What is the best book in the Bible for young Christian leaders to insure a strong finish? Some would say Genesis because it is the beginning and contains the truth about everything to come. In fact, my friend and mentor Darrell Johnson called Genesis 1:1-11:9 ‘The First Half of the Bible.’ But there is a better resource than Genesis. I know pastors who train their young leaders effectively through 1-2 Samuel. There is leadership gold to mine as we look at God’s patience, grace and truth as He works leadership development in Samuel (strong), Saul (negative) and David (strong start but ended somewhere in between). But there is a better resource than Samuel.
The four gospels all have unique contributions for young leaders. Matthew, the purest teacher of the four gospels, builds doctrine and structure, centered around the new Torah (the sermon on the mount). Mark, the first of the gospels, calls readers to faith, immediately, and trains young leaders to understand leadership is servanthood. Luke, the Gentile physician, is the prophet of the gospel authors. He calls young Christian leaders to not be fooled by the world into building bigger barns. Rather, we must follow the Lord Jesus and his mission of making disciples among the poor. Matthew, Mark and John teach us how to be disciples. But Luke admonishes us where we are live out our discipleship…among the poor. Which brings us to John, not only my favorite book of the Bible, but my favorite book in the history of the universe. John is just different. He was Jesus’ best friend. He wrote his book after 50+ years of preaching his core material. While every Christian should learn to spend significant time with the Jesus of John (and all of the gospels), it is not the best book in the Bible for training young Christian leaders. There is a better training resource for young Christian leaders than even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
1 Timothy is the best book in the Bible for training young Christian leaders. Below are my seven reasons you should spend time Paul and Timothy, as the aged apostle mentors Timothy to meet the challenges of leadership in the Ephesus church.
1. PERSPECTIVE
Young Christian leaders need perspective. It is a great benefit to understand current stage of development in light of a lifetime of ministry. How Timothy spent his 20s are a testimony that God is doing more in you than through you. During this foundational season of life, God forms in the disciples he is calling to serve Him. The key word for the 20s is learning. Jesus will test the young leaders to see if He can trust them for future Kingdom leadership responsibilities.
In 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts his young mentee to press on. He reminds him of his spiritual past (recruited in Galatia after sponsorship by his mother). He encourages him to remember all he learned traveling planting the very first churches in Europe with Paul, Silas and the Apostle Luke. Imagine debriefing the Macedonian vision together? Imagine Timothy meeting Luke in Troas. Imagine meeting Lydia for the first time in the river? Imagine watching Paul and Silas imprisoned, beaten, singing hymns at midnight and then being miraculously delivered by the Holy Spirit. And yet with all of this Kingdom investment, Timothy wanted to quit.
Without perspective, and the thoughtful mentoring of Paul, Timothy would not have made it out of his 20s. He would have dropped off the ministry timeline. He would have become yet another piece of statistical data of a young and promising leader who dropped out early. But perspective helped Timothy. He did not quit. He went on to have a long ministry career. Timothy finished well.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Perspective - Christian leaders who finish well view current ministry in light of a lifetime of development.
2. MENTOR
Young Christian leaders need mentors. Paul was an experienced missionary. When he wrote to Timothy he was approaching the end of his 33 years of faithful mission work. He had literally seen it all. And he had his scarred body to prove it. For over 10 years he mentored Timothy, recruiting him from his home in Galatia and planting churches together in Europe (Philippi, Thessalonica, Berean and Athens). That is some serious on-the-job training. Paul appointed Timothy to serve as the pastor of Ephesus, the flagship church of Asia Minor. While we may not have the same issues that Timothy faced, the dynamic principles underlying the solutions are available to us today.
