January: Day 22: Holy Apostle Timothy

 

January: Day 22:
Holy Apostle Timothy
 
(On Obedience to Spiritual Mentors)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. When the Holy Apostle Paul preached in the city of Lystra and performed a miracle there, healing a lame man, many of the inhabitants of that city believed in the Lord, including one Jewish woman. She, having received the Holy Apostle into her home, asked him to take her son as one of his disciples. The youth was called Timothy, whose memory is celebrated today. The Apostle Paul gave Timothy instructions; leaving Lystra, he entrusted him to other Christians and then, seeing that the youth was filled with faith and love for the Lord, he took him with him.

From that time on, Saint Timothy became the faithful companion of the Holy Apostle Paul and his beloved disciple. He labored with him and suffered persecution, visited Ephesus, Corinth, and many other cities and regions of Greece and Asia Minor with him, and zealously helped him spread the word of God. Sometimes, the Apostle Paul, fully trusting his beloved disciple, sent him to newly converted people to strengthen them in the faith. He was sent with such a mission to the Thessalonians and Corinthians. To Timothy himself, the Holy Apostle Paul wrote two epistles, filled with love and wise teachings. “But you, O man of God,” he says among other things, “flee the love of money, and strive to make progress in righteousness, piety, faith, love, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tim. 6:11, 12).

Timothy faithfully carried out the orders of his Holy Teacher and imitated his holy life. The Holy Apostle Paul testifies of him: "You have followed me in doctrine, life, disposition, faith, generosity, love, patience" (2 Tim. 3:10). He was the first Bishop of Ephesus and zealously tried to establish the Christian faith. He also made use of the instructions of Saint John the Theologian, who preached in Asia Minor and, after the death of Saint Timothy, upon his return from Patmos, accepted the bishopric of Ephesus. Saint Timothy showed himself to the end to be a good soldier of Christ, and in the year 91 he died a martyr's death for the name of the Lord.

The Holy Apostle Timothy, who sacredly fulfilled the will of his great teacher, the Apostle Paul, whose imitator he was in everything, teaches us to obey our spiritual mentors and imitate their lives.

II. The word of God teaches: “Obey your leaders and submit yourselves, for they watch over your souls" (Heb. 12:17).

a) Are proofs and convictions necessary for this commandment to be accepted as necessary for fulfillment?

No society can be well-ordered, or even exist, without leaders or mentors. And leaders and mentors cannot well-order societies without the obedience of their subordinates and mentors.

b) According to the word of Christ (John 17:3), eternal life, or eternal blessedness, consists in knowing the one true God and Christ sent by Him. According to the word of the Apostle, “he who comes to God must believe” (Heb. 11:6). But God is incomprehensible, and Christ is “the mystery hidden in God from ages and generations, but now revealed to His saints” (Col. 1:26), not in the glimmer of natural reason, but in the light of revelation by grace. Hence the question of the Apostle necessarily arises: “How will they believe, whom they have not heard? How then will they hear without a preacher” (Rom. 10:14)? – A preacher of the truth of God, a teacher in faith, a builder of the mysteries of grace are needed.

c) The word of God says, and experience shows, that man is born infected with the original sin. Holy Baptism regenerates him into a new life, but does not immediately destroy the life of the old man; for the all-acting grace of God gives place to the action of faith and the feat of man, so that mercy may not be without truth, and so that we voluntarily accept salvation. Therefore, we must constantly be either in a feat against the sin that is clearly more or less living and active in us, or on guard against the sin that is ready to tempt us, to seduce, to enslave and to kill us. How can we strengthen ourselves in this feat? How can we not doze off on this guard? How can we overcome the habit of sin? How can we resist the charm of sin? How can we arouse in ourselves hatred for sin?

Will anyone dare to say that all this is very simple, and that for this there is no need to look for a mentor, “who has senses trained in discerning good and evil” (Heb. 5:14)?

III. Those who hear this may perhaps think and be ready to say: "Give us such teachers as Saint Paul, as Saint Timothy; we would like to obey and submit to such teachers.”

a) Do you think that you would obey your teachers completely if you had excellent teachers? Doubtful. When Christ Himself chose and sent His apostles to preach the kingdom of heaven, He Himself gave them instructions on how they should teach others, gave them the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons: were they not excellent teachers? With all this, in His instructions to them the Lord said: “And whoever will not receive you, nor hearken to your words, when you go out of thier house or city, shake off the dust from your feet" (Matt. 10:14) - that is, He foresaw that there would be houses and whole cities that would not want to listen to these excellent teachers. Those who are humble and sincerely desiring of salvation listen attentively to even a mediocre teacher, and prosper in good; and he who, through presumption or absent-mindedness, neglects an ordinary teacher, will hardly make use of an excellent one. Sincerely desire soul-saving instruction; dispose yourself to receive it with faith. God is strong and faithful, who desires all to be saved, and through an unworthy teacher to impart to you perfect instruction, and through a fool to instruct those who think themselves wise, just as once "the dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, rebuked the folly of the prophet" (2 Peter 2:16).

b) Some, trying not so much to correct as to justify their lives, careless and inconsistent with the teaching of Christ, think to find justification for themselves in the fact that some teachers do not live as well as they teach. No, self-appointed judges of your teachers, you will not find your justification in your condemnation. We will be condemned if we live unworthy of the teaching we teach, but you too will be condemned, both for condemning your neighbor in defiance of the prohibition of Jesus Christ Himself, and for not following the holy teaching, which does not cease to be holy because it passes through sinful lips. The true Judge of the world, Christ the Savior, strictly condemned the life and deeds of the Pharisees, but commanded to respect and fulfill the teaching of the law of God taught by them: “Whatever they say unto you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not” (Matthew 23:3).  

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.