And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
~2 Timothy 2:24-26
I have spent the last seven weeks primarily on the last half of this passage, and now we will come back to the first half. Those who are in opposition to the truth do not know the truth (or are in active rebellion against it), they are not thinking straight or clearly, they are trapped by the devil, and they are made to be his puppets. So, with this next set of posts, we will examine how the apologist should respond to this situation (something I have to do a LOT of practicing on) and how we should handle such people. Paul gives us several descriptions: 1) he is a servant of the Lord, 2), he must not quarrel, and 3) he is to be gentle, 4) able to teach, 5) patient, and 6). humble. Today, I will focus on the servant of the Lord. Who is such a person? What is the job description?
The Christian, specifically in the practice/office of proclaiming and defending the faith, is a servant of the Lord. He is not promoting his own agenda, and he is not building his own platform; he is doing the business of God. One of the things that really hit me as I have studied this passage is what it means to “bear the name of the Lord.” When you are in Christian circles, having grown up in them and always been around them, that is something you hear but often take for granted. I can testify to this.
We are ambassadors. We are people who legally represent God. This is what it means to pray “in the name of Jesus Christ.” We are to pray as though we have the authority Jesus has. Many people have certainly taken that to heart and then started proclaiming anything and everything they wanted. But there is a caveat to that authority that the Centurion understood. In order to have authority, the Centurion had to be under authority. He could see that in Jesus, which is why he had so much faith in Him. If we are to represent Jesus, speak in His name, and proclaim His message, we have to be under His rule. Jesus is the Sovereign King. He is the ruler of all rulers, King of all kings, and Lord of all lords already. But if we want His authority, we have to be under His authority.
We need to truly grasp what it means to represent God. The third commandment is to “not take the Lord’s name in vain.” I did a study on this earlier this year, along with the rest of the 10 Commandments, but this is a violation we commit far more frequently than we realize. This commandment is most known for addressing using God’s name as a curse word, but it also includes claiming His name and misusing it. Anytime we claim that we speak for God or represent God, and we do so in a way that does not give Him glory, is taking His name in vain. When someone takes a man-made idea in which God was never consulted, let alone build upon the foundation of Scripture, and then attributes it to God, that is taking the Lord’s name in vain.
This is what Ezekiel warned about with those who say “Thus says the Lord” when the Lord had not spoken. When someone invokes God’s name to say, “Don’t dare question me!” (such as, “Don’t touch the Lord’s anointed”) that is taking God’s name in vain. When we proclaim that we are defending God’s truth but showcase a spirit other than what Christ showed (i.e. doing as the “Sons of Thunder” did), it very well could be taking God’s name in vain. Any time we invoke God’s name and do not treat it or handle it with the honor and respect it deserves, we take it in vain. The servant of the Lord is to honor and treat the name of God with upmost dignity.
Eric Ludy preached a sermon that caught my attention about Abraham’s servant. He was sent to get a bride for Isaac. The big point he made was that the servant was to bring all the attention to be about Isaac and not himself. As servants of the Lord, we are not to proclaim ourselves. It’s not about us. Ludy has taught me this key point: When we are sharing our faith, by the time we walk away the person should be thinking about “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” If they are thinking about us, we didn’t do our job right. Think about sharing your testimony. Nearly every testimony I hear is about “us.” It’s about “me.” It’s MY story. As servants of the Lord, while we certainly are able to and should share about what God has done in our lives, our testimony should be about Christ. In the story, we are not the protagonist, the hero of the story, getting help from the wise mentor. In the story, we are the damsel in distress, needing rescue. The person we are sharing our faith with should be thinking about the Savior. The servant of the Lord represents Jesus and proclaims Jesus. We are mere messengers.
To be such a servant, we must give a message that is what God gives. This is one of my pet peeves in “modern Christianity” today. So many people in churches have no real concept of the weight of their duty in evangelism. I have Old Earth Creationists tell me, “You won’t convince many geologists or scientists with those arguments.” My response to that is, “If you are concerned about their opinions, you are NOT concerned about Christ. It’s HIS opinion that matters, not the ‘experts’ of this world.” The whole Progressive Christian movement has taken what Old Earth started with (changing Genesis to accommodate “modern science”) and swung that door wide open. While OEC models purpose to change what “day” and “whole earth” mean to deny the clear 6-day creation and global flood descriptions, Progressive Christianity does the same thing with “virgin birth,” “holiness,” “salvation,” “sin,” etc., BOTH with the full intention of making the message “acceptable” to the target audience. While you may not always find Progressive Christianity in OEC circles, you can all but guarantee you will find OEC in Progressive Christian circles.
We have to completely ditch the idea of giving a message that appeals to the audience. The Gospel has NEVER been acceptable to the sinful world. No generation has ever been able to handle the sting of the Gospel. When we are proclaiming our message correctly, there can be only three responses and we see them in Acts 17 at Mars Hill: 1) they will mock and ridicule you (the majority response), 2) some are undecided and want to hear more, or 3) they will be converted. Response #2 always leads to #1 or #3. There is no neutral territory.
The servant of the Lord proclaims God’s message as God gave it. Never adds to it. Never takes away from it. Never sugar coats it. Never roughs it up either. He simply proclaims the message as God gave it. So, the duty of the servant of the Lord is to make sure he is listening and receiving God’s message clearly and correctly. That requires not reading your own ideas into the text but submitting to the text. It means that what God said goes, and no one is to tell you otherwise, Christian or not. Don’t mess around with God’s name or His message. Eve fell to the lie when she added to the Word of God. King Saul sealed his doom when he did not completely obey the Word of God. Ananias and Sapphira died for only telling a half-truth to God. You don’t mess around with these things. So, with this in mind, knowing what our job is and knowing what the lost are like, Paul tells us how the servant of the Lord should deliver the message of salvation to the lost.
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