(2:1-7)

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (2:1–7)

     Some years ago, two teenagers were discovered in an attic room chained to their beds, where they had been confined since early childhood. They were totally disoriented and almost animalistic in behavior. They had been undernourished and unloved, and, as would be expected, were underdeveloped in every way—physically, emotionally, socially, and mentally. They were the product of child abuse at its most malevolent extreme.

Equally tragic is the condition of many children of God today who are undernourished spiritually and, consequently, are underdeveloped, confused, disoriented, and immature in the things of the Lord. There are more popular preachers today than at any time in church history, but few powerful ones. There also are more popular churches, but few powerful ones. There is much activity, but little spiritual fruit; much talk about Christianity, but little conviction; high moral proclamations, but little accountability; doctrinal creeds, but much compromise.

In the great majority of cases, weak churches are the result of weak leadership, especially weak pastoral leadership. Spiritual weakness makes both leaders and congregations subject to almost every religious fad, no matter how frivolous. Like an undernourished and anemic physical body, they have little resistance to disorders and maladies that weaken them still further. And because they have no resources but their own, the smallest difficulty is distressing. Because they have so little understanding of and confidence in the Word of God, they turn to psychological bandages and worldly solutions. They have little defense against Satan and are easy prey for false teachers. They are spiritual “children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:14; cf. Heb. 13:9). Because they have left “the elementary teaching about the Christ,” and failed to “press on to maturity” (Heb. 6:1), they may even find themselves “paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).

Spiritual weakness also can come from fatigue, frustration, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the Lord’s work. After Moses died, Joshua faced the formidable task of leading Israel in the conquest of Canaan. The Lord therefore encouraged Joshua, saying, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go” (Josh. 1:6–7). To wavering believers in Corinth, Paul said, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). Even to the faithful church at Ephesus he felt it necessary to say, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:10).

Several years ago, engineers in New Jersey were building a bridge over the mouth of a river on the Atlantic coast. As they were putting down pilings, they came across the hull of an old ship that was buried in the sand. To keep the bridge on the planned route, the hull would have to be removed. After they tried every mechanical means they could think of, the ship remained in place. A young engineer suggested placing several large barges above the hull on either side, running cables underneath the hull, and attaching them tightly to the barges at low tide. When the tide rose, the hull was loosened some. At the next low tide the cables were tightened again, and at high tide the ship was loosened some more. After following that procedure for several cycles of tides, the ship eventually was freed. What humanly devised mechanical force could not accomplish, the immeasurably greater forces of nature accomplished easily.

Many Christians and churches are like that hull, embedded in spiritual immobility. They recognize the problem and try every human means to extricate themselves, but to no avail. But what His children cannot accomplish in their own strength, their heavenly Father can do by the power of His Spirit.

THE COMMAND TO BE STRONG

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2:1)

     As mentioned in the Introduction and the previous chapters of this commentary, Timothy was facing a time of spiritual vacillation and weakness. He may have been questioning his calling or his gifts or the sufficiency of God’s provision. He was mired in difficulties of some sort and could not extricate himself. Whatever the particulars, Paul realized that his son in the faith needed “to kindle afresh the gift of God which” was in him (2 Tim. 1:6). As we noted in the last chapter, he did not need more from God but needed to use, with commitment and confidence, the divine provisions he already possessed. He needed to remember and to exercise the “power and love and discipline” (v. 7) that the Holy Spirit had provided him and provides every believer. He needed to discard his being ashamed of “the testimony of the Lord” and to be willing to join Paul in “suffering for the gospel according to the power of God” (v. 8). He needed, like the apostle, to be “convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (v. 12), to “retain the standard of sound words which [he had] heard from [Paul], in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (v. 13), to avoid faithless church members such as Phygelus and Hermogenes, and to identify with faithful believers such as Onesiphorus and those in his household (vv. 15–16).

Summing up that counsel, Paul said, “You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” The verb be strong is an imperative, making it a command. Yet it is a command tempered by Paul’s deep love for Timothy, his son. There was tenderness in Paul’s heart because there is tenderness in God’s heart. Even the Lord’s strongest commands are given in love. He admonishes His children firmly but lovingly, and that is the way Paul admonished his spiritual son Timothy. Because Timothy had “sincere faith” and was nourished in that faith by his godly mother and grandmother (1:5), because he was specially gifted by God and ordained by the laying on of Paul’s hands (v. 6) and the hands of the Ephesian elders (1 Tim. 4:14), and because of the abundant resources mentioned in the remainder of chapter 1, Timothy had no reason for not being strong. Paul was saying to Timothy, “My son, the Lord’s work in Ephesus depends on you, its divinely appointed and divinely endowed minister.” The effectiveness of his ministry depended not simply in his having that call and those resources but in his faithfully using them in God’s power and to God’s glory.

