1 TIMOTHY 2 (SECOND READING)
1 TIMOTHY 2 (SECOND READING)
Rem I think you were saying last week that prayer was to mark the house of God. It is to be the house of prayer.
CAC Yes, certainly. Supply, not demand, marks God’s attitude today. If we are near to Him and in sympathy with His thoughts and purposes, we shall know how to pray as priests. We too often pray as beggars. We pray because of our poverty; but, if we were nearer to the Lord, we should learn to pray as priests. We should so understand God’s delight in giving and blessing that we should supplicate for all men, because God’s will is that blessing should go out towards all. We should not be saying, “My leanness, my leanness”, like a poor beggar, but we should be in such enjoyment of the fatness of God’s house ourselves that in priestly dignity and grace we should become sources of supply to the whole Christian company, and to the needy world around. So many of our prayers are in reality an effort to bring God round to thinking as we do, and as we want Him to think, but instead of that, what blessing we should get and confer if we got before God and asked Him to teach us what His thoughts are! The house of God is a scene of movement, it is “the church of the living God”. There is no stagnation, but the living energy of grace, because the living God is in His house. I do not think that people realise the stupendous fact that God is here! If you [p. 355] asked a number of Christians, What is the greatest fact today? what would they tell you? The greatest fact is that God is dwelling here in His house, and that is what makes it a place of holy liberty. We are too much like Quakers when we come together! I think sometimes we sit here and wait for the Spirit to move us! That is not it at all. We are drawn together by the love and grace of God’s heart to be at home in His presence, in holy liberty to speak to Him, and to hear Him speak to us. We all know what it is, in our varying measures, to have a home and to go there. We get through our business outside as quickly as we can and then we go home. Do we want to be moved to speak to wife, or children? No, all is spontaneous. There is happy liberty in the home, and that is what should obtain in the house of God. There would be no long pauses in our meetings and no waiting for special movements of the Spirit, if we were near enough to the Lord to enjoy the holy liberty of sons.
Rem We are not always in assembly and we ought to be in the Spirit of sonship and liberty before God all the week.
CAC Undoubtedly, we are always in God’s house, and if we are marked by the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus in our individual path, keeping in view the end of what is enjoined, love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, I think we shall be quite ready to take up priestly service in prayer and praise when we come together in assembly. We shall know that God has a base of operation in this world, and that His assembly is set as the pillar and base of the truth, and all the outgoings of our activities will be in accord with that.
Rem I suppose we are really to act in our measure as mediators, as well as priests, between God and this poor world, and therein be like Christ.
CAC Yes, Moses was both mediator and priest. Moses was a greater priest than Aaron. As the tabernacle of witness, we are to carry the ark of the testimony through this world. We are to enshrine the ark. What dignity that confers and what holiness it demands! The tabernacle was constantly on the move; every board, every curtain, every pin, had to be carried. I hope we do not shirk our burden. There is not one of us, brother or sister, who has not something to carry under the direction of the Priest. The ark was never called the ark of the testimony in the land. It was the ark of the covenant after Jordan, but now, in the wilderness, it is enshrined and [p. 356] borne by the assembly as the ark of the testimony. It is a moment of inestimable privilege, never to recur. Would that we were more alive to it!
Ques The women have their part, too, have they not? Men are to be characterised by prayer, and women by decent deportment?
CAC Yes, and women can pray, too, though not aloud in the meetings. What a power for good is a praying woman! When I was a youngster there were several old sisters who really cared for my soul, and they prayed for me. I do not know what I owe to their prayers! Women are to be clothed in good works. They will not think whether this or that will be becoming to them, but what will be suitable to the testimony.
Ques It says that men are to lift up pious hands without wrath or reasoning. What are “pious hands”?
CAC Hands that would not touch anything unsuited to God. We have often been told that piety brings God into our things; and if God comes in, everything not in accord with God must go out. It is wonderful how gracious God is in this way and how near to us He comes. We see in the next chapter that, when we sit down to a meal, we have the happiness of “freely addressing him”. He is there at the table with us, not a long way off. How beautiful it is! Why, is it not the very best bit of the dinner that we can freely address Him? It sanctifies and elevates the meal — the word of God — that is His speaking to us, and He has spoken to us in such grace that it has set our hearts at liberty to freely address Him! Is it not elevating? When the common things of life are touched in piety they are lifted on to another plane altogether. There is great happiness and “great gain” in godliness. If men had not “holy hands”, they certainly could not pray.
Rem Prayer seems to mark this epistle very much.
CAC The great apostle had unfolded all the counsel of God at Ephesus. It was a place that had been marked as the devil’s headquarters. The shrine of the great goddess Diana was there and there was much demoniacal activity in Ephesus. God said, ‘I am going to set up My shrine in Ephesus’, and He did so. Well now, Paul said to Timothy, ‘I am departing, but I charge you to maintain the holy order of God’s house in Ephesus’.
Rem The apostle John had to write to Ephesus rather differently [p. 357] in the Revelation.
CAC Yes, and so had Paul in his second epistle to Timothy. All that he had warned them about in Acts 20 had come in and developed then. But we must not lose sight of it that they had stood. John says, “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen”. That clearly implies that there had been a previous time when the church in Ephesus had stood in responsibility. We should all seek to be Timothys. The powerful and richly endowed apostle has gone, but he has left us a solemn charge to be Timothys, to watch over and guard the precious order of God’s house, and be centres of influence for good. When I speak of God’s house, of course, I include all saints, all believers. I do not narrow it up and make a sect of ourselves. We are part of the great company whose names are enregistered in heaven, the assembly of the first-born ones. If a little more light has been granted to us, it is not that we may plume ourselves upon it and despise others. It is entrusted to us, that in some way it may be made effective for all, for the whole sanctified company. It is as when one drops a pebble into a pool and the circle widens out to its utmost brim.
Ques How would you distinguish between an overseer and a minister?
CAC I think an overseer is one who watches for souls and seeks to shepherd them, and a deacon has more the charge of ministering in a temporal way to the necessities of saints, but I dare say the work of both often overlapped.
Rem Anyone who aspired to overseership desired a good work, and had to be irreproachable personally.
CAC Yes, we were reminded last night that we are never asked to do anything that has not already been done. It is beautiful to see that livingly exemplified in the Lord’s life on earth. He acted as both Bishop and Deacon perfectly. That is a great encouragement for the feeblest of us, to follow in His steps. Confessedly the mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh. There has been a blessed Man moving about amongst men, who has in every activity of His life manifested what God is in His love and grace to men, and the Spirit has justified that Man: the witness of it is that He has been received up into glory. The mystery of piety is great. Man was perfectly delightful to God, God too was perfectly presented to men, and the Spirit was the justification and verification of both in the Mediator and the Priest who has passed into the heavens.