Day 2: Bible Reading

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The Jesmond Conference Day 2: Bible Reading

Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:

I am writing these things to you so that… you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. (1 Timothy 3.14-15)

So let's read from 1 Timothy 2.1-7, to learn how we ought to behave in order to be part of that pillar and buttress of the truth:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (vv1-7)

So back to v1:

First of all, then (v1)

And the 'then' (or you could translate it 'therefore') points back to chapter 1 where Paul has basically told Timothy, 'You are now entrusted with the gospel that God entrusted to me. So hold on to it.' So what you'd expect Paul to say next is 2 Timothy 4.1:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word (2 Timothy 4.1-2)

Isn't that what the activist in you was expecting? Weren't you expecting to be told to get down to writing talks or running Christianity Explored? But what you actually get is 1 Timothy 2.1, which says:

First of all, therefore, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people (v1)

Ie, not preaching, in the first place – but prayer. And prayer for all people: for atheists and Muslims; for those living heterosexually and those living homosexually;for persecuters and friends; for well-off and poor; for rural and urban; for opera-watchers and soap-opera watchers; for those like us and those nothing like us (no parallelism between those last two is intended, I should say).

All people are to be in our sights for the simple reason that all people are in God's sights – because, as v5 says, there is one God who made all people. But then Paul suddenly narrows it down in v2 to prayer,

for kings and all who are in high positions (v2)

But that's not because the 'all people' in v1 was just a bit of a rhetorical flourish or an exaggeration. It's because 'kings and all who are in high positions' hold the key to the next part of v2, which is,

that we [the church] may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (v2)

Which at a first hearing sounds, as one commentator puts it 'unbearably bourgeois' – incredibly self-centred and self-serving. But read on and you find it's the very opposite: it's other-centred and other-serving. Verse 3:

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. (vv3-6)

So the 'all people' whom Paul had in his sights from the start re-appear there. And you realise that Paul is saying, 'Between the one God who made them and sent Jesus for their salvation (on the one hand), and the 'all people' (on the other hand) stands the church that bears the gospel. So what's crucial for the sake of the 'all people' is that the conditions are good for the church to eb able to speak the gospel and live out the gospel – which is what v2 is about. It says we're to pray

for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (v2)

So, 'peaceful and quiet' is about social order and stability, in which we are very privileged. By contrast, here is part of a prayer letter from a believer I know working in the middle east:

I have Arabic friends in Syria, where life is almost impossibly hard. One is a Baptist pastor, who had the opportunity to escape the country at various stages, but who stayed to be with his flock in Aleppo. He found himself alone in his apartment one night whilst bombs, rockets and mortars rained down. Here is what he emailed to us then and there [he survived]:I am awaiting death, here in my room, sitting in darkness because we get electricity only one hour per day or less… Two mortars fell on the building in front of us, another to the right, another one on a building in the next street, but not on ours! So the question is: will the next be on ours?

That puts the conditions we labour in into perspective. We are ultra-privileged when it comes to 'peace and quiet', and we need to be worthy of that privilege: it's not for our ease or leisure. So at my ordination, I was asked, 'Will you be diligent in prayer and in the reading of the Holy Scriptures and in such studies as help to a fuller knowledge of them, turning aside from studies for self-indulgence and worldy gain?' (I must say that, as a reader of P.G.Wodehouse, the bit against 'studies for self-indulgence' casued me a conscientiously anxious moment – but my rationale is that Bertie Wooster's pastoral advice on dealing with aunts is invaluable.)

That all came out of 'peaceful and quiet' – which you have to understand alongside the fact that Paul's ministry was often not 'peaceful and quiet' in the sense of an absence of opposition or persecution. Having the social order and stability which basically allows you to get on with gospel ministry isn't the same as having an easy time – and persecution and opposition may serve to advance the gospel better, at times of God's choosing.

And then way one commentator paraphrases 'godly and dignified in every way' as 'religion observably in action' which commends the gospel to unbelievers. And just as those in authority hold the key to 'peace and quiet', so they hold the key to that, too.

One positive example is the organistion Safe Families for Children. It was started in Chicago as a response by the churches to the number of children ending up in the care system and not retunring to their families. So the churches recruited an army of volunteers to offer help to families in crisis to avoid children going into care. And in Chicago, in ten years, the number of children ending up in care was halved. And Safe Families for Children has now been piloted over here in the north east – precisely because those in authority in various cities in the region have backed it with co-operation and resources.

But there are plenty of negative examples, too, of godliness being blocked by those in authority – especially as government becomes more intrusive in all areas of our lives, as we were thinking yesterday. So glancing back through the Christian Institute's booklet Marginalising Christians, I was reminded of the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray with a patient; of the five-year-old who was told off for speaking openly about her Christian beliefs to her friends in school; and of the adoption agencies threatened with closure by the government's requirement that they be equally willing to place children with homosexual couples.

So 'kings and all who are in high positions' hold the key to our conditions – 'peace and quiet' – and our liberties – to be 'godly and dignified in every way.' and therefore whatever else we may do – like trying to influence and lobby them – we must pray for them. And however stacked against us things may appear humanly speaking, we must trust what it says in Proverbs:

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21.1)

So just think back to the government's attempt to introduce the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill. A good number of people in this room worked their socks off to oppose it. Some of you pretty much lived in Westminster that week. And when it came to the time of the vote, Tony Blair was assured that the numbers were fine and he needn't stay around for the division. So he went home. And the Bill, if I remember rightly, was defeated by one vote:

The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21.1)

In that case, the LORD turned a corporate decision where he willed. Often, at other levels of authority, the decision rests with just one person – but however likely their opposition is humanly speaking, we must act believing Proverbs. Whoever they are, their 

heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21.1)

Going back to the the example of the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill, that probably united Christians more than other issues have because they rightly recognised that religious liberty was at stake – the freedom to speak the gospel of Jesus' Lordship and all its entailments (for example, that there is only one mediator between God and man; or that there is only one way to live to please him when it comes to matters sexual). And as was said yesterday, religious liberty is the no.1 liberty that we're to work and pray for. But again, that's not for self-centred or self-serving reasons. It is because where there is liberty for the church, the gospel can be spoken and lived out – which is for the sake of all. And it is because where there is liberty for the church, there is actually maximal liberty for all, as well. Because liberty for the church means liberty of belief, liberty of expression of belief and liberty openly to change belief. So, assuming the equal treatment of all in society, when the church has those liberties, everyone does. So as Don Carson writes in his book The Intolerance of Tolerance,

A long history of reflection argues that if freedom of religion is progressively trimmed, it is only a matter of time before freedom, more comprehensively envisaged, is also progressively trimmed. It is not for nothing that freedom of religion is often called the first freedom – not merely in historical sequence, but in its foundational power.

So, backing up to 1 Timothy 2.2, all of that is why we're called to pray

for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (v2)

But, backing up to where we began, in 1 Timothy 2.1, that is part of our calling to to pray for all people. And surely in this context that means for their salvation. Because whatever other good we may do for them – for their peace, for their liberty, for their earthly well-being – we must believe that that is what they need most.

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