And seasons Christian leaders need to mentor. The Lord Jesus has established a wonderful balance of veterans and rookies in the Christian ministry. The seasoned leaders must learn to select, train and send younger leaders. Not only does the church need to expand with younger leaders every year (unfortunately, the American church today is going the other direction). But the pastor needs to learn to intentionally develop the next generation for their own growth and development. The 50s and 60s decades are all about intentionally training the next generation. Pastors in the prime and latter stage of ministry, who do not have a development pipeline, are vulnerable to plateauing dynamics.
1 Timothy simple offers a vibrant example of what mentoring is all about. Mentoring is the relational experience of an older leader empowering a younger leader though wisdom, advice and resource.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Mentor - Christian leaders who finish well have 10-12 mentors over a lifetime, especially a few foundational mentors in their 20s.
3. CHARACTER
Young Christian leaders need to understand the value of character. Simply put there are too many characters, and not enough character in Christian ministry. This is why we are all growing numb when we hear the breaking news of yet another moral failure, abuse of power, or impropriety around finances or sexual immorality. Integrity is the top leadership quality in the New Testament. If character is the car we drive around in our ministry, then integrity is the engine. The core of who we are is inside, and public ministry must be a reflection of our integrated Biblical values and processing, with outward actions that reflect those values.
Paul taught Timothy that ministry flows out of being. Our inner-person is made up of a complex cluster of values and experiences with God (intimacy in prayer, prophetic words directly from heaven, personality, gender, destiny and healing to name a few). An unbalanced situation where outward skills and giftedness are more important than character is a recipe for disaster. The inner-life collapses far before the public ministry removal and scandal. Most ministries today are heavy on impact and results, but light on character development. Paul taught Timothy to make sure that in his ministry, character is always first.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Character - Christian leaders who finish well develop character, especially in the foundation period of their 20s.
4. LEADERS
Young Christian leaders need to understand ministry structures. Every church or ministry has a philosophy and practice for how to make disciples. Whether day one of a brand new church plant, or the celebration anniversary of 100 years of ministry at a legacy church, the wise leader will have a plan to structure ministry. Paul offered thoughtful leadership guidelines and patterns for Timothy.
Paul taught Timothy what leadership is not. In the letter he warns Timothy to stay away from people who love to participate in controversies. He warns Timothy to never promote leaders based on finances. And he instructs Timothy that leadership is a ‘strongly lead plurality.’ Controversies are endless and will only cause division. The world promotes the rich, not the Kingdom. And a one-person authoritarian or task-oriented administrators have the same end.
Practically speaking, Paul’s words to Timothy must be heeded by church leaders today. Leadership qualifications are based on character and conscience. Paul’s list of leadership qualifications focus character and integrity and not giftedness. Paul never instructs Timothy to promote gifted public leaders, but stresses a clear conscience before God is fundamental to the leader. The leaders full of character are then selected as elders (overseers), and deacons (those learning ministry). Too quick a selection is warned against leading to spiritual pride and many problems down the road. The skills of ministry can be taught quickly. Character must be developed through modeling, learning, and testing. This development mindset will take pressure off quick results and help the younger leader enjoy the long-term process of leadership development.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Leaders - Christian leaders who finish well follow Paul’s exhortation to prioritize character over gifts, and have structures to reflect that value.
5. GIFTEDNESS
Young Christian leaders need to understand spiritual giftedness. There are 19 spiritual gifts in the New Testament. Those 19 gifts can be organized into 3 clusters. As Christians we are responsible to not only identify our gifts but to intentionally develop those gifts, even in increasingly hostile ministry contexts. From my limited perspective, I fear that our current church landscape puts more emphasis on identifying the gifts, rather than developing them in our real life ministry contexts. When we consider Jesus’ parables on giftedness, and understand the staggering amount of investment the master gives to the servants, the judgment on the wicked is just and deserving. We must be proactive to turn our 10 into 100 in the real world.