It is an amazing paradox, but fully biblical, that, although God is sovereign and all-powerful, He nevertheless entrusts His adopted children with propagating the saving gospel of His true Son, Jesus Christ.

The verb be strong is also passive, however, indicating that the source of Timothy’s strength was not in himself but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. A somewhat better rendering would be, “by means of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Just as we are saved solely “by grace … through faith; and that not of [ourselves, but by] the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8), we also are kept saved by the grace of God, who “is faithful and righteous [to continue] to forgive us our sins and [to continue] to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Our only effective spiritual strength is “in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:10). We build ourselves up in the “most holy faith” by “praying in the Holy Spirit” and keeping ourselves “in the love of God” (Jude 20–21).

God’s continuing grace in the lives of believers operates in justification and sanctification, in forgiveness and in holiness, and in His grace applied to our service. The same grace that forgives us and makes us holy is the grace that empowers us. Because we belong to Christ, we are continually in the sphere of grace. But to enjoy the sphere of blessing, we must live in the sphere of obedience.

In 2 Timothy 2:2–6, Paul presents four key elements of a strong, obedient, spiritual life, using the vivid analogies of teacher (v. 2), soldier (vv. 3–4), athlete (v. 5), and farmer (v. 6).

THE TEACHER

And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. (2:2)

     The first metaphor is that of a teacher teaching a teacher, who, in turn, teaches other teachers, who then teach still other teachers. Although Paul mentions only four generations of teachers, the idea is that of a continuing process.

The New Testament neither teaches nor supports the idea of apostolic succession. But it does clearly teach, in this passage and elsewhere, that the gospel is to be promulgated from generation to generation. Jesus, of course, was the Master Teacher. He taught the apostles, who then taught others, who taught others, who are still teaching others, and so on throughout the church age. William Barclay comments, “The teacher is a link in the living chain which stretches unbroken from this present moment back to Jesus Christ. The glory of teaching is that it links the present with the earthly life of Jesus Christ” (The Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957], 182). In every generation, God has raised up new links in this living chain of faithful men to pass on the good news of Jesus Christ to the people of their day.

John ends his gospel by stating that “there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written” (John 21:25). Luke was not an apostle but was a close associate of apostles, so that much of what we know of the Lord’s earthly ministry and of the apostles’ ministry in the early church we know from Luke’s Spirit-guided hand. In the book of Acts, Luke begins by saying, “The first account [the gospel of Luke] I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when He was taken up” (Acts 1:1–2). Like John, he reports that what is recorded accounts only for those things “that Jesus began to do and teach” [emphasis added] until the Ascension. Just before He ascended, He told the awaiting disciples on the Mount of Olives, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

That evening, the Eleven returned to the Upper Room where they were staying and, under the Lord’s guidance, chose Matthias to replace Judas (vv. 21–26). Some years later, Christ personally and directly called Paul to be the thirteenth apostle (see Acts 9:3–20), “one untimely born,” whom he himself considered to be “the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:8–9). But, by God’s sovereign grace and choice, he was as fully an apostle as the others (see, e.g., Rom. 1:1, 11:13; 1 Cor. 9:1).

The apostles, some for only a brief time before they were martyred, proclaimed the gospel they had received from Christ to other faithful men—prophets, elders, deacons, and many others—among whom was Timothy. It was now Timothy’s turn to entrust the gospel, and all other divinely revealed truths, to others.

In a state invitational track meet during my college years, I represented my team as the second man in the mile relay. The first man ran a fast first leg, and I did well on the second. But soon after I passed off the baton to the third man, one of our best runners, he stopped, walked onto the infield, and sat down. Our first horrified thought was that he had pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle. I ran across the field and asked, “What happened?” “I don’t know,” he replied, “I just didn’t feel like running anymore.” Understandably, his teammates, the coach, and everyone else from our college were sickened and disgusted. “How could you do that?” we asked. “Don’t you know you’re not just representing yourself, but your team and your school? Have you forgotten all the time the coach has invested in you and that your teammates have invested to get where we are? How could you, in one brief, selfish second, destroy all of that?”

