The Self-Drawn Portrait of the Apostle Paul. (14)
Posted by Marvin Pagkanlungan on Saturday, June 7, 2014
by Charles H. Welch
#14. Separate Features: His Humanity.
“Here we see . . . . . that tender friendship which watches over the health of Timothy, even with a mother’s care, that intense sympathy in the joys and sorrows of his converts, which could say, even to the rebellious Corinthians, ‘Ye are in our hearts to die and live with you’. That longing desire for the intercourse of affection, and that sense of loneliness when it was withheld, which perhaps is the most touching feature of all, because it approaches most nearly to a weakness” (Conybeare and Howson).
Timothy was given to the Apostle as a son. Over and over again this is the title that he uses, “My son Timothy”. Like a parent, the Apostle knew the many fears and anxieties that love and affection induce, as is evinced by his very epistles to Timothy, which show a remarkable interchange of thought, human in the extreme.
Who but Paul, thinking of Timothy, would crowd together in four verses such themes as elect angels, partiality, laying on of hands, personal purity, water drinking, wine, digestion, and Timothy’s “oft infirmities”, sins, and judgment? (I Tim. v. 21-24). Yet the transition is easy, natural and intensely human. The Apostle is urging Timothy, though young, to exercise himself in the office to which he had been called. He had to deal with charges made against elders, and Paul directs his eyes, above and beyond all earthly tribunals, to the Lord Himself and the elect angels. In view of that judgment-seat, Timothy would be strengthened to administer justice impartially. On the other hand, in appointing men to office in the church, Paul did not inculcate impartiality at the expense of discrimination, nor must Timothy be so falsely charitable as to partake of other men’s sins. So, with all this burden resting upon his son, Paul says, “Keep thyself pure”, yet, as he writes the words, he remembers that, if anything, Timothy was inclined to be too reserved, to abstemious, and, fearing lest this emphasis upon purity might be misinterpreted, he adds:
“Be no longer a water-drinker, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine oft infirmities” (I Tim. v. 23).
Perhaps the responsibility attaching to the appointment of bishops, who must not be “given to wine” (I Tim. iii. 3), or of deacons, who must not be “given to much wine” (I Tim. iii. 8), had led Timothy to feel that he too should abstain.
In all this we can see the tender care of the Apostle for his son.
This same interchange of theme is brought about in passages where the Apostle reveals how intense was his desire for human fellowship. When Paul left Berea for Athens, Timothy remained behind, but upon arriving at Athens he sent a command that Silas and Timothy should come to him with all speed. Yet, with blessed vacillation, when Timothy did arrive at Athens, the Apostle’s deep concern for the faith of the Thessalonians made him, however reluctantly, send Timothy off again:
“Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; and sent Timothy our brother . . . . . For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith” (I Thess. iii. 1-5).
How perfectly free the Apostle was from airs, pretensions, affectations. In II Tim. iv. he is a self-acknowledged martyr; he knows that he has finished his course; he is assured of a crown. Does he pause, for one moment, to strike an attitude? Never! In the course of his statement concerning his triumph, he drops from the skies to the earth, and reveals his intensely human heart, saying,
“Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me, for Demas hath forsaken me” (II Tim. iv. 9, 10).
Then, after other statements and instructions—in which he finds time to speak well of Mark, who once turned back (II Tim. iv. 11)—he says to Timothy:
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments” (verse 13).
In view of death, one might almost have forgotten parchments and books, but how lovely to see this utter lack of affectation in his request for the cloke left behind at Troas. So, on the Apostle goes, to the end of the epistle. Alexander the coppersmith is remembered, and the sad fact that at his first defence the Apostle was forsaken is immediately countered by that irrepressible catching up of a subject: “No man stood with me . . . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood by me” (verses 16 and 17).
The same swift play with words is seen in II Tim. ii. 9: “I suffer trouble, even unto bonds”, and then, quick as a flash, he adds: “But the word of God is not bound.” Incidentally, it is seldom that we hear this passage read with any intelligent appreciation of the mind that prompted it.
So, to return to chapter iv. He immediately passes from the reference in verse 8 to the crown to be given at the appearing of the Lord, to the urging of Timothy to come quickly: he has no sooner speaks of the heavenly kingdom, than he salutes the saints and says to Timothy: “Do thy diligence to come before winter” (verse 21).
Such is a sketch, and but a sketch, of the earthen vessel. Less than the least of all saints, yet not one whit behind the chiefest of the Apostles. A man of many moods, and several evident infirmities, but so enraptured by the Christ of God, so enthralled with His great love, that, time and again, we forget the earthen vessel for the glory it contained. May we not believe that if sanity and sanctity are near one another in sound and meaning, that it would be well for us all to be able to manifest the same human traits as were seen in spirit where the Apostle shines so brightly in the reflected glory of the Lord he loved.
We do not pretend to have given a portrait of the Apostle but, as we have said, only a sketch, which may serve its turn until we and he, together, shall be transfigured into that glorious image of our Lord, which, being so far above all earthly attainments, will level us all, whether Paul, or Timothy, the reader or the writer, and enable us, with a true heart, to glory in the truth proclaimed by the Apostle that “Christ is all”. We value the Apostle, not merely for his own sake, but rather because of the Christ we have learned through him, and that not only because of the doctrine he was commissioned to proclaim, but through the manner of man that he was, by the grace of God.
