Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—he cannot deny himself.
Remind them of this, and warn them before the Lord that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene.
Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
2 Timothy 2:8-17a, 22-26
Picking up from last week, we continue in Paul’s second letter to his ministry partner and student Timothy, and in this second chapter, there is a theme of spiritual endurance. What do I mean by spiritual endurance? There are at least two forms that show up in Paul’s words here: one, enduring life through the gospel, which sometimes means two, enduring each other.
Let’s start with that first sense of spiritual endurance, enduring everything that life throws at us by relying on the gospel. This is possible because the gospel is, itself, enduring. John 3:16 is perhaps still the best single verse that summarizes the gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Think about the sheer number of things that have happened in the world since those words were written down 2000 years ago. Practically everything about the world has changed, but not the gospel.
Likewise, though it is not as complete of a summary of the gospel, Paul’s saying in this letter also gives us timeless principles: if we have died with Christ, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will reign with Christ. If we deny him, he will also deny us—meaning, he gives us the freedom to say no. He gives us the freedom to walk away; he doesn’t coerce us back.1 But even if we are faithless, Christ is faithful, because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.2 This can be great comfort.
But I also think that the enduring, timeless, unchanging nature of the gospel is sometimes the very thing that gives us trouble with it.
The gospel has a disadvantage in our post-Christian society: I think to many, it is almost boring to hear. John 3:16? Everyone knows that. The good news has become old news. We all know its literal face-value contents. Then people think they “get” it, and if they’re honest, think they are above it and don’t need it, often thanks to the actions of we Christians, its messengers. So people don’t know what they freely deny, while, for our part, few believers ever fully appreciate the freedom God has given us.
In fact, I dare say that the gospel can become boring to us Christians. This can lead to what others have called “Jesus Plus.” Jesus himself is not enough, so our gospel becomes shaped as “Jesus plus something else,” something that looks, feels, and may even try to be derived from Christian principles, but ultimately becomes another millstone.
Battling “Jesus Plus” is the theme of Paul’s battles against circumcision and dietary requirements in the Early Church, practices which imply Christ himself is not sufficient. And also since the Early Church, Christian leaders have wanted to be “innovative” for their own personal ends by taking Jesus and making him about something else, often changing a core part of the gospel for their own philosophy. It’s a “problem” for a lot of Christians that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, because that doesn’t sell as many books or make you stand out from the social media crowd. But your flavor of “Jesus Plus” might, whether it’s on the left or the right, whether as authoritarian Christian nationalism3 or from the “psychedelic Christianity” I saw at Harvard Divinity School that was “Jesus plus drugs.” In both cases—to remix a joke from the show King of the Hill—Jesus plus state power or Jesus plus drugs doesn’t make the state or drugs better, it just makes Christianity worse.
Sometimes our “Jesus Plus” is more subtle. In our desire for our church to grow, which is good—we should want to grow, we should want members to join, we should want people to not just hear the Word but receive it into their hearts, and work to do that—sometimes, this might feed a subconscious pride that we think Jesus needs us; “Jesus plus us.” It’s subtle, but crucial, to make the note that God does not need us, but he sure loves when we join in his work. He doesn’t need us, but he sure loves when we are dancing along with his will. He sure loves when we discover and embody the patterns of divinity which he laid out from the beginning of time and in his Word. But God is all in all, there is no “plus” anything to him; you cannot add anything to infinite. We can only say “yes” to it.
The thing about any “Jesus Plus” movement is that they all eventually, sooner or much later, work themselves out. Why? Because eventually, the “plus” fails. Jesus never fails. But eventually, all else does. Eventually, this nation will fail (maybe sooner rather than later). Eventually, any of our plans, movements, or whatever we attach to Jesus without his permission will fail, because it is all helplessly corrupted by sin, it all fades, and it all dies into itself. But the gospel will remain unchanged.
So, as Paul emphasizes to Timothy, this is the simple, boring gospel he died for: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel.” This is the core of his spiritual endurance. It takes a lot, sometimes, to endure every suffering that life throws at you with the simple gospel. But the clarity and freedom in it are also exactly why we can endure. The gospel, itself, is what saves us from “Jesus Plus,” or any other worldly movement from recapturing our freedom.
It’s also why we can endure each other.
