Uncomfortable Discipleship, Part 1

Scripture — 2 Timothy 4:2-4 (NRSV)

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

Devotion

A few years ago I wrote a book Disciple Making in a Culture of Power, Comfort, and Fear exploring 2 Timothy in light of Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Written from a prison cell in Rome to son in the faith Timothy, Paul’s epistle certainly contains wisdom regarding the work of making disciples. But if we broaden our lens, we see that the letter also contains valuable insights into what we might call “church life.”

The passage above is a good example of that. Though written as a charge to a church leader—Timothy was a pastor in Ephesus at the time—it should cause all who desire to be followers of Christ to pause and reflect: How do I resist sound teaching in favor of messages that suit my desires? To phrase this in the poetic, witty imagery of Paul: How do I like to have my ears tickled? 

Reading that some “will not put up with sound teaching” and will “turn away from listening to the truth,” many modern Western Christians may focus on the question of eternal salvation. It might be easy to think that the persons Paul writes about are rejecting the gospel itself: the divinity or resurrection of Jesus, or the message that we are saved through Jesus. Certainly, some people do reject Jesus’ divinity. But I suspect Paul had something different in mind: namely, folks who accept the story of the resurrection but still reject aspects of Biblical teaching on how believers are called to live.

One reason is the context. Paul is writing to Timothy about pastoral responsibility to preach the word, and about opposition to that preaching. He mentions that those opposed to sound teaching will try to find alternate teachers to say what they want to hear. It doesn’t say that they have stopped believing in Jesus or have left the church; they are still looking for teachers. (If this rings a bell, it may be that you remember Mark Roberts reflecting on Nehemiah 3:3-5 in a recent Life for Leaders devotion titled “The Challenge of Resistance to Leadership”, where he quotes Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky’s note to leaders: “You place yourself on the line when you tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.”)

If I were to boil this down to one word, I would say that the central issue is one of comfort. Even those who proclaim Jesus as Lord may still want to avoid challenging teaching that makes them uncomfortable. And there is a lot of solid biblical teaching that can make us uncomfortable.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, for example, should make us uncomfortable, especially the opening passage in Matthew 5:1-12. Jesus speaks of the blessedness of being poor in spirit and meek. Over the past few years, I’ve heard churchgoers—and even church leaders in the US—rebel against this, saying that the Sermon on the Mount no longer applies. Or consider when Jesus speaks of those who are persecuted for faith as being blessed. If we would rather be in power than be persecuted, this will make us uncomfortable too (and perhaps prompt us to look for other teachers). The blessings on those who mourn, as well as the many biblical examples of and calls to lament (including passages like Romans 8:22-23 or the many psalms of lament) also make many in the church uncomfortable; we’d rather focus on what makes us feel good. And the messages of prophets from the Old Testament through John the Baptist calling people to repent may be at the head of the list of messages that make us uncomfortable. After all, Jeremiah was accused of being unpatriotic and even treasonous for preaching unfavorable messages and calling the nation of Judah to repentance.

Of course, all of this relates back to discipleship. The challenge to spiritual growth at its very core is that we can be made uncomfortable as we learn to be stretched and to submit to the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow I will return with some specific insights from this passage (especially for those who lead within the church in some way), but for now, I invite you all to join me in considering ways that solid biblical teaching makes us uncomfortable.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).