that they're seasoned and growing. That's because you and your elders need to be models to these. Porchia people of how to walk the walk of faith with Christ. Don't get tangled up in trivia, the minors of life, but focus on the majors, obedience to Jesus, sharing the gospel with the lost, absorbing the word of God, like a sponge and ringing it out to others, which leads to Paul's command, teach, teach, and more.

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Teach, teach sound doctrine to these Porchia people that are dearly loved by God and model this so that it is both taught and caught. Paul reminds Timothy and Titus their work and the work of their fellow elders is extremely God. Honoring Paul then speaks to park your pets in the nest about their pastors or elders. He tells us care for these pastors. Their job is difficult. Show them honor, double honor. If they make a living from this, pay them yes. Point out they're pokey places as well, but do it graciously realizing the very difficult job they have and make their job less difficult by allowing God through his Holy spirit to file down the pokey places in each of us.

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If you're in one of these local church NES, and you've got a faithful porcupine pastor, would you call text or email him or her and let your pastor know just how much you appreciate that God has placed him or her in your local nest. Paul has one more letter. He's going to write before his life is ended quickly by Nero in Rome. It's a very intimate letter to Timothy who he calls his son. We're going to take a deeper look at Paul's second letter to Timothy his last words on this planet to the dearest man in his life. One he's passing the Baton to, before going to be with Jesus.

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And we'll look at that intimate letter and Paul's reunion with his Lord Jesus in our next wordpicture.