Today We Wrap Up Our Extended Look at 2 Timothy 4

by Phil Johnson



till summing up his own ministry philosophy, expanding what he means in verse 2 ("preach the word . . . in season and out"), and now writing his final words of advice to Timothy, Paul ends with four imperatives in quick succession. Let's look at each one.

"As for you, [in contrast to every popular trend] always be sober-minded" (v. 5). The Greek word Paul uses has all the same connotations as the English word sobriety. Its primary meaning has to do with abstinence from wine.

In this context, however, the admonition is not exclusively—and probably not even primarily—about the consumption of wine. Like our word sober, the Greek term here also speaks of alertness, serious thoughtfulness, dignity. The King James Version translates it as a reference to watchfulness: "But watch thou in all things." And that's certainly an important aspect of the idea.

Remember, all these imperatives expand and elaborate on the central idea, which is at the head of the list: "Preach the word." Paul is saying, handle it soberly. Treat it with the gravity and sobriety and circumspection your calling warrants. Don't be a clown or a trifler in the pulpit. Especially when people are demanding to have their ears tickled, you need to impress on them the full weight of the profound importance of God's unadulterated Word.

Then: "endure suffering." This is an inevitable and inescapable aspect of every minister's duty. Chapter 3, verse 12: "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

Paul's own sufferings bleed into the text of both his epistles to Timothy. Paul keeps telling Timothy he needs to be bold, to embrace suffering, to stand up against opposition and take the blows he would inevitably be dealt—to die for the truth if necessary. Timothy obviously had a much more timid constitution than the apostle Paul. That seems to have been his besetting sin, so Paul tells him repeatedly that he needs to "Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2:3). If you aren't willing to do that, you need to get out of ministry.

I once heard a young seminary student insist that if we're kind enough, and positive enough in what we preach about, and as tender-hearted and compassionate and winsome as we can be—then it ought to be possible to pastor a church in America without causing anyone offense and without being persecuted for our faith. I pointed out 2 Timothy 3:12, and his response was that that verse applied to first-century Roman culture; in a culture like ours where the gospel has fairly well penetrated, we ought to be able to live and minister faithfully without conflict of any kind.

I urged him to do something besides ministry.

It's unusual to hear anyone as candid as that student was, but I know from experience that the typical evangelical today thinks just like that: if people get mad at the preacher, then the preacher needs to tone it down. That isn't what Paul said to Timothy. In fact, it's the polar opposite of what Paul said to Timothy. "Endure suffering"—and keep preaching the Word in season and out of season.

Next: "Do the work of an evangelist." It's easy in this context to know exactly what Paul was saying. It translates to this: preach the gospel. See, all of this is about preaching. "Preach the Word." Preach the whole counsel of God. And keep the gospel at the center of the message, which is to say keep Christ at the center of the message; and in other words, keep the story of redemption at the center of the message—because that is after all the only true and sound way to interpret Scripture. "Do the work of an evangelist." Proclaim the gospel, and never lose sight of it.

The final imperative wraps it all together: "Fulfill your ministry." How do you fulfill your ministry? By preaching the Word in the way described by all those imperatives combined. Paul has come full circle.

Conspicuously absent are all of the fad-words that fill the vocabularies of church planters and missional strategists today. Nothing about innovation; nothing about "cultural engagement"—except for engagement in warfare against the fads and innovations of a generation whose main features are itching ears and a lust for novelty. That is the chief kind of cultural engagement we're called to: to engage our culture in the sense David engaged Goliath.

And you know what? That is the proper medicine for itching ears.

Whenever you proclaim God's Word boldly into a society where people are demanding ear-tickling messages instead, the power of God's Word is unleashed. You see it in the wake of Paul's ministry. Despite all the opposition he faced, he won a remarkable number of people to Christ and planted churches from one end of the Roman empire to the other.

We see it every week at Grace Community Church, as people in this entertainment-saturated, porn-infested, secular southern-California culture respond to God's Word faithfully proclaimed.