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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 148).
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#14. Separate Features: His Humanity.
“Here we see . . . . . that tender friendship which watches over the health of Timothy, even with a mother’s care, that intense sympathy in the joys and sorrows of his converts, which could say, even to the rebellious Corinthians, ‘Ye are in our hearts to die and live with you’. That longing desire for the intercourse of affection, and that sense of loneliness when it was withheld, which perhaps is the most touching feature of all, because it approaches most nearly to a weakness” (Conybeare and Howson).
Timothy was given to the Apostle as a son. Over and over again this is the title that he uses, “My son Timothy”. Like a parent, the Apostle knew the many fears and anxieties that love and affection induce, as is evinced by his very epistles to Timothy, which show a remarkable interchange of thought, human in the extreme.
Who but Paul, thinking of Timothy, would crowd together in four verses such themes as elect angels, partiality, laying on of hands, personal purity, water drinking, wine, digestion, and Timothy’s “oft infirmities”, sins, and judgment? (I Tim. v. 21-24). Yet the transition is easy, natural and intensely human. The Apostle is urging Timothy, though young, to exercise himself in the office to which he had been called. He had to deal with charges made against elders, and Paul directs his eyes, above and beyond all earthly tribunals, to the Lord Himself and the elect angels. In view of that judgment-seat, Timothy would be strengthened to administer justice impartially. On the other hand, in appointing men to office in the church, Paul did not inculcate impartiality at the expense of discrimination, nor must Timothy be so falsely charitable as to partake of other men’s sins. So, with all this burden resting upon his son, Paul says, “Keep thyself pure”, yet, as he writes the words, he remembers that, if anything, Timothy was inclined to be too reserved, to abstemious, and, fearing lest this emphasis upon purity might be misinterpreted, he adds:
“Be no longer a water-drinker, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine oft infirmities” (I Tim. v. 23).
Perhaps the responsibility attaching to the appointment of bishops, who must not be “given to wine” (I Tim. iii. 3), or of deacons, who must not be “given to much wine” (I Tim. iii. 8), had led Timothy to feel that he too should abstain.
In all this we can see the tender care of the Apostle for his son.
This same interchange of theme is brought about in passages where the Apostle reveals how intense was his desire for human fellowship. When Paul left Berea for Athens, Timothy remained behind, but upon arriving at Athens he sent a command that Silas and Timothy should come to him with all speed. Yet, with blessed vacillation, when Timothy did arrive at Athens, the Apostle’s deep concern for the faith of the Thessalonians made him, however reluctantly, send Timothy off again:
“Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; and sent Timothy our brother . . . . . For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith” (I Thess. iii. 1-5).
How perfectly free the Apostle was from airs, pretensions, affectations. In II Tim. iv. he is a self-acknowledged martyr; he knows that he has finished his course; he is assured of a crown. Does he pause, for one moment, to strike an attitude? Never! In the course of his statement concerning his triumph, he drops from the skies to the earth, and reveals his intensely human heart, saying,
“Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me, for Demas hath forsaken me” (II Tim. iv. 9, 10).
Then, after other statements and instructions—in which he finds time to speak well of Mark, who once turned back (II Tim. iv. 11)—he says to Timothy:
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments” (verse 13).
In view of death, one might almost have forgotten parchments and books, but how lovely to see this utter lack of affectation in his request for the cloke left behind at Troas. So, on the Apostle goes, to the end of the epistle. Alexander the coppersmith is remembered, and the sad fact that at his first defence the Apostle was forsaken is immediately countered by that irrepressible catching up of a subject: “No man stood with me . . . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood by me” (verses 16 and 17).
The same swift play with words is seen in II Tim. ii. 9: “I suffer trouble, even unto bonds”, and then, quick as a flash, he adds: “But the word of God is not bound.” Incidentally, it is seldom that we hear this passage read with any intelligent appreciation of the mind that prompted it.
So, to return to chapter iv. He immediately passes from the reference in verse 8 to the crown to be given at the appearing of the Lord, to the urging of Timothy to come quickly: he has no sooner speaks of the heavenly kingdom, than he salutes the saints and says to Timothy: “Do thy diligence to come before winter” (verse 21).
Such is a sketch, and but a sketch, of the earthen vessel. Less than the least of all saints, yet not one whit behind the chiefest of the Apostles. A man of many moods, and several evident infirmities, but so enraptured by the Christ of God, so enthralled with His great love, that, time and again, we forget the earthen vessel for the glory it contained. May we not believe that if sanity and sanctity are near one another in sound and meaning, that it would be well for us all to be able to manifest the same human traits as were seen in spirit where the Apostle shines so brightly in the reflected glory of the Lord he loved.
We do not pretend to have given a portrait of the Apostle but, as we have said, only a sketch, which may serve its turn until we and he, together, shall be transfigured into that glorious image of our Lord, which, being so far above all earthly attainments, will level us all, whether Paul, or Timothy, the reader or the writer, and enable us, with a true heart, to glory in the truth proclaimed by the Apostle that “Christ is all”. We value the Apostle, not merely for his own sake, but rather because of the Christ we have learned through him, and that not only because of the doctrine he was commissioned to proclaim, but through the manner of man that he was, by the grace of God.
---------------------------
(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 148).
----------------------