Paul’s giftedness development plan for Timothy is deeply encouraging. We learn that gifts can be imparted into young leaders by mature Christian leaders. This is especially true of those with the apostleship gift. Those who operate in apostolic ministry should regularly gather younger leaders in prayerful worship settings, call on the leading of the Holy Spirit, and impart gifts as the Spirit leads. Paul knows full well that aspects of giftedness can be neglected, atrophy, grow cold and eventually be lost. In 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts Timothy to turn his 10 talent teaching gift into 100 talents. Giftedness must be developed and 1 Timothy gives us a prime example.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Giftedness - Leaders who finish well identify and develop their giftedness over the course of their lifetime.
6. HERESY
Young Christian leaders need to understand the centrality of the Book. One of the four apostolic gift functions is to fight heresy. The word heresy means to believe something contradictory to Biblical truth. As the church began, it was so important to protect the gospel. There were so many false notions about God and the meaning of faith in the ancient world. Just as for us today, Paul taught Timothy how to identify and defeat the heresies in the Ephesus church.
Many doctrinal attacks come from the outside. The unbelieving world simply cannot understand God and his commitment to turn the world upside down. The Gentiles hoard food, clothing and the pleasures of the world, neglecting God because they believe there is nothing to gain beyond this earth. I would argue that the attacks from inside the church are more painful. Those who live outside the Book, but see themselves as Christians, lash out and eventually split believers, woo many away into false teachings and weaken the gospel witness. The issues Paul instructs Timothy through were already mentioned in his final words to the Ephesian elders. He warned them that heretics, fierce wolves, were already in the church. Heretics will always water-down the call to obedience and compromise to the fallen culture.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Heresy - Leaders who finish well live in the Book, and fight heresy (doctrine and conduct) in their lives and ministry.
7. WARFARE
Young Christian leaders must live in the reality that we are not alone. We live in a world, planet earth, which is inside another world, where two Kingdoms are fully operational and at war. This statement is confirmed as we consider the angel Gabriel’s famous visit to Daniel. As the great prophet suffered under dark circumstances in Babylon, the angel visited him to deliver a direct message from God. He opens the visitation with an apology for his tardiness. Gabriel said he was delayed because he was in fierce battle with the dark prince of Persia. This brief report teaches us at least three things: (1) Spiritual warfare is normal. Notice that Gabriel doesn’t even attempt to explain his battle. He expects Daniel to know this; (2) Spiritual warfare is regional. There is an organized dark army and there is a military ranking of demonic leaders. The prince of Persia is a high-ranking demon over the massive region of Persia; (3) Spiritual warfare and evil spirits are responsible, at some level, for the sufferings of God’s people.
In the same way, as Paul instructs Timothy, he doesn’t make a huge deal but also does not ignore it. Paul gives Timothy a balanced approach to spiritual warfare. He knows that evil is a part of this world. I love how Darrell Johnson explains it, “Evil is more than human meanness and madness.” When we experience evil, we know it. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t see spiritual warfare as the cause of everything. He doesn’t even advocate a special attack plan or any special instructions. This is probably because he had already done this as he identified 5 pieces of armor and 2 offensive weapons in the final chapter of Ephesians. Paul teaches Timothy that the main methods of attack of Satan are doubt, pride, deceptive teaching and crossing the conscience and weakening integrity in lust and financial matters. Apostolic leaders can take authority in spiritual warfare and bring God’s power by speaking a word of faith and truth, and cast out demons in power encounters.
DID TIMOTHY FINISH WELL?
Timothy’s name is mentioned 31 times in the New Testament. Paul’s written advice to Timothy is a blueprint for how God develops serious Christian leaders in their 20s. His last mention in Hebrews 13:23 shows that he learned his lessons well. Early ministry is where foundational character is built. Timothy made it through the great challenges of leading the Ephesian church with the help of a great mentor.
Timothy finished well. Therefore, he should be carefully studied as an example of how a next generation leader is trained, transitioned into ministry and taught to persevere until the end. Let us learn from Paul and Timothy and prepare for a strong finish today.
