I read over so much in the Bible I am realizing that in a lifetime I could never read the whole thing and get the full weight what is there for us in Scripture. The Bible is an incredible book. I read the beginning of 1 Timothy 5 today and got annihilated in the first verse. I know I’ve read that a ton of times for some reason, today, I actually pictured what the verses were saying, and it was truly awesome:
“1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.”
This is how we are to treat each other. You know what’s crazy? I’ve been around churches and Christians schools and Christian colleges and dorms and youth groups my whole life and I can verify that you don’t see this much if ever. This is one of those passages that you read over, maybe feel a little twinge of “That’s the way it should be”, and keep going with your read-thru. Maybe I’ll work on that a little. But for the first time I pictured it. “Do not rebuke an older man”. It didn’t take much to picture that. I’ve seen men angry at each other in all those circumstances, and I’ve seen some nasty stuff, yelling, accusations, lying, defensiveness, everything, even some cussin’ on a few occaisions. Rarely, if ever, is the one painted as the offending party treated as you would treat your father. I had to slow down and actually picture what it would look like if I thought my father was in the wrong and needed to be helped. Honestly, the very thought of it terrifies me. I pray that such a circumstance NEVER occurs. I would do anything to avoid it. I would overlook little things and give him the benefit of the doubt over and over. If it really did get there I would humbly and hesitantly approach him in the most respectful way imaginable. It’s a sad, sobering mental picture. This passage clearly teaches that I should feel that way and act that way when I deal with anyone in the church.
It goes far beyond just men older than me. I am to treat all men my age and younger as brothers. As hard as the part about treating men as fathers goes, this part is awesome to me. This is what I’ve wanted! This is what I’ve worked for in my own life in the past few years. This is what I desire most. This is the Christian brotherhood where I’ve found so much power. How in the world did I almost read right over this as if was some worthless maxim in a fortune cookie? But now it gets tougher. I have to ask a question of the text. What happens when I want true authentic raw brotherhood, but I find only a handful among the faith who genuinely want it as well? What do I do then? This is important because it is no hypothetical question. Is the reality of the broken institution we call the modern church. So what do I do? This particular spot in the Bible holds no answer. I need to constant guiding of the Spirit to know how to deal with this issue.
I am actually excited about the part concerning people younger that me. This must include the teens and this makes me happy. In my past position I was seen as an authority figure over the teens of the church. I was a paid “youth director”. To put it simply, it’s just not my style. I’m no good as a rule maker. But in a professional setting, one is needed and I can’t deny it. But this is a call for all the people of the church to treat those younger (think for a moment that this is the youth of the church) as younger brothers and sisters! Isn’t that how the after school group kind of felt a lot of the time?!? There weren’t really leaders! No wonder it was so powerful. It was the closest thing we ever had to what a biblical relationship between myself and them should be like. As awesome as that is, I am to have that with all people of the faith. To love and care like a brother. To respect like a brother. To defend and protect. Instead, we live out a faith that is near totally self-absorbed. Before all else, it is private (unlike a brother-sister relationship). After that it cares primarily for its own good. It rejects any form of correction. It resists transparency. In short, it is nearly the exact opposite of what this passage calls for. No wonder teens leave the church in droves. God called them to be cared for by a host of brothers and in most cases they have no one willing to treat them that way. Their friends tell them what they want to hear. Everyone older acts like a parent to them or ignores them altogether, and their given leaders act like they are nothing more than authority figures in charge of keeping things “decent and in order”…couldn’t resist that one. I want a church that lives this out.
My two great questions are hard to answer. First, how did we get this way? Second, how do we take it back?
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