The Scope of Vintage Christianity. 1 Timothy 2:1-7
Over
twenty years ago, my childhood pastor gave me a biography on William Carey by
Timothy George. This book remains one of my favorites and I reread it every few years or so. I am both challenged and encouraged by Carey's life and witness. Carey is the celebrated
father of modern missions. He became the
first Baptist missionary to foreign fields, and spent about 40 years in India
for the purpose of preaching the gospel and establishing the Christian church
in a land that previously had no appreciable Christian witness.
It
was not easy. Carey endured tremendous
difficulties in planting the seed of the gospel in India. But these difficulties didn’t start in India
– they started in England among the Baptists with whom he associated. At that time, the Baptists were mired in a
hyper-calvinistic perspective that saw no need to take the gospel to other
lands. They had become very sectarian
and exclusivist. Carey struggled to
reverse this attitude. His efforts
culminated at the Northampton Baptist Association in 1792, at which Carey preached
on Isaiah 54 from the text, “Enlarge the place of thy tent” (ver. 2) and
exhorted the ministers gathered there to expect great things from God and then
attempt great thing for God. The meeting
was about to adjourn without anything being done for missions when Carey
shouted to Andrew Fuller, “Is nothing to be done again, sir?” Moved by his passionate plea, the ministers
decided to do something about it, and passed the following resolution:
“Resolved, that a plan be prepared against the next ministers’
meeting at Kettering, for forming a Baptist society for propagating the Gospel
among the Heathens.”
A little under a year later, Carey was on a boat for India.
What
moved Carey to press through such insurmountable obstacles was an incredible
burden for the lost in places unreached by the gospel. It is said that while still a
cobbler-preacher in England, he made a map of the world and would weep over it
as he pointed to the places of the earth without a gospel witness. You see, Carey had really entered into the
spirit of Paul which he expresses in 1 Tim. 2:1-8. He really believed that God “will have all
men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and that the only
way for this to happen was for such people to know the “one God, and [the] one
mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom
for all, to be testified in due time” (ver. 4-6).
The
exclusivism that Carey fought against was not unique to his day, however. It was already rampant in Paul’s day. That is what Paul is dealing with in this
text: a theological sectarianism that led to excluding prayer for those outside
their own group. To untangle such a
wrong view of those outside the church, Paul encourages the believers to pray
for all men to be saved, because this is God’s desire. The passage hinges on the use of the word
“all”: we are to pray for all because God wills for all to be saved, a fact shown in Christ
giving up his life a ransom for all. The universal scope of the gospel makes an
exclusivist attitude impossible. We are
to pray for all to be saved; we are to live in a way that hinders no one from
believing the gospel, because God is bringing his salvation, his gospel, to
all.
Paul’s
words to Timothy need to be heard in every generation. We need to beware of becoming insipient exclusivists. There are a lot of ways for this to happen –
it can happen theologically, so that like the English Baptists of the
eighteenth century we don’t see the need to share the gospel to the lost, or it
can happen just through selfishness and being introverted so that all we care
about is ourselves. In that case, we
exclude others, not because we mean to, but simply because we are so full of
our own “needs” that we have no place in our heart for others.
We
will never be a church which finds its heritage in Vintage Christianity unless
with Paul we are able to grasp a vision for the gospel as belonging to all, so
that we are praying for all, and praying for them that they might be saved. With Paul, we need to see the scope of
Vintage Christianity. The gospel is for
all, it is for the chief of sinners. We
ought to pray that our church reflects that reality.
Praying for Salvation for Others – Not
Softness for Ourselves (verses 1-2)
It’s
important to see what this passage is about, and it’s not primarily about prayer.
This is seen in that Paul drops all reference to prayer in verses 4-7,
in which the point is the universal extent of the gospel and salvation. Prayer functions in verse 1-3 to emphasize
this. Paul is not just saying that we
should pray – he is saying that we should pray for all. In other words, it’s
not prayer per se that is under
consideration, but the extent of our prayers in the sense of those for whom we
pray.
