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Suffer Hardship
Suffer Hardship
As I reflected and read from I Timothy during our recent lectureship, I was led to think about the second letter to this young preacher. The first letter, as we saw, guided him in teaching the ways of prayer, godliness and contentment among brethren in God’s church. As Paul wrote the second letter, his departure was at hand. You can see the tenderness, the practical and personal pleading in his tone – the urgency to teach Timothy, charge him, encourage him, plead with him for steadfastness as he left his own work in the young man’s hands. It should bring a tear to our eyes to thing of it. One phrase stands out to me in the second letter – “Suffer hardship” [2 Tim 1:8; 2:3, 9; 4:5 ASV]. Endure afflictions [KJV]; endure suffering [RSV].
It is strange to us in a culture where we do everything we can to avoid hardship, to hear the apostle charging Timothy to willingly endure affliction in his work, to count hardship as not only his duty, but a privilege. Look at these verses:
2Ti 1:7-9: For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline. Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God; who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal…
2Ti 2:1-9: Thou therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier… Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel: wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor; but the word of God is not bound.
2Ti 4:1-6: I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables. But be thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
Do we take these charges to heart? How often we view our work for the Lord as a bother, an inconvenience to us, and a hindrance to the priorities we have chosen in our lives! Most of us have not even approached to real hardship, but often we find a few hours a week in our assemblies too much to bear, much less additional time in study, prayer, ministry to others, or evangelism! What shall we say to this? We could shrug it off : “I am too busy”, “I am too tired”, “I have too many other problems”. There are plenty of excuses we can all make.
Of course, we COULD all confess our sins, turn around and take on some hardship for the Christ of the cross, and for his “little ones”.
“You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”
Larry Walker
June 2009
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