EXTRACTS

These are the most important things I know of in brethren who minister and who go about among the saints, and whom Paul would, if he were here, entrust with messages. So that it is not as it is now, that a brother can go about and say what he likes. Pardon me, but there is a good deal of this. We are saying too much without consulting scripture. The apostle would not have sent Timothy to Corinth to correct Corinth and to show in Corinth what his ways were elsewhere if he did not count on Timothy going by scripture and giving scripture for everything. And so he sent Timothy, “who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ”. It is not a question of Timothy’s ways but Paul’s ways; the one that Paul had entrusted with the truth. In fact, later we are told that Paul had committed the truth to Timothy to be entrusted to faithful men, able to instruct others also—such confidence he had in him. Although a young man, he could rely on him to hold to the truth when he ministered as Paul ministered, because he would minister just as Paul did in a way. He and Timotheus and Silvanus preached the Son of God. I might venture to say that if I were there and could have, perhaps, three nights there, I might find Paul preaching the first night, Timotheus the second night, and Silvanus the third night and they would all preach the Son of God. They would all have the same points to insist on. There would be no divergence, no disunion in the ministry. Indeed, we are enjoined in Philippians to say the same thing; not only saying the same thing but thinking the same thing. That is the point in ministry. And so Paul would have every confidence that if he sent Timothy to Corinth, whatever came up, whatever matter might come up for discussion in a meeting in Corinth, Timotheus would insist on the truth as taught by Paul. I can visualize the position, and I think it is right that we should visualize what Scripture presents to us so that we might realize the thing now and work it out now amongst each other.

So he says, “who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ, according as I teach everywhere in every assembly”. Not simply his ways, Paul’s ways, but what he taught, what Paul taught everywhere in every church. That is, there is no divergence. His doctrines were always the same. I would say, of course, he would get new thoughts, but all would be in keeping with what he had before. It is quite right to have new thoughts. It is a characteristic of a Christian’s ministry that it is fresh, but not necessarily different from what has been done before. I am stressing this. We do not need to go in for novelties in order to make our addresses important. There is nothing in that at all; nothing to be relied on either. It is a question of the truth. The thing must be according to truth. Paul speaks expressly of persons who love the truth, and love of the truth is, I might say, as important as love of the brethren; I would say, of more importance—love of the truth. Well, Timothy could be trusted, as Paul would say, for this matter—Paul’s ways in the truth as they are in Christ.

J. Taylor (Vol. 58, pp.390, 391)

JT The first one is a Berean, Sopater. I need not remark on the Berean, he is a Pauline saint, he searched the Scriptures; he does not swallow things down because of the importance of the man who says them. However important the brother may be, we need, as the Bereans did, to search the scriptures daily, whether those things were so”, Acts 17: 11.

Brothers and sisters who do that are most essential among us—otherwise we may absorb things and think they are right when they are not.

J. Taylor (Vol. 96, p.447)

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