The
fact that verses 1-3 are tied to verses 4-7 shows also what the content of
these prayers should be: salvation for all people. If we are to pray for all because God wills for all to be saved
and Christ died for all so that they might be saved, then it follows that our
prayers are to be for the salvation of all.
Paul himself is one of the best examples of this. In Romans 10:1, he writes, “Brethren, my
heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
I
think this is important because it helps us to see how verse 2 should be
interpreted. Paul tells us that the
reason we should offer prayers for all people is “that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”
Often, this is interpreted to mean – especially in light of the rulers
mentioned at the beginning of verse 2 – that we should pray for them so that we
as believers are left alone and not persecuted by the authorities.
However,
there are two big problems with that interpretation. First, it doesn’t fit the context. The context is the universal extent of the
gospel and salvation. It seems odd,
doesn’t it, that Paul would say that we should pray for all (including our
rulers) so that we might be comfortable, because God wills for all to be saved? Those two propositions just don’t fit
together.
Second,
it doesn’t fit with what Paul says elsewhere.
In 2 Tim. 3:12, Paul says that “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.” The word for
“godly” in this verse is eusebos; the
word for “godliness” in 1 Tim. 2:2 is eusebeia
– they carry the same meaning. Paul
therefore cannot be saying we should pray so that we can practice our godliness
without persecution, when he says later that godliness leads to
persecution! In Acts 14:22, Paul
exhorted the believers that “we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom
of God.” No, Paul is not saying that the
purpose of prayer is our comfort.
What
then is the point of prayer? Let’s look
at the words Paul uses here: the reason Paul wants them to pray for all is so
that their lives will be characterized by four virtues: quietness, peace,
godliness, and honesty. We normally tend
to associate quiet and peace with our external circumstances; however, that is
not what Paul is talking about here.
Mounce, in his commentary on this verse, argues that the two words
“quietness” and “peaceable” are to be understood “as denoting not silence of
speech but quietness, calmness of demeanor, serenity.”[1] In other words, the words are descriptions of
the believer, not his/her external circumstances. The same can be said for “godliness” and
“honesty [dignity].”
How
does this relate to praying for all as its effect? I think Paul is probably thinking along these
lines: if you believe that God intends the gospel for all and not just your own
“group,” then you are much more likely to love the lost and pray for them and
to live in a way that would not alienate the lost and drive them from the
gospel – i.e. it would lead you to live a life characterized by quietness,
peace, godliness, and dignity. In fact,
Paul’s words to the Thessalonians confirm this.
There, he writes that they should “study to be quiet, and to do your own
business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; that ye may
walk honestly toward them that are without [i.e. may command the respect of
those outside the church]” (4:11-12).
Paul
expresses this sentiment elsewhere. In 2
Cor. 6, he expresses his desire that he should give “no offense in anything,
that the ministry be not blamed” (v.3).
The point is that he did not want the gospel to be hindered, and this
required a lifestyle that would not put stumbling blocks in people’s way (cf. 1
Cor. 9:19-22). That does not mean that
such a life will not be characterized by troubles and trials (as the passage in
2 Corinthians shows!). The gospel is
offensive to the lost, and you cannot change that. But if people are offended, we need to make
sure that the gospel and not we are the reason.
The
bottom line is this: Paul wants us to pray for all (including our leaders) so
that they might be saved. We are to pray
for the salvation of others, not softness for ourselves. So when I pray for the President and Congress
and the Governor, and state representatives, and city counselors, I don’t just
pray that they pass and enforce laws that will respect our religious freedom,
but I pray especially that they might be saved and come to know Jesus Christ as
Lord.
And
I don’t stop there; I keep praying for my friends and co-workers and family
members and all who are in my sphere of influence that God would use me to be a
witness to them and that they might be saved.
We need to pray for the lost; one of the reasons we are not more
intentional when it comes to being a gospel witness in our daily life is
because we don’t pray that way. If we
were to pray daily for specific people that we know, I’m sure it would affect
all our life. It would make us more
careful to live the kind of life before the lost that Paul describes here.