The four gospels all have unique contributions for young leaders. Matthew, the purest teacher of the four gospels, builds doctrine and structure, centered around the new Torah (the sermon on the mount). Mark, the first of the gospels, calls readers to faith, immediately, and trains young leaders to understand leadership is servanthood. Luke, the Gentile physician, is the prophet of the gospel authors. He calls young Christian leaders to not be fooled by the world into building bigger barns. Rather, we must follow the Lord Jesus and his mission of making disciples among the poor. Matthew, Mark and John teach us how to be disciples. But Luke admonishes us where we are live out our discipleship…among the poor. Which brings us to John, not only my favorite book of the Bible, but my favorite book in the history of the universe. John is just different. He was Jesus’ best friend. He wrote his book after 50+ years of preaching his core material. While every Christian should learn to spend significant time with the Jesus of John (and all of the gospels), it is not the best book in the Bible for training young Christian leaders. There is a better training resource for young Christian leaders than even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
1 Timothy is the best book in the Bible for training young Christian leaders. Below are my seven reasons you should spend time Paul and Timothy, as the aged apostle mentors Timothy to meet the challenges of leadership in the Ephesus church.
1. PERSPECTIVE
Young Christian leaders need perspective. It is a great benefit to understand current stage of development in light of a lifetime of ministry. How Timothy spent his 20s are a testimony that God is doing more in you than through you. During this foundational season of life, God forms in the disciples he is calling to serve Him. The key word for the 20s is learning. Jesus will test the young leaders to see if He can trust them for future Kingdom leadership responsibilities.
In 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts his young mentee to press on. He reminds him of his spiritual past (recruited in Galatia after sponsorship by his mother). He encourages him to remember all he learned traveling planting the very first churches in Europe with Paul, Silas and the Apostle Luke. Imagine debriefing the Macedonian vision together? Imagine Timothy meeting Luke in Troas. Imagine meeting Lydia for the first time in the river? Imagine watching Paul and Silas imprisoned, beaten, singing hymns at midnight and then being miraculously delivered by the Holy Spirit. And yet with all of this Kingdom investment, Timothy wanted to quit.
Without perspective, and the thoughtful mentoring of Paul, Timothy would not have made it out of his 20s. He would have dropped off the ministry timeline. He would have become yet another piece of statistical data of a young and promising leader who dropped out early. But perspective helped Timothy. He did not quit. He went on to have a long ministry career. Timothy finished well.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Perspective - Christian leaders who finish well view current ministry in light of a lifetime of development.
2. MENTOR
Young Christian leaders need mentors. Paul was an experienced missionary. When he wrote to Timothy he was approaching the end of his 33 years of faithful mission work. He had literally seen it all. And he had his scarred body to prove it. For over 10 years he mentored Timothy, recruiting him from his home in Galatia and planting churches together in Europe (Philippi, Thessalonica, Berean and Athens). That is some serious on-the-job training. Paul appointed Timothy to serve as the pastor of Ephesus, the flagship church of Asia Minor. While we may not have the same issues that Timothy faced, the dynamic principles underlying the solutions are available to us today.
And seasons Christian leaders need to mentor. The Lord Jesus has established a wonderful balance of veterans and rookies in the Christian ministry. The seasoned leaders must learn to select, train and send younger leaders. Not only does the church need to expand with younger leaders every year (unfortunately, the American church today is going the other direction). But the pastor needs to learn to intentionally develop the next generation for their own growth and development. The 50s and 60s decades are all about intentionally training the next generation. Pastors in the prime and latter stage of ministry, who do not have a development pipeline, are vulnerable to plateauing dynamics.
1 Timothy simple offers a vibrant example of what mentoring is all about. Mentoring is the relational experience of an older leader empowering a younger leader though wisdom, advice and resource.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Mentor - Christian leaders who finish well have 10-12 mentors over a lifetime, especially a few foundational mentors in their 20s.