On an infinitely more important level, countless leaders in the church have simply dropped out of the Lord’s service, some with no better reason than the apathy of that collegiate runner.

Timothy had not reached that point of defection, but it is clear that Paul knew his young friend, his son in the faith, was being tempted in that direction. Before such a serious crisis occurred, therefore, he was saying in effect, “Don’t even consider dropping out or curtailing your work to suit your own desires. This isn’t your ministry but the Lord’s, and you have no right to quit or to slack until He ‘takes you out of the game,’ as it were, either by death or by rapture. I can’t let you become a broken link in God’s chain of faithful witnesses. You not only have to keep going yourself but you have to help others get going and keep going as well.”

The first stage in the spiritual “relay” was the truth being handed from Paul to Timothy, which the apostle describes here as Timothy’s careful receiving and studying the things which he had heard from Paul over the period of several years traveling with the apostle and of ministering with him in Ephesus.

In the presence of many witnesses carries the fuller idea of “supported by the confirming testimony of other teachers”—including the teaching of other apostles. In his second letter (written about the same time as 2 Timothy), Peter attested that Paul authoritatively preached God’s Word (see 2 Peter 3:14–16). Those witnesses certainly would have included Paul’s fellow preachers and teachers, such as Barnabas and Silas (see Acts 14:1–3, 21–22; 15:35; 20:4). Other well-taught leaders in the church such as Luke, a companion of Paul on many of his trips, also would have been qualified to confirm to Timothy the divine authenticity of Paul’s teaching. From the time he first met and began accompanying Paul (Acts 16:1–3), Timothy was exposed to the public teaching and private counsel of many godly witnesses in addition to Paul.

Paratithēmi (entrust) is here an imperative and carries the idea of depositing something valuable for safekeeping. It is a verb form of the noun (parathēkē), used twice in the previous chapter, referring to the treasure Paul had entrusted to the Lord (1:12) and that Paul had entrusted to Timothy (v. 14)—namely, the treasure “of sound words which you have heard from me” (v. 13). Now it was time for the treasure with which Timothy had been entrusted to be entrusted by him to others.

Timothy’s assignment was to run the second lap, as it were, of this spiritual relay, in which he was to entrust the things he had been taught by Paul—that is, pass on the in-depth teaching of God’s Word—to faithful men under his care. That which he was to carefully guard (1:14: cf. 1 Tim. 6:20) he also was to carefully teach.

The truth Paul is talking about here is beyond the basic gospel message of salvation, which is to be preached to all who will hear. He is rather talking about the careful, systematic training of church leaders who will teach and disciple other believers in the fullness of God’s Word. This particular ministry is to be selective. It is reserved for faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. He is directing Timothy to invest in the lives of spiritually devout men who are gifted to teach potential pastors and evangelists. Such men must already have proved their love for the Lord and their giftedness in His service. They must be prequalified by proven spiritual character and ability, as well as by fruitful labor.

Pistos (faithful) is used later in this chapter of the trustworthiness of God’s promise that “if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him” (v. 11), and a few verses later of Christ Himself, who, even “if we are faithless, … remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself” (v. 13). In other words, this special entrustment is reserved for men whose character reflects the faithfulness of God’s own Word and of God’s own Son. In this context, faithful not only refers to spiritual character but to spiritual giftedness. God does not call every believer to be a teacher and a teacher of teachers. Paul knew Timothy had such giftedness (see 1:6) and here instructs him to find others who were so gifted and to teach them.

Like Timothy, every preacher and teacher is to guard the purity and integrity of God’s Word. Some of those also are called to accurately and fully teach other godly leaders in the church. As already mentioned, if the church is weak, it is because its leaders are weak. Conversely, if the church is to be strong, its leaders must be strong. And leaders can become strong only if they are carefully built up in the Word of God. We all received the truth from faithful men before us, and we are to preserve it so that it is passed on accurately and fully to the next generation (cf. 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:14).

It is for that primary purpose that Bible schools, Christian colleges, and seminaries are founded and that books and commentaries are written—to prepare dedicated Christian men and women for effective service to the church and in the world. And within that broader purpose is the narrower one of giving special attention to raising up new generations of mature spiritual leaders who are uniquely trained and assigned to carefully guard and faithfully articulate God’s truth.

