成績單

What, exactly, is a pastor besides the guy who preaches sermons once or twice a week? Well, pastors are preachers, but they also serve as counselors, leaders, managers, students, examples, and encouragers. They are sometimes elevated too highly and sometimes appreciated too little. Their lives are a mixture of delights and disappointments. But a faithful pastor is not going to trade his ministry for any other job in the world! He might get tired in the work but not of the work.

Well, as the apostle Paul nears the end of his life, he has the opportunity to tell Timothy that it is not worth it—that there just are not enough mountaintop experiences. Yet, here he is, in 2 Timothy 2, encouraging Timothy to stay focused on his primary role in pastoral ministry. He writes this in verse 2:

What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

This is the multiplying impact of a faithful pastor’s ministry of teaching God’s Word. Frankly, the Bible never commands us to personally reach thousands of people but to just make disciples—and we do that one person at a time.

I think of David and Svea Flood, who left Sweden for the heart of Africa in 1921 to reach remote villages with the gospel. But every village rejected them. Finally, they went up a hillside overlooking a village and built a little mud hut and prayed for a spiritual breakthrough. But none came. Their only contact was a young boy who was allowed to come up the hillside and sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood taught him the gospel, and he soon became a Christian.

During this difficult period, Svea came down with malaria about the time she was due to deliver their baby, who was born in that mud hut. In her weakened state, Svea died soon after giving birth to this little girl they named Aina. David Flood left the mission field sometime after giving his daughter up for adoption to another missionary couple.

Aina grew up to follow Christ. She married a man who became president of a Bible college in America. But she knew little of her past. One day she saw a Swedish Christian magazine, and while she could not read the words, she saw a photograph of a jungle setting, with a grave and a little white cross. And on the cross was the name of her mother, Svea Flood.

She quickly found someone who could translate the article and learned the story of missionaries who had come to the Congo years ago. She learned about the birth of a baby girl, the mother’s death, and the little African boy who had been saved. That boy had grown up and won the villagers to Christ. There were now 600 believers and a vibrant church in that village.[1]

Beloved, we have no idea what God might do with just one pastor—or one person—reaching one faithful person who will then reach others.

Now Paul presents some interesting images of the pastor’s commitment. He compares him to a soldier in verse 3, willing to endure hardship and suffering in order to please his commanding officer. He does not get involved in what Paul calls “civilian pursuits” (verse 4); that is, anything that distracts from his spiritual mission in ministry.  

Paul compares the minister to an athlete in verse 5 and to a farmer in verse 6. An athlete and a farmer have this in common: they work hard. And that will characterize anyone who serves the Lord effectively—whether in church leadership or not.

Paul then offers the example of the Lord, who stayed the course. He writes, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David” (verse 8). Talk about suffering! He suffered even death on a cross before rising from the dead. Paul goes on to write that the risen Christ is the heart of the gospel he preaches, and—guess what—he writes in verse 9 that like the Lord, he too is now “suffering, bound with chains as a criminal.”  

Is it worth it? Paul answers that here in verses 11-13:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

for he cannot deny himself.

Imagine that; there is something the Lord cannot do! He cannot deny His own nature as a faithful God. Even when we fail Him, it is impossible for Him to fail us. 

Here is another illustration of a hard worker in verse 15:

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Paul applies the image of a construction worker to the Christian “rightly handling [dividing] the word of truth.” The word he uses for “handling” refers to cutting a straight line—like a mason cuts a stone to fit in a specific place.[2] The pastor-teacher especially wants to be diligent in his study and precise in his preaching—certain he is not preaching error or opinion.

Paul then tells the church leader to “avoid irreverent babble”—empty talk with no genuine spiritual value. This is the very opposite of preaching that handles the Scriptures correctly. Paul writes that such empty, false teaching can “spread like gangrene” (verse 17)—it becomes a deadly infection in the church.

Evidently there was an infection from false teachers in Timothy’s region. Paul writes, “Hymenaeus and Philetus . . . have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened.” They were misinterpreting prophetic Scripture and leading people into discouragement and fear. And that is still going on today.

There is one more picture of a good pastor here in this context of encouragement to young Pastor Timothy. Paul describes him as a vessel, specifically a vessel of honor. In verses 20-21, Paul speaks of “a great house,” which is a reference to the professing church as a whole. He is comparing valuable vessels of gold and silver—that is, godly leaders—to dishonorable vessels, or false teachers.[3]

The remaining verses in chapter 2 describe how a godly pastor, and any Christian for that matter, ought to live. Paul begins in verse 22:

Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart … the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. (verses 22-25)

This is a challenge for every Christian, but it is certainly the calling of every faithful pastor who is carefully studying and teaching God’s Word. It is not an easy life; it demands the diligence of a soldier, an athlete, a farmer, a construction worker, as the gospel is shared perhaps with just a handful of people and one person at a time.

David and Svea Flood led just that one village boy to Christ. But many years after their daughter, Aina, found that magazine article, she and her husband traveled to London to attend an evangelism conference. They listened to the leader of a national church association representing more than 100,000 believers in Africa.

Afterwards Aina went up and asked him if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood. He said, “Oh yes, as a little boy, I used to sell them chickens and eggs.” When Aina told him she was Svea Flood’s daughter, he began to weep as he said, “I’ve often wondered what happened to that little baby whose mother gave her life to lead me to Christ.”[4]

Here is what every faithful pastor—and Christian—is to do: simply share the gospel, and leave everything else to God.