The remedy for itching ears is not ear-tickling and story-telling. The true remedy is the faithful and forceful preaching of God's Word, which is "Living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

Paul wasn't commanding Timothy to do anything unique or extraordinary. Paul himself had done all those things, faithfully and consistently for years, despite every conceivable type of trial and opposition. The apostle gives testimony to that fact in verses 6-7: "For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

I fear the church today is dangerously low on men who will honestly be able to say that when the time comes.

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Itching Ears

by Phil Johnson



"For the time is coming . . ." (2 Timothy 4:3).

ere Paul paints a vivid picture of what he merely alluded to in verse 2: an era when biblical preaching would be "out of season." This is what it looks like: "People will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."

Paul is describing the exact brand of obstinacy we see in full bloom in our own culture. Enlightened postmoderns simply have no time for the unyielding truth-claims of God's Word. And the average evangelical church leader seems obsessed with fitting into the culture rather than pointing out the dangers of it. Rather than feeding the flock something nourishing, pop-star pastors love tickling ears. But thereby they actually turn people away from the truth and set them loose to wander off into mythology.

The people who demand to have their ears tickled are guilty, too, of course. The expression "itchy ears" was a common figure of speech in ancient Greek literature, and its meaning is clear. It describes the very same phenomenon Luke described in Athens in Acts 17:21: "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new." They had a compulsive lust for novelty. It's the same pathology that makes people today endlessly surf the Web in search of the latest trending topic.



In the Greek text there's a definite article attached to the expression "sound teaching" in verse 3. Literally "people will not endure the sound doctrine"—i.e., the system of healthy teaching Paul himself proclaimed and defended. There's a conspicuous example of someone who didn't endure sound doctrine in verse 10. Demas deserted Paul because he loved the present world. Paul is saying Demas's attitude would become a widespread problem. People would desert healthy doctrine because they would grow to love worldly values and develop a lust for self-gratification. That is apostasy, and it is a dead-on accurate description of the mainstream evangelical movement today.

We don't have to follow the the world's fashions. In fact, the whole gist of 2 Timothy 4 (and all of Paul's pastoral epistles) is that we are not to follow the drift of superficial "culture." Paul tells Timothy: "As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

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Exhortation? Well, OK, If You keep It Really Tame. But Reproof and Rebuke Aren't "Nice." Tell Us a Story Instead.

Continuing a series on 2 Timothy 4.
by Phil Johnson

"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).



ow let's face it: the church in our generation has been cultivated in a hothouse of evangelical apostasy where unapologetic truth-speaking—especially if it includes rebuke for wrongdoing or the refutation of falsehood—is simply not tolerated. And yet the denizens of this refined society fancy themselves more tolerant than our benighted spiritual ancestors who held strong convictions about moral, ethical, and spiritual matters.



This softening of conviction would come as no surprise to the apostle Paul, because he told Timothy that times such as these were already on their way: "People will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."

Notice the theme of mythology (a recurring motif in Paul's pastoral epistles). Paul would include in his definition of mythology every manmade narrative—both the blind, misguided trust in "science" (falsely so-called) that led modernists astray, and the postmodern urge to re-tell every narrative from my own personal perspective. Paul calls all such forays into the reinvention of truth mythology.

Of course, the incessant exegesis of Hollywood's mythology in evangelical pulpits (as much as contemporary churchgoers seem to love it) would likewise earn Paul's vehement disapproval. Trends like that more or less epitomize the drift Paul was warning about.

We live in such a time. People today demand story-tellers, imagineers, comedians, and clowns. Most church-growth experts today acknowledge that people would rather be entertained than listen to biblical exposition—and an appallingly high number of these pundits actually encourage pastors to cater to the demand. There is no end of young pastors and church planters who think Conan Obrien and Chris Rock—or Steven Spielberg, or Bob Dylan, or Snoop Dog—are more fitting role models than the apostle Paul—or even someone like Charles Spurgeon.

That whole attitude is hostile to the authority of revealed truth and ultimately fatal to authentic faith. It is itself a deadly evil, even when—perhaps I should say especially when—it is married to an orthodox but merely lip-service confession of faith.