3. CHARACTER
Young Christian leaders need to understand the value of character. Simply put there are too many characters, and not enough character in Christian ministry. This is why we are all growing numb when we hear the breaking news of yet another moral failure, abuse of power, or impropriety around finances or sexual immorality. Integrity is the top leadership quality in the New Testament. If character is the car we drive around in our ministry, then integrity is the engine. The core of who we are is inside, and public ministry must be a reflection of our integrated Biblical values and processing, with outward actions that reflect those values.
Paul taught Timothy that ministry flows out of being. Our inner-person is made up of a complex cluster of values and experiences with God (intimacy in prayer, prophetic words directly from heaven, personality, gender, destiny and healing to name a few). An unbalanced situation where outward skills and giftedness are more important than character is a recipe for disaster. The inner-life collapses far before the public ministry removal and scandal. Most ministries today are heavy on impact and results, but light on character development. Paul taught Timothy to make sure that in his ministry, character is always first.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Character - Christian leaders who finish well develop character, especially in the foundation period of their 20s.
4. LEADERS
Young Christian leaders need to understand ministry structures. Every church or ministry has a philosophy and practice for how to make disciples. Whether day one of a brand new church plant, or the celebration anniversary of 100 years of ministry at a legacy church, the wise leader will have a plan to structure ministry. Paul offered thoughtful leadership guidelines and patterns for Timothy.
Paul taught Timothy what leadership is not. In the letter he warns Timothy to stay away from people who love to participate in controversies. He warns Timothy to never promote leaders based on finances. And he instructs Timothy that leadership is a ‘strongly lead plurality.’ Controversies are endless and will only cause division. The world promotes the rich, not the Kingdom. And a one-person authoritarian or task-oriented administrators have the same end.
Practically speaking, Paul’s words to Timothy must be heeded by church leaders today. Leadership qualifications are based on character and conscience. Paul’s list of leadership qualifications focus character and integrity and not giftedness. Paul never instructs Timothy to promote gifted public leaders, but stresses a clear conscience before God is fundamental to the leader. The leaders full of character are then selected as elders (overseers), and deacons (those learning ministry). Too quick a selection is warned against leading to spiritual pride and many problems down the road. The skills of ministry can be taught quickly. Character must be developed through modeling, learning, and testing. This development mindset will take pressure off quick results and help the younger leader enjoy the long-term process of leadership development.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Leaders - Christian leaders who finish well follow Paul’s exhortation to prioritize character over gifts, and have structures to reflect that value.
5. GIFTEDNESS
Young Christian leaders need to understand spiritual giftedness. There are 19 spiritual gifts in the New Testament. Those 19 gifts can be organized into 3 clusters. As Christians we are responsible to not only identify our gifts but to intentionally develop those gifts, even in increasingly hostile ministry contexts. From my limited perspective, I fear that our current church landscape puts more emphasis on identifying the gifts, rather than developing them in our real life ministry contexts. When we consider Jesus’ parables on giftedness, and understand the staggering amount of investment the master gives to the servants, the judgment on the wicked is just and deserving. We must be proactive to turn our 10 into 100 in the real world.
Paul’s giftedness development plan for Timothy is deeply encouraging. We learn that gifts can be imparted into young leaders by mature Christian leaders. This is especially true of those with the apostleship gift. Those who operate in apostolic ministry should regularly gather younger leaders in prayerful worship settings, call on the leading of the Holy Spirit, and impart gifts as the Spirit leads. Paul knows full well that aspects of giftedness can be neglected, atrophy, grow cold and eventually be lost. In 1 Timothy, Paul exhorts Timothy to turn his 10 talent teaching gift into 100 talents. Giftedness must be developed and 1 Timothy gives us a prime example.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Giftedness - Leaders who finish well identify and develop their giftedness over the course of their lifetime.
6. HERESY
Young Christian leaders need to understand the centrality of the Book. One of the