Both before and under the Old Covenant, God raised up many faithful men and women to be His witnesses. He also called Israel as a nation to “be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Not just the priests and prophets, but all the people, were “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). They were to be a nation of God’s intermediaries and witnesses to the pagan, Gentile world. Centuries before Christ gave the Great Commission to His disciples to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19), God had given a similar commission to His chosen people Israel. Sadly, it was a commission they had failed to heed and fulfill, and, by the time of our Lord, the leadership of Israel was apostate and satanic (cf. John 8:44).

The third lap in the relay is for spiritually mature leaders, or faithful men, who themselves have been carefully trained, to teach others who show promise. This is just the start of a continuous process of spiritual reproduction, of being taught and of teaching, that is to continue until our Lord returns.

On a more general level, a similar process should involve all believers, whatever their particular spiritual gifts might be. This responsibility applies especially to elders “who work hard at preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). But parents, Sunday school teachers, and youth leaders also are responsible, to the best of their ability, to pass on God’s Word to those under their care. Every Christian has such a responsibility for any brother or sister in Christ whom he has opportunity to disciple, even briefly.

In a still wider sense, every believer has a responsibility to teach God’s truth to any other believer, even one who is older and more mature in the faith. Pastors can learn from other church members, parents can learn from their children, teachers can learn from their students, wives can learn from their husbands, husbands can learn from their wives, and friends can learn from friends.

THE SOLDIER

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. (2:3–4)

     The second figure Paul uses to illustrate characteristics of a strong spiritual life is that of a soldier. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul expands on this figure. After his counsel cited above, to “be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” (6:10), he says, “Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (vv. 11–13). He admonished believers at Corinth about the offensive side of that battle, saying, “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Cor. 10:3–4).

Paul not only calls on Timothy to serve the Lord as a soldier, but as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. A spiritual Christian does not simply do minimum duty for his Lord, Christ Jesus, but serves Him with everything he is and has.

The first mark of a good soldier that Paul mentions is the willingness to suffer hardship. By adding with me, he gives assurance that he would not ask anything of Timothy that he himself was not doing or willing to do. Sunkakopatheō (suffer hardship with) is a compound verb that means to suffer evil or pain along with someone else. One scholar translates the phrase, “take one’s share of rough treatment.” With does not represent a separate Greek preposition but is a part (sun) of the verb. Me is only implied in the Greek, the context indicating that Paul was speaking of himself.

It is difficult for Christians in most of the Western world to understand what serious spiritual warfare and suffering for Christ mean. The secular environment in our society is becoming more and more hostile to Christianity and to religion in general. But we are not faced with loss of job, imprisonment, and execution because of our faith. With few exceptions, being a Christian will not keep a student out of college or a worker from getting a good job. But the more faithful a Christian becomes and the more the Lord blesses his work, the more Satan will put roadblocks, hardships, and rejection in the way, the more evident the spiritual warfare will become, and the more frequent and obvious the hardship will become.

A soldier in active service does not have a 9 to 5 job, or even a long 60– or 70–hour work week. He is a soldier 24 hours a day, every day of the year. His body, his health, his skills, his time—all that he is—belong to the military in which he serves. Even when on leave, he is subject to recall at any time, without notice and for any reason. And whenever ordered into dangerous duty, he is expected to put his very life on the line without question or hesitation.

Consequently, he is separated from his normal environment, so that he will not entangle himself in the affairs of everyday life. Entangle himself translates a passive form of emplekō, which literally means to weave. Paul is not speaking about things that necessarily are wrong in themselves. It is not that a soldier should have no contact at all with his former friends and surroundings, but that he is not to become caught up and enmeshed in them. Those things are irrelevant to his soldiering and are always subject to being relinquished. In the same way, a good soldier of Christ Jesus refuses to allow earthly matters to interfere with the fulfillment of his duty to his Lord. Many Christians, pastors, special ministries, and doctrinally sound churches have been undermined by concerns and activities that are innocent in themselves but have been allowed to crowd out the primary purpose of serving Jesus Christ in the advancing of His kingdom against the forces of darkness.

Jesus recognized that such disconnection and call to duty required of His faithful disciple, a soldier in His active service, is not easy. As He and His disciples

In the parable of the soils, Jesus identifies false believers whose nonsaving faith is short-lived with “the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Matt. 13:22). Those are the kind of temporary professing Christians of whom Peter speaks: “If after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first” (2 Peter 2:20).

“The worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches” of which Jesus spoke are among the affairs of everyday life that can keep an unbeliever from receiving Christ and can keep believers from faithfully serving Him. Just as the dutiful soldier places his life willingly on the line in service of his country, so the faithful Christian will willingly “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow [Christ]” (Matt. 16:24). He will say with Paul, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:24).

The third mark of a good soldier is a genuine desire to please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. In the same way, but of far greater importance, a Christian’s deepest desire is to please the Lord Jesus Christ, his commander in chief, the one who enlisted him. It is impossible to serve two commanders in chief, just as it is impossible to serve two masters (Matt. 6:24). The faithful Christian’s fondest hope is to be rewarded for loyal service and to hear his Master say, “Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).

The strong desire to please other people is an integral characteristic of fallen man. And because of the continued influence of the old self (Eph. 4:22), even Christians are tempted to be men-pleasers. Many Christians succumb to that temptation and become more concerned about pleasing their fellow workers, their neighbors, and their friends than about pleasing the Lord. And for the same reason, many pastors fall into the trap of wanting to please their congregations or their communities more than to please the Lord. That desire inevitably leads to moral and spiritual decline, because pleasing the world, including worldly Christians, demands compromise of God’s truth, God’s standards, and personal holiness. It demands forsaking Christ as our first love. From the situation of the Ephesian church some years after Paul wrote this letter to Timothy (who was pastoring in Ephesus), we know that forsaking Christ as our first love is possible even when our doctrine is sound and we toil and persevere for Him (see Rev. 2:2–4). When that happens, we must “remember therefore from where [we] have fallen, and repent” (v. 5). We must remind ourselves of Paul’s sobering testimony: “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10). When Christ is our first love, we will “have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (2 Cor. 5:9; 1 Thess. 2:4).

THE ATHLETE

And also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. (2:5)

     The third figure Paul uses to illustrate characteristics of a strong spiritual life is that of an athlete, a metaphor he uses several times in his letters.

The phrase competes as an athlete translates the verb athleō, which means to contest, contend, wrestle, struggle. The idea is that of a struggle that requires great determination to win. Athletes struggle, contend, compete, and strive to win.

The difference between first and second places in an athletic event is not always a matter of talent. As in the fable of the tortoise and the hare, a less gifted athlete often surpasses another who is physically superior and more experienced, simply by having greater determination and persistence.

While watching a decathlon meet between the United States, Poland, and the U.S.S.R., I asked a friend, who was coaching the American team, to identify the best athlete among all those competitors. He pointed to a slender, lithe young man, and I asked, “Do you think he will win today?” Surprisingly, he answered, “No.” When I asked why, he pointed to another athlete and said, “He’s going to win, because he has the greatest determination, the strongest will to win. He is the most mentally tough competitor I have ever seen.” Sure enough, he did win that day. His name was Bruce Jenner, and two years later he won the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon, which ranked him as the greatest athlete in the world.

Our spiritual competition is not, of course, against other Christians. Trying to outperform another believer is far from spiritual. Rather, our competition is against our fleshly old self, against the world, and against Satan and those who serve him. And our goal is to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

Even the most gifted and determined athlete, bringing the most effort to the struggle, however, does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.

In the Greek games, which continued for centuries under Roman rule and were still being held in Paul’s time, every participant had to meet three qualifications—of birth, of training, and of competition. First, he had to be a true-born Greek. Second, he had to prepare at least ten months for the games and swear to that before a statue of Zeus. Third, he had to compete within the specific rules for a given event. To fail in any of those requirements meant automatic disqualification.

Comparable rules apply to spiritual Christians. We must be truly born again; we must be faithful in study and obedience of God’s Word, in self-denial, and in prayer; and we must live according to Christ’s divine standards of discipleship.

The very fact that we are Christians means we have met the qualification of being born again. But the other two requirements are far from automatic and involve constant dedication and constant effort. Together they constitute spiritual discipline, which comes from the same root as “disciple” and is the foundation of spiritual maturity. The disciplined disciple has control of his affections, his emotions, his priorities, and his objectives.

It goes without saying that all serious athletes must exert special effort not just during a game or a race but for many months, even years, beforehand. Writing to believers at Corinth, who were very familiar with the Isthmian games, which were played nearby, Paul asked rhetorically, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:24–27). Paul’s victory in the realm of ministry was dependent on his body, with its lusts and impulses, not being in control of him, but rather he of it.

As Paul emphasizes in that passage, the wreath (Stephanos) for which the Greek athletes competed was perishable, but the one for which the spiritual Christian competes is imperishable. It is “the crown [Stephanos] of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8), “the unfading crown of glory” we will receive “when the Chief Shepherd appears” (1 Peter 5:4), “the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12; Rev. 2:10). One day, like the twenty-four elders, we “will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast [our] crowns before the throne” (Rev. 4:10).

THE FARMER

The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. (2:6)

     The fourth and final familiar image Paul uses to illustrate characteristics of a strong spiritual life is that of a farmer. The farmer works to gain the crop for himself. That is how he makes his living. In New Testament times, farm laborers often were paid with a portion of the crops they helped to plant, cultivate, and harvest. The hard-working farmer received not only a greater share but also the first … share of the crops. The teacher has reward in knowing he has enriched the lives of his students, the soldier has the reward of pleasing his commander in chief, the athlete has the reward of a trophy, and the farmer has the reward of the first and best share of the crops.

Hard-working is a participle form of the verb kopiaō, which means to toil intensely, to sweat and strain to the point of exhaustion if necessary. The industrious farmer starts his hard and demanding work early and quits late. He endures the cold, the heat, the rain, and the drought. He plows the soil whether it is hard or loose. He does not wait for his own convenience, because the seasons do not wait for him. When the time comes to plant, he must plant; when weeds appear, he must remove them; and when the crop is mature, he must harvest it. What drives the man to such hard toil is the harvest.

The teacher often finds exhilaration in the aspiring minds of his students, the soldier often has the excitement of battle, and the athlete the thrill of competing. But most of a farmer’s working hours are tedious, humdrum, and unexciting. And, unlike the teacher, the soldier, and the athlete, a farmer often works alone. He has no students to stimulate him, no fellow soldiers to fight with him, no teammates or crowd to cheer him.

Many Christians’ lives are like the farmer’s. Although there may be occasional times of excitement and special satisfaction, the daily routine is often, in itself, unattractive and unrewarding. But whatever their day-to-day responsibilities may involve, all faithful believers are promised God’s blessing and reward. We may be underpaid, treated unfairly by our boss or fellow employees, and misunderstood or unappreciated by fellow Christians. But Christ’s reward to His faithful disciples is never deficient, never unfair, never late, and never omitted.

Our good works have nothing to do with keeping our salvation, no more than they had anything to do with our receiving salvation. But they have everything to do with working out our salvation (Phil. 2:12). Not only are “we … [God’s] workmanship,” Paul reminds us, but we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). When believers stand before the Lord’s judgment seat, His bēma, “each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward” (1 Cor. 3:13–14).

CONCLUSION

Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (2:7)

     There are certain things the spiritual Christian has to endure, such as suffering for the faith. There are certain things he has to avoid, such as becoming entangled with the affairs of the world. There are certain mandates he has to obey, namely, the commands of his Lord. There are certain things he has to do, including tasks that seem mundane and ordinary. And, just as surely, there are things he will be given to enjoy, the victory and the rewards of a dedicated, selfless, and disciplined life. Through His apostle, the Lord assures us: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).

Consider what I say, Paul continues. The verb noeō (consider) is used only here in the New Testament. It denotes perceiving clearly with the mind, of understanding fully, of considering carefully, of pondering and mulling over. The form here is an imperative, indicating that Paul was giving a strong admonition, not mere advice.

The apostle was saying to Timothy, and still says to believers today: “Under the Lord, think over and carefully ponder what I have been saying. Look at your own life and ask yourself if you are a strong Christian, a spiritual Christian, a mature Christian. Are you devoting yourself to guarding and teaching God’s Word? Do you deny yourself and count your life as nothing in order to faithfully serve the Lord? Do you keep a distance between yourself and the affairs of the world? Do you continually prepare yourself to serve your Master? Do you understand self-denial and self-sacrifice? Are you willing to pay the price that He demands?”

“If you can answer yes to those questions,” we are promised, the Lord will give you understanding in everything. You will be led with wisdom and insight through the challenges to victory.