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Reprove, Rebuke, Exhort

by Phil Johnson



aul's instructions to Timothy (in 2 Timothy 4) include these imperatives: "reprove, rebuke . . . exhort" (2 Timothy 4:2). That's three successive words in the Greek text, each with a slightly different nuance.

The first, translated "reprove," carries the connotation of telling people that they are wrong, or that they have done something wrong. It has the idea of "reproach," "a rebuke," or the refutation of falsehood. As such it's a negative idea—and it's an idea that is definitely "out of season" in these postmodern times. But it's one of the key aspects of every elder's duty. If you try never to tell people they are wrong, you are not fulfilling the responsibility Paul names here.

Then there's the verb "rebuke." This is a stronger word yet. It denotes an expression of strong disapproval—a denunciation, or even a formal censure. Paul regards it as Timothy's bounden duty not only to expose and refute error, sin, and false teaching, but also to denounce each appearance of those things clearly, identifying it as the evil that it truly is.

I am frankly amazed and appalled at how many pastors today deliberately shirk this duty. "It's not for me to criticize what other people are teaching. I just want to be always positive, and we'll let truth and error sort themselves out." But if you try to do that, you are not fulfilling the responsibility Paul positively assigns to every faithful minister, both here, and in Titus 1:9, where he emphatically makes this same duty the responsibility of every elder in the church: "He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it."

Titus 1:13 says some people need to be rebuked "sharply, [so] that they may be sound in the faith." In fact, when Paul gives this same charge to Titus, he words it as strongly as possible: "Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you."



That jars every postmodern sensibility, doesn't it? But it is a crucial aspect of the pastoral calling. No one is a faithful shepherd who refuses to deal decisively with dangers that threaten the flock.

Lest anyone think this is a prescription for angry-sounding hyper-fundamentalists, notice that there's an important qualification attached to this command: "exhort, with complete patience and teaching." The verb (exhort) is parakaleo; the same word translated "preaching" in the King James Version of 1 Timothy 4:13. It's a sweet word, closely related to parakletos, the name Jesus used to speak of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. It's used 29 times in the New Testament, and the first time it appears is in reference to Jesus, in Luke 2:25, where Christ is referred to as "the consolation [parakaleo], of Israel."

The expression conveys the ideas of encouragement, comfort, refreshment, solace—all in the form of a gentle entreaty, a verbal summons, a tender exhortation. That's the heart of biblical preaching.

And the purpose and the aim of all this—the rebukes as well as the encouragements—is for the good of the hearers—never their hurt. Preaching is a guide and a corrective and a feast and a salve—to edify or sometimes to heal the flock.

Preaching is not a cudgel with which to beat the sheep. So it must always be done "with complete patience and teaching." That echoes what Paul said two chapters earlier, 2 Timothy 2:25: "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."

Paul is calling for every possible demonstration of patience, kindness, magnanimity, and longsuffering. People will not be won to the truth by relentless scolding. If your rebukes and corrections are flavored with exasperation rather than true concern for the flock; if you deal out reproach after reproach and upbraiding after upbraiding without a true spirit of gentleness, you're not being a true shepherd.

However: in these postmodern times, it is commonly thought that "gentleness" excludes every kind of rebuke or correction—especially the sharp rebuke. But it's clear that Paul saw no necessary contradiction between gentleness and firm rebuke. That has to be our perspective as well, or we will never be up to the simple yet far-reaching task Paul lays on our shoulders here.

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The Antidote to Contemporary Evangelicalism's Addiction to Novelty

by Phil Johnson

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Timothy 4:1-5)



n all of Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus, there is not an ounce of encouragement for the person who thinks innovation is the key to an effective ministry philosophy.

Much less is there any room for the pulpiteers of today who like to exegete the latest movies, or preach on moral lessons drawn from television sitcoms, or build their sermons on themes borrowed from popular culture. You know what I mean: the kind of preachers who insist they are being "missional" when they are merely being worldly.

Still less is there any warrant for the celebrity rock-star pastor who continually makes himself the focus of his preaching. "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Corinthians 4:5). "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16).