Pray
for the lost and don’t give up! You
don’t know how your prayers will be answered, or how long it will be before God
hears your prayer and acts. It is said
that George Mueller prayed for decades for a friend to be saved and never saw
the Lord answer his prayer. However, not
long after Muller died, this man was saved.
God heard his prayer. Remember
Zacharias: when he was a young man, he must have prayed often that he and his
wife could have a child. But the years
went by and they remained childless and eventually this prayer was
forgotten. Then one day, when Zacharias
and his wife were old and “now well stricken in years” (Luke 1:7), an angel
showed up and told him, “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and they
wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son” (v.13).
I don’t know how many years went by since Zacharias prayed that prayer,
but God had not forgotten even though evidently Zacharias had given up
hope. So don’t give up hope; remember to
whom you pray. He is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think (Eph. 3:20).
Four Reasons We Should Pray for the Salvation
of All (verses 2-7)
1. First, as we have already noted, we should
pray for the salvation of all people and all whom we know, because the right
perspective in prayer will lead to the appropriate behavior in life. Paul says that we are to pray for all “that
we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (v.2). We need to constantly remind ourselves that
our lives are a living gospel to the unbelievers who know us, and that if they
read us in a way that diminishes the gospel, they might not be willing to
listen to it because of us. Paul exhorts
servants in his letter to Titus, to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in
all things” (Tit. 2:10). Make it
attractive! That is what Paul is saying
here. But you are probably not going to
be thinking day to day of living in such a way as to make the gospel attractive
to unbelievers if you are not praying for them day to day. So let’s pray for the lost so that our lives
will fit the gospel better and make us better witnesses.
2. Second, Paul says that we should pray for
all, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will
have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (v. 3-4). If there were no other reason to pray for all
men, this alone would be sufficient. To
pray for all pleases God, and the reason why it pleases God is because it is a
reflection of his own desire for all to be saved.
Unfortunately,
a false implication is often made from this passage. It is that the universal language of the
passage implies that every human being will be saved. After all, if God wants them to be saved,
will they not be? Scripture tells us
over and over again; that what God wills shall be (Isa. 46:10). However, this cannot be what Paul means in
this verse. In this very letter, Paul
speaks of those who “fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish
and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition” (6:9) – language
Paul reserves elsewhere for eternal destruction. In 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, Paul describes in
graphic language the “everlasting punishment” that awaits those who persecute
God’s people and says in the next chapter that those who receive not the love
of the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness will perish and be condemned
(2:8-12). So Paul was not a universalist
in that sense. He believed in hell, just
as Jesus did.
What
then do we do with the universal language, coupled with the fact of God’s will
for all to be saved? As with any piece
of literature, context is key. Remember
that the false-teachers were probably Jewish (cf. 1:7). The sectarian spirit that had pervaded the
false-teachers most likely arose from a Jewish rejection of Gentile believers
in the church. Paul’s point here, I
think, is to underline the fact that the gospel is not just for the Jew
exclusively, but for Gentile as well.
This is underlined in verse 7, where Paul draws attention to his role as
“a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.” God didn’t just send him to the Jews, he sent
him to the Gentile. God wills for all to
be saved in this sense – “all” in the sense of Jew and Gentile.
In
other words, Paul is using the word “all” here in 2:4 in a sense similar to his
use of “all” in 6:10, where he tells us that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Greed is most certainly not the root of every
evil that has ever been perpetrated in human history. If Paul meant “all” in its most universal
sense, this verse would not be true.
However, it would be true that greed is the cause of every kind of
evil. In the same way, I think Paul is
using the word “all” in chapter 2 in the same way: he doesn’t intend us to
understand him to say that God wills all without exception to be saved, but all
without distinction. God has not
promised to save every human being, but every kind of human being: he has
promised to save some “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and
nation” (Rev. 5:9).
Thus,
if we take the universal language of Paul in this sense, it is neither
contradictory to his sovereign will, nor to the reality of hell. All whom God wills to be saved shall be
saved. But this “all” is not an all
without exception; it is an all without distinction.
