Entrusting My Words to Others - by Stephen Blankenship

Verse of the Month Scripture Reference: 2 Timothy 2:2
“…and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

Paul in his letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter two encourages Timothy to be strong in the Lord then challenges him to entrust what he has “heard” from Paul to other faithful men to teach.

Which for us begs a few questions.  Let’s look at a few of those questions.

One of the first questions that comes to mind is, “What has Timothy heard from Paul?”

For this we don’t have to look very far in Paul’s teaching to know that Paul had been teaching the Truth of God’s Word.  He had been pouring into Timothy’s life. He had not just been pouring into Timothy’s life but Paul was consistently preaching and teaching the Gospel, teaching Timothy and others (many witnesses) the Truth of God’s Word.  Paul realized the importance of pouring into others.  Paul, however, wasn’t just pouring anything into others but was speaking the Truths of God’s Word, recounting the experiences he had with the Lord, proclaiming Jesus Christ and the character in which we should live.

Paul is reiterating the statement that he had just made a few verse earlier in 2 Timothy Chapter 1:13, when he said, “…Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me…”

This reminds me of another place in scripture where Paul proclaimed “What you have heard and seen in me, do”, from Philippians 4:9.

Which leads to us to another question, What are people hearing from us? What pattern of words do they hear coming from us?  Are we pointing people to Jesus? Are we discipling someone in our life that can hold to the “pattern of sound words” that we have been speaking?

If people are repeating what we say and acting the way we act, will they be reflecting the love and the light of Christ?

Can we look back over our lives and unashamedly proclaim to those around us, to entrust to faithful men what they have heard from us?  What words are we entrusting to our children, to those in our small groups, to those in our circle of influence?

Are those words we would advocate to be taught and passed along to the next generation?  

These words should bring to our attention not only that it is important to teach the truth of God’s Word to faithful men that will continue to hold fast to and teach those truths, but it should also call our attention to examine our own words, our own speech.

We live in a day and age where what we say, or more so what we post on social media most assuredly falls under the hearing or reading of many witnesses. Those words should be words of truth, words of life.  Those words should be words that properly disciple the next generation.

At Glory Fellowship 2 Timothy 2:2 is our corporate scripture memory verse of the month.  For more on this verse and 2 Timothy 2 see Dr. Adam Brewer’s sermons “Marks of a Disciple Making Church” from the sermon series on “Passing the Baton”.

This has been a Verse of the Month QuickTake.