Paul's focus is extremely narrow—stiflingly narrow for the typical young-and-restless church planter for whom "style" is everything; and whose style (let's be honest) is conspicuously dictated by secular fashion rather than by the worldview Paul was exhorting Timothy to embrace.

"Preach the word." That's the centerpiece and the key to everything Paul tells Timothy about how to shepherd God's flock. That command is followed immediately by a second imperative that simply makes the first one more emphatic: "Be ready in season and out of season." The Greek verb means "stand by," and it does have the sense of readiness. (In fact, in radio, that is exactly what the expression "stand by" means: "Be ready." But the word Paul uses is richer and stronger than that.) It also carries the connotation of expressions like: "take a stand," "stand upon it," "stick to it," "stand up to it," or simply "carry on."

Paul is urging Timothy to be absolutely, unswervingly devoted to the truth of the Word and to the task of proclaiming it. "Stand firm, and stand ready. Keep at the task, no matter what." That's the idea. And the proof is in the rest of the phrase: "Be ready in season and out of season"—literally, "when it's timely and when it's untimely": when it's popular and when it's not.

Or to contextualize the phrase for the current crop of evangelical fashionistas: Preach the Word even when preaching the Word seems hopelessly uncool and unstylish.

The expression is ambiguous as to whether Timothy or his audience is the barometer declaring what's "in season [or] out of season." It doesn't matter. Regardless of how you or your audience—or anyone else—feels about it, keep preaching the Word.

Preach the word whether the timing seems opportune or awkward. Preach it whether it's convenient or inconvenient. Preach it whether you feel like it or not. Preach it whether the door is open or closed. Preach it no matter how much resistance you encounter. Preach it whether or not people say they want it. Preach it—and make it the heart and soul of your ministry strategy—no matter how many church-growth experts tell you otherwise.

Paul goes on to give several more imperatives, and all of them expand on or modify this initial command: "Preach the Word."



In a follow-up post or two we'll look at the whole series of imperatives, and I think you'll see in a graphic way that Paul's ideas about ministry philosophy church growth run fairly contrary to the received wisdom of most who claim expertise in these matters today.

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Faithfulness, "Fruitfulness," and the Twisted Notion of Evangelical Celebrity

by Phil Johnson



econd Timothy 3 begins with a stern, prophetic warning: "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty." And then Paul gives a dead-on job description for the typical 21st-century celebrity: "People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."

But get this: When Paul says "People," he is not talking about People magazine or the secular celebrities that grace the cover of that periodical. He is predicting a time when those traits will be characteristic of church leaders. Notice that the people he is describing "hav[e] the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power" (v. 5).

We are living and ministering in a time such as Paul described. Watch today's rock-star pastors on their YouTube channels and you will see every characteristic Paul listed played out in vivid detail on the church stage.

So what are Paul's instructions to Timothy? Should he mentor these guys, invite them for Elephant-Room-style dialogue, become a headliner in their conferences, or publicly embrace and encourage them in the hope that he can harness their popularity and perhaps influence them for good? Not at all.

With regard to pastors and church leaders who promote and model innovative, worldly, self-loving ministry philosophies, "reckless [church leaders], swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure"—Paul wants Timothy to be a separatist: "Avoid such people" (v. 5). In fact the Greek term is active, aggressive: "from such turn away."

Paul then reminds Timothy of his singular duty to be both a student and a herald of the Word of God: "As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed . . . . All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (vv. 14-17).

This has been a repeated theme in Paul's counsel to Timothy. First Timothy 4:6: "put these things before the brothers." What things? "the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed." Verse 11: "Command and teach these things." Verse 13: "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching." Chapter 6, verses 2-4: "Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing." Second Timothy 1:13: "[Hold fast] the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me." Chapter 2, verse 15: "Present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."

New Testament pastors are called to be simple and single-minded in the carrying our of a single task. Yet, amazingly, the straightforward clarity of Paul's charge to Timothy seems utterly lost on many 21st-century church leaders. They have been blinded to it by the quest for celebrity and a worldly standard of success.

