2 Timothy 4:1-8 Questions 3-5 and QC

 3. In 4:1, Paul gives an incentive for these exhortations (4:2,5). How is this verse an incentive?

 The exhortation is to keep God in mind - His reality and presence, our accountability to Him and His coming. In is in the light of this that all other exhortations become meaningful.

4. Why must Timothy preach patiently and sometimes reprovingly (4:2-4)?

"With complete patience" implies that people will be slow to respond they way they should. "Reprove, rebuke and exhort" implies that they will incline to do wrong instead of right.

In particular, because ("For" v.3) people:

• will not endure sound teaching, since the truth of God is often difficult for humans to accept (e,g, the doctrine of original sin, the sovereignty of God) and because that truth calls us to change our behaviour.
  
• but will have itching ears,  desiring new stimulus (cf. 3:7). We scratch itches, but the itch often returns.
  
• and so accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Not listening then being judged by and judging by Scripture, but having preferences then selecting the teaching accordingly. They set preferences over the truth of God
  
• and will turn away from listening to the truth
• and will wander off into myths.  As if they have found the byways more interesting than the main road. imagination is often more interesting than real life. They will major on the minors - emphasizing part of the truth at the expense of the whole.
  

Are these people Christians or non-Christians? cf. 2 TIm 3:1-9, where Paul asks Timothy to avoid these people, here he encourages Timothy to labour in his ministry to those under his pastoral charge

Winnie asked if there is a difference between believing a myth and lacking understanding., or following false teaching. We agreed that the main difference would be that in the former there is an element of unwillingness to hear the truth.

5. What strikes you as especially significant in Paul's instructions of 4:2-4? 

"Complete patience and teaching" tells us that although preaching is a God-ordained necessary ministry, fruit will be slow and difficult

 

Does what Paul describes in 4:3-4 happen today? If so, can you think of some examples?

Prosperity gospel teaching caters to the desires of the material and present time, rather than to spiritual realities and hope for future blessing. It has a deficient theology of suffering.

So Timothy's motivation for preaching rests on 3 realities to which he is asked to look:

• Look at the Lord ((v.1)
  
• Look at the hearers (v.3-4)
• Look at Paul (v.6)
  

"but as for you" (v.5) cf. 3:10,14; 4:5

QC question

If we were the only person in the world, would Christ still have come to die for you?

 

We had a lively discussion on this. We said that preachers might say this in order to make the love of God real to an individual. And indeed, Paul can say that "the Son of God...loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20-21) Selwyn raised John 15:5 and said that if Jesus taught His disciples about love great enough to die for their friends, surely He would do likewise for an individual. God does not judge the absolute goodness or worth of something by how many are saved, for if that were the case then all would be saved. God's love is certainly greater than the love of man. He expects us to die for our friends, but Christ died for us while we were still His enemies (Rom 5:7-9)

The situation where only one sinner existed for Christ to save him or her is purely hypothetical, and all attempts to speak into the situation are speculative. From the OT to the NT the intent of God has always been to redeem a people. So we are saved as individuals, but saved into a community. We must respect the sovereignty of God and realize that knowing truth about His character(e.g. His sacrificial) does not mean that He will act according to our expectations. I summed up by saying that I would never phrase the love of God in the terms of the question because I would see it as presumption.