However,
in the wake of such theological controversy, it is easy to fail to hear these
words as we ought. God is not just
interested in saving the kind of person you
want to be saved. He saves all sorts of
people, self-righteous Pharisees and adulterous women. He saves murderers like Paul, and fearful
saints like Joseph. The point is, we
need to be careful that we don’t “profile” those we think should be saved, and avoid everyone else. God wills for all to be saved, including the kind of person you think would not make
a good candidate for heaven!
I
mentioned George Mueller earlier. If you
had known Mueller before he was a Christian, you would never have guessed he
would be known as one of the greatest prayer-warriors this world has ever seen. John Piper describes the pre-conversion Mueller:
His father was an unbeliever and George grew up a liar and a
thief, by his own testimony. His mother
died when he was 14, and he records no impact that this loss had on him except
that while she was dying he was roving the streets with his friends “half
intoxicated.” He went on
living a bawdy life, and then found himself in prison for stealing when he was
16 years old. His father paid to get him out, beat him, and took him to live in
another town (Schoenbeck). . . . Finally his father sent him to the University
of Halle to study divinity and prepare for the ministry because that would be a
good living. Neither he nor George had any spiritual aspirations. Of the 900
divinity students in Halle, Mueller later estimated that maybe nine feared the
Lord.[2]
Nevertheless,
when Mueller was 20, he was invited to a Bible study, and that evening a work
of grace began to dawn in his soul. The
rest is history! We pray for all because
God is in the business of gathering his sheep from every corner of society and
the world. And he will be
successful.
3. Third, we ought to pray for all to be saved through Christ because he is the only way to heaven: “For there is one
God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave
himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (v. 5-6). In 1:15, Paul tells us that Christ came to
save the chief of sinners; here, he tells us how he has done so. He did it by becoming a ransom for men. Our sins are like a debt, and we are liable
to pay it. However, none of us can. We can’t pay back the debt we owe and we are
constantly racking up more debt on top of it.
There is nothing for such miserable, moral thieves as us but eternal
destruction. How can we be saved? Christ has done what we could not: he has
discharged the debt by paying the dreadful price in our place.
There
is no other way to be saved. That is why
we pray for the lost to know Christ: “This
is eternal life, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3).
People cannot be saved apart from Christ, and as long as they remain
apart from him they are exposed to eternal danger.
We
pray for all because Christ died for
all. Though Paul is not interested in
particular redemption here, neither do his words contradict it. Paul is using the word “all” in the same way
he has used it throughout this paragraph: “all without distinction.” Christ is the redeemer of God’s elect, yes;
but his elect come from every people group in the earth. Christ is no racist; he has spilt his blood
for people of all races. He is no tribal
deity; he belongs to no one group, for he is the King of the earth.
4. Finally, we ought to pray for all, because
the gospel is meant for all. Paul says
that he was “ordained a preacher, and an apostle (I speak the truth in Christ,
and lie not); a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity” (v.7). The scope of Paul’s ministry was as universal
as God’s intention to save and Christ’s ransom for all. He was not just sent to the Jew but to the
Gentile. And Paul is in a sense passing
the baton on to Timothy, and from Timothy to us. We cannot say we are the heirs of the
apostles if we tie the gospel up and hide it and sit on it instead of letting
it shine in our words and works.
Conclusion
Do
we really have a burden for the lost?
How can we say we are like Christ if we do not? He went to the cross for lost people like you
can me. He prayed for their forgiveness;
we ought to do the same. This passage is
meant to make us into people who pray not for themselves only but for the lost
as well, and to pray for them that they might be saved. If you are not daily praying for the lost
around you, then I challenge you to start doing it today. There is nothing more Christ-like than to
pray for the lost!
Finally,
if you are lost, hear this text! You
need a mediator between you and God; Christ is that mediator. He is man, and he is God. He is the ransom in the place of all who
believe on him. Those who do so will
have all their debt cancelled. Believe
on Christ; commit your life to him as your Lord and Savior. My heart’s desire and prayer to God is that
you might be saved.
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