Paul moves into his final illustration of the chapter with this week’s passage, the image of a servant. First, however, he addresses Timothy’s youthfulness and encourages him to stand strong in the face of temptation.
Take a look for yourself in 2 Timothy 2:22-24:
If you look closely, you’ll see that these few verses are laid out in a pattern. Paul instructs Timothy to avoid certain things, and then he encourages him to pursue the opposite. He then does the same pattern again, giving Timothy something to avoid and then to pursue.
Paul probably used this structure to help remind Timothy of his instructions. And, once we see the pattern, it helps us remember as well. It’s in the final part of this passage that Paul introduces the imagery of the servant.
What To Avoid
First, Paul instructs Timothy to “flee the evil desires of youth.” The verb tense here literally means to “continue fleeing.” Timothy is a young man, and Paul gives him some instructions that he was sure to understand. Just what those “evil desires” were, we do not know. We can make a pretty good guess, but that’s all we can do. And the next list of positive characteristics is too vague to help us much.
Timothy’s youth could be a detriment to his ministry, if he didn’t stay strong. The same holds true today. We recently saw a young man come into our church, and start seeking God. He made several key decisions and started to get plugged in, but soon the pull of the world was too strong for him. We haven’t seen him for several weeks, even though we have been searching, trying to help him “flee the evil desires of youth.” The call of the world can be strong for the one unprepared to stand firm against those temptations.
What To Pursue
If Paul encourages Timothy to avoid those evil desires, then he needs to give him something to replace them with. And he does in the next phrase. He gives Timothy four characteristics to apply to his life: righteousness, faith, love and peace. The first three he has already instructed Timothy on, in 1 Timothy 6:11. Here, he adds the final part, peace, which the false teachers do not display in their quarrels and arguments.
His call here is clear: all those who “call on the Lord out of a pure heart” develop such qualities. The false teachers do not.
What To Avoid
Paul reverses his thoughts and goes back to what to avoid again. Here he counsels Timothy to avoid “foolish and stupid arguments.” These are directly the opposite of the peace that he just instructed Timothy about. The word that the NIV translates as “stupid” literally means “untrained” or “uneducated.” In other words, Timothy isn’t to get into such arguments with people who don’t know what they are talking about. You and I know people like that. Their ignorance doesn’t keep them from speaking out on a subject that they know nothing about. Timothy is to avoid such situations, because they only lead to quarrels.
What To Pursue
Finally, Paul returns to the positive side of his discussion again. Instead of quarreling, Paul encourages Timothy to be a servant. He doesn’t tell Timothy to let the false teaching go, but he explains to Timothy how he is to handle it. He is to be kind, even to the false teachers, and to teach the truth. This is the same phrase that Paul used to describe the elder or the overseer in 1 Timothy 3:2. And finally, he is to not be resentful, he is to be patient when wronged, which is likely when dealing with someone who wants to argue and quarrel.
This alternating pattern is a great way to teach others. Paul instructed Timothy on what was bad, followed by what was good to replace it. He then did that again, gave the bad, followed by the good. In this way, Timothy was instructed on what to avoid without feeling like he was being chastised. Paul’s emphasis each time was on the positive.
We can take heart from this as well, knowing that we can avoid temptations such as these, and when we build up the positive, the negative is easier to avoid. That’s not a bad way to gain insight from much of God’s Word: learning what is bad, so that we can avoid it, while replacing the negative with more positive attitudes and actions, helping us build our relationship into something stronger and healthier each passing day.
Question: In your own life, what do you need to avoid? What can you replace it with to make it easier to grow spiritually? You can leave a comment by clicking here.