What's ironic about that is that even the great apostle Paul would not have measured up to their notion of "fruitfulness" and prosperity. Both of his epistles to Timothy end by noting how many unfaithful former companions forsook him when the cost of standing firm became too high. He was neither popular nor "fruitful" by the Elephant-Room standard of fruitfulness.

That ought to make us stop and reassess the direction of the contemporary evangelical movement. I, for one, don't want to go where the movement seems headed.

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"Innovation" and Irrelevance

by Phil Johnson

After five decades spent obsessing over a warped notion of "relevance," American evangelicalism is overrun with "change agents" who are so steeped in worldly values that they can't distinguish true relevance from mere trendiness. Their philosophies of ministry are complex, wrong-headed, counterproductive, and hostile to the notion that some things—namely God Himself and the truth He has revealed in His Word—are by definition not susceptible to change.
    By contrast, what Paul bequeathed to Timothy in two brief epistles was a remarkably simple, straightforward, but comprehensive ministry philosophy. Not only did Paul not urge Timothy to be innovative; what he did urge Timothy to do flatly contradicts practically every ministry philosophy currently in vogue.
    This is part 1 in a series of posts I intend to write in the days to come.



onsider the undue stress today's leading church-growth gurus invariably put on innovation. We are relentlessly told that pastors and church leaders must be novel, "contemporary," cutting-edge—architects of change within the church.

Evangelicals have been obsessing for at least four decades about "relevance." But that word as used in evangelical circles has become practically synonymous with novelty and fashionableness. It has little to do with actual relevance.

Of course, the church's only true relevance lies in her role as a community where God's Word is proclaimed, where the whole counsel of God is taught, and from which the gospel is taken into the world. But when a church nowadays advertises itself as "relevant," we know exactly what is meant—and let's be honest: it isn't about anything Paul told Timothy to do; it's about being "innovative."

Consider how an organization like Leadership Network sells itself: "Leadership Network seeks to help leaders navigate the future by exploring new ideas and finding application for each unique context." "Our free indispensable twice-monthly email newsletter featur[es] the best in innovative church strategies." Podcasts feature "numerous conversations about various topics of church innovation." The organization sponsors three series of books:

• Leadership Network Publications (Jossey-Bass) present thoroughly researched and innovative concepts from leading thinkers, practitioners and pioneering churches.
  
• The Leadership Network Innovation Series (Zondervan) presents case studies and insights from leading practitioners and pioneering churches that are successfully navigating the ever-changing cultural landscape.
  
• The Exponential Series (Zondervan) highlights the innovative practices of healthy, reproducing churches.

And don't forget "Engaging and inspirational videos from a number of today's innovative church leaders." Then there's "Connections,"—"Inspiring stories that show how Leadership Network is helping innovative churches and church leaders better realize their vision and maximize their impact." Something about "innovation" appears on virtually every line of that web page. The Catalyst Conference has a similar theme. The main qualification for being a speaker at any of the Catalyst events is that you must be perceived as an innovator—a "change maker." But, as it turns out, "innovation" in evangelical contexts almost never has anything to do with real originality. The best-known fruits of recent "innovative" thinking in the evangelical realm have been Emergent religion and hipster Christianity. But both Emergents and hipsters slavishly ape worldly fads and conform to postmodern and politically-correct values. "Innovation" has conditioned evangelical churches to follow every new wind of faddishness. "Innovation" itself turns out to be a worn-out cliche. There's nothing truly fresh or original about it. How it coninues to get so much publicity is a mystery to me. The more evangelicals imitate worldly fads and values, the more irrelevant they become. Here's a gentle word of admonition for those who have made an idol out of "innovation": There is hardly any more wrong-headed approach for anyone who aspires to be a true spiritual and biblical leader in the church. It's an emphasis that is entirely missing from Paul's instructions to Timothy. Actually, the truth is even more alarming than that: The church's current infatuation with novelty and contemporary fashion is antithetical to Paul's message to Timothy. It is irreconcilable with a Pauline approach to ministry. It represents precisely the path Paul warned Timothy not to follow:

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

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