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
A servant of the Lord must be patient and humble. If I had a struggle in my debates and my stance for truth, it would be patience with those who believe and teach error. My patience in “tolerating” error is very short, and as a result, my tendency is to get into quarrels and to struggle with being gentle. I frequently have to remind myself of these four traps: they don’t know the truth (or don’t recognize it), they are not thinking straight, they are ensnared by the devil, or they are being puppeteered into doing his bidding. Jesus said of his executioners, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus was the perfect model of patience.
Eric Ludy gave me a very unique approach to looking at patience. It’s not “sit and wait.” It’s actually more “tensile strength combined with resilience.” It’s the ability to be stretched out and revert back to “normal” without getting bent out of shape. In engineering, an object has a limit to how far it can be stretched or compressed before that stress becomes permanent. Press it further and it can shatter. A resilient material is able to revert back to its original shape after a stress load. If there is one thing that “bends me out of shape,” it’s hearing false teachings. I have always been a rule follower, and the breaking of rules offends me. God has taken that gifting and directed it towards His teachings, so I do not tolerate error. I often get accused of being unkind towards those who disagree with me, however it actually has nothing to do with me. I don’t hold a lot of weight on my own opinions. I do have them, but I don’t give them a lot of weight. I give the Word of God the weight. And many times, it tells me I am wrong. Patience is the ability to hear error and revert back to your normal position without losing your cool.
The key to such resilience is humility. A lot of people don’t fully understand humility, and I can’t say I have it mastered. As of writing this, I had recently had my “church membership interview” with one of our elders (I think this is a good idea as we want to make sure those who are officially part of the church congregation be vetted), and he made a comment that when he first met me, he saw a spirit of humility in me. Now some of those who have engaged with me on-line would beg to differ. As I have reflected over my conversations, I can definitely see times where I have been proud and arrogant. I also see times where the accusations of pride and arrogance are ultimately nothing more than, “I know what I am talking about, how dare you question me?”
My pastor is preaching through the book of Exodus, and he’s made a big issue of the need for humble church leaders. Humility is not a lowly “woe is me.” It is most certainly not, “I really don’t know, so I won’t make a formal stand.” Those people are always questioning the clarity and integrity of Scripture, often boasting that no one in 2000+ years has figured out what God actually meant until they did. That is as much arrogance and pride as those who arrogantly boast about their position. My pastor’s description of humility is being beaten, crushed, and broken. It is having YOU driven out of you. It is God grinding you to powder. It is thinking nothing of yourself and relying wholly upon Christ.
Moses could say he was the humblest man, because he was the man most broken and most dependent upon God to get him through. He had no delusions of grandeur from the moment he fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian. He resisted God’s calling, knowing he could not do it in his own strength. As he grew and began leading Israel, the more and more he depended upon God for his strength. As a servant of the Lord, Moses needed to be humbled before he could be used. James warns us that pride goes before a fall, but God lifts up the humble.
Paris Reidhead counseled a pastor who had a good-sized church and a radio/TV program, but he lacked the Holy Spirit’s power. He told the pastor that all he wanted was power for the program he had already established in his own flesh. Reidhead described it as driving up with a new Cadillac and telling the station clerk to fill her up with the highest octane you got. Reidhead told him before God would do anything for him, he would not have to sit in the back seat, letting Jesus drive, but rather he would have to give the keys to Jesus, let him fill up the car with whatever gas he wanted to, climb into the trunk, and slam the lid, telling Jesus to drive. True Christianity is not us doing things for God; it is God working in and through us. We are just in for the ride.
A servant of the Lord must be patient and humble. If we are not patient and if we are not humble, then God will work around us and may pass us by. He won’t let us share His glory. I have four books published now, and I have already had reports that several of them are already changing lives. I now have on record that one of them has even saved a marriage, and I didn’t even write about marriage in it. I am going to say plainly that this was not me. I can take no credit for any of that. Yes, I wrote them; but it was God who directed that, and it was God who spoke to the reader and changed their lives. I was merely a tool in God’s hands. For the longest time, I have never wanted to be broken by the Lord. I have prayed I would rather be moldable for God to form me than for Him to have to break me. I am no longer convinced by the validity of such a prayer. This series by my pastor is teaching me what humble leadership should look like, and it’s having a very good effect on me. God has me at this church for more than this and I’m glad to be here where God has me.
This concludes my study on this passage directly. However, as I studied this passage, the context surrounding it must also be examined. Stay tuned.
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