Yes, this is the second and maybe harder part of spiritual endurance. Some of us can go through life without our love of God being shaken, but it is truly rare for a love of people to never be shaken.
And yet we are called to be patient with each other including all of our “Jesus Plus” projects. Because yes, I’m afraid we all carry a little “Jesus Plus” in us. We carry Christ, but we also carry our sin; we carry the gospel, but we also can’t help but modify it, twist it, and misunderstand it at least a little bit and at least some of the time for our own selfish ends. We Christians are always “Jesus plus…well, all my ‘stuff’.” What is the Christian antidote to this? According to Paul, to patiently endure each other and our “stuff” in love.
So we get this litany of advice from Paul: do not wrangle over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening…rightly explain the word of truth but in a way that you need not be ashamed; avoid profane chatter that pollutes others like a spreading disease, avoid the stupid controversies, and avoid being quarrelsome and picking fights, which itself may be a youthful passion to shun, and instead pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace; be kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, and correct opponents with gentleness, and “God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” And, I would add, God may perhaps grant that we will more fully repent and come to the fuller truth and escape the devil.
This is why I think practicing healthy, deep conversations across differences are an important thing for us to do.4 The way we talk to each other matters, not just for our church, but our community, especially on things we disagree. As Paul says, when we talk poorly, it not only pollutes us and our souls, but pollutes our neighbor and our whole environment. It corrodes the listener. We might remember that all of our human bodies are a series of processes, and keeping all those processes healthy and in conversation with each other is important to how the body functions well. It is the same with the body of Christ, with Christ as our head, but also the other parts of our body communicating with the other parts of the body in a way that is deeply attuned and learning from each other, illuminating and informing each other where we need it.
When we feel Christ calling us to stand for something important, take that stand with boldness. But also take it with enough humility that does not sacrifice the spirit of love which Christ has given you. Distinguish your call to speak truth from your temptation to oppose something in the wrong way. We do not want to defend Christ by offending Christ. We do not want to defend Christ by denying Christ, going against the fullness of what he teaches. We need not do this—Jesus doesn’t need us to do this.
Speak the truth and give the other person a chance, praying that you will be given a chance when you need it. We all have different gifts and different vices. The things that are spiritually easy for you to do are not spiritually easy for everyone to do, and vice versa. We all walk around with things competing for our freedom in Christ, always competing to be that top worship spot. There are always things competing to be in the place of the resurrected Christ. But we can spiritually endure life, including life with each other, through a long walk with Jesus alongside a bunch of other sinners trying to do the same.
Endure each other patiently. In a time when noise is so loud and high, it is very tempting to speak Jesus plus our noise. Listen, share, go deeper, and correct gently when needed. Seek to influence and seek to be influenced, not seeking to dominate. Remember that the gospel is the true signal, however boring it may seem some days. Yes, the same old God, the same old Jesus who died to reclaim you from the world, yes, boosting this signal can be enough. Boost the signal of Jesus, the signal of the faithful God who is there regardless, who is there no matter how crazy it gets, who is there even if others distort his name—hallowed be his name and hallowed will be his name, and when all is said and done, his name will be clarified from any who distort it.
Above all, remember God is faithful, no matter what. Every time you’ve turned astray, it didn’t change God’s love for you one bit. His love is as much a timeless reality as that tree in your backyard that you’ve never known life without, as timeless as the cliffs of California and Maine. Sometimes, God is hiding like an old chapel in the woods, a pond in a hidden valley maybe only a couple of people remember is there. There are forests around here that only a couple of people visit a year, but it’s always there for them.
And God will always be there for you, even if just a couple of people visit him a year. God will be, even if the Church is reduced to rubble. Even if we are all faithless, he cannot help but be faithful. That is just who he is, the Lord Almighty, our everlasting rock and our salvation. Amen.
Hebrews 13:8
There are differences between our faith being expressed in public life through political activism versus elevating an idol of state power until it shapes our gospel. Seeking cultural change to reflect our faith values, and even seeking to change laws based on our faith convictions, is different from seeking an authoritarian imposition of values through the state. In my view of history, the state enforcement of Christian values inevitably, through our sin, becomes twisted to serve something else.
Our church is beginning Estuary conversations, a format designed for in-depth group dialogue.