Timid Timothy?
Timothy (late 14th - early 15th century), part of a fresco in Gracanica Monastery (Serbian Orthodox), Kosovo
Friends in Christ, I was privileged to be away with fellow pastors at the South Sydney Regional Ministry Conference recently. It's so helpful to get to know your peers in ministry round about.
Rev Simon Manchester, an honorary Canon of our Cathedral, gave the Bible studies from 2 Timothy. This has been a book of the Bible I have delighted to read again and again with young men considering Christian ministry as a vocation. But such ministry is not easy.
2 Timothy 1:7 says,
“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (NIV84).
Commenting on this verse, the normally excellent older Tyndale commentary of Donald Guthrie stated,
“It may be his besetting sin was timidity, and this was Paul’s tactful way to deal with it” (p. 126).
I am glad to say Simon did not repeat the stereotype of 'Timid Timothy', though I have also seen it from John Stott and John Piper!
My problem is that the text never says Timothy was timid! It’s reading too much into the comment from chatper 1:7.
From what Paul says of the situation, I think any normal person would be afraid. Paul is suffering for the gospel “to the point of being chained like a criminal” (2 Tim 2:9; cf. 1:8). Everyone in Asia has deserted him (2 Tim 1:15). Even allowing for a little hyperbole, it’s risky to be associated with him and the gospel he preaches! In fact, Timothy has seen this firsthand; he knows “what kinds of things happened to [Paul] in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions [he] endured” (2 Tim 3:11 NIV).
Remind yourselves of Acts 13-14: jealous and abusive speech greeted Paul’s gospel preaching in Psidian Antioch, which was followed by persecution and expulsion (Acts 13:45, 50). In Iconium, there was a plot to mistreat and stone Paul (Acts 14:5). In Lystra, he was actually stoned to the point where people thought he was dead (Acts 14:19).
Lystra is where Timothy lived and was picked up by Paul on his return visit (Acts 16:1-3). Timothy witnessed these persecutions.
And back in 2 Timothy 3:12, Paul says this sort of thing will happen to everyone who wants to live a godly life! So it;s not just pastors, is it?
I don’t think a Christian has to be timid to be a little nervous in these circumstances. Most people I know would need plenty of encouragement in such situations to keep preaching the gospel and to stand firmly with those at the pointy end of the stick!
If we are reading the commands Timothy is given as some sort of decisive background for personality typing, then why don’t we accuse him of being argumentative? We’d be on more solid ground. After all, Paul warns against quarrelsomeness in 2 Timothy 2:14, 23-24. And he urges Timothy to “gently instruct” (2:25 NIV) those who oppose and to rebuke and correct “with great patience” (4:2 NIV).
However, we should no more assume that aggression was Timothy’s particular personality problem than timidity. Instead, they were both temptations he was likely to face under the pressures of responding to false teaching, on one hand, and persecution, on the other.
As for me, I think Timothy was probably a normal man asked to do the toughest job in the world: preaching under fire.
Thank God, too, for people like Onesiphorus (2 Tim 1:16-18) who stood with Paul (and no doubt, Timothy) when he was under pressure, and went out of his way to find practical ways to refresh him.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney