The Promise of Life in Christ
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. II Timothy 1:1
Many of my favorite passages in scripture are found in the first verses of a letter written by Paul to a young man named Timothy who seems to have been called into pastoral ministry in the early days of the Church. It is a book we have designated as Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy or II Timothy. After my parents named me after my father and then my brother, Christian, after our mother’s father, the next son was named Timothy in honor of the wisdom Paul dispenses there.
In this single verse, Paul presents his spiritual credentials for offering the advice he is about to give to a young man he obviously loves like a son. Paul identifies his apostleship in Christ as being born of nothing less than the Will of God. He then describes his own reason for existing as solely “for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.” I can think of no more powerful or confident a declaration of who he thought himself to be.
I myself felt “The Call” in the summer between my high school graduation and my entry into college at the University of Georgia. I had listed my major as Math, but did so out of convenience rather than conviction. I had already completed all the math I need for such a degree through a program open to high school seniors at what was then Kennesaw Junior College’s first year of existence. People then always winced when I said that Calculus and Trigonometry came “too easily” for me. (I know. I can hear your moans as I write this. They are echoed in my own mind.) So easy that it came to be boring and I hoped that God would reveal something better to do with my life and rescue me from what I thought would be a soulless academic life. Then one morning, I experienced what I consider to be have been a baptism by the Holy Spirit in the form of a strange and powerful warmth and confidence that I felt being poured over me like honey. It only lasted a few minutes, but it has never left my heart, mind or soul. And I knew whom I would serve the rest of my life.
Well that’s all well and good for me, but what about the rest of the human race. At the time Paul was writing these words to Timothy, there was no formal clergy within “The Way” as many in the early Church identified their collective spiritual experiences. That would come much later. So the usefulness of Paul’s advice to Timothy goes well beyond the way it spoke to me. It applies to every call to every person who has felt the leading of the Holy Spirit for the past 2,000 years. That means it applies to everyone reading this who does so with Christ in their hearts.
The power that the Holy Spirit has to change and lead us is as varied as every moment in the lives of every human that has ever lived. My initial experience was sudden and overwhelming, but it was not final. I have experienced it over and over again. Small, quiet doses as well as strong and noisy ones. Some having lasting influence while others were like whispers in the dark, gone before I realized they had happened.
God’s “calls” to share Christ’s Love and Joy are ever present when we allow ourselves to experience them. Each and every one of us have gifts from God, great and small, that are of value in service to the building of Christ’s Church. We are all Timothy. (Τιμόθεος in Greek, which simply means “honoring God”) We are all apostles. The New Covenant of which Christ spoke is a new priesthood of believers in Christ. Young and old. Bold and shy. Wise and foolish. Biblically literate and maybe not so much. Confident and less so. The “blasphemy” toward the New Covenant is telling ourselves that any of us, at any time, in any place, in any company, under any circumstance, are in any way not capable of having something of value to contribute to God’s work in the Salvation of others in the world. That IS the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus!
Anyone who has experienced the joy of sharing the Love and Joy of Christ, whether that be in the slightest of smiles or in the greatest of sacrifices, knows that we are as blessed in that moment as those with whom we have shared it. May we all strive to live that promised life of Peace and Joy!
Blessings this day for all of you, my friends in Christ.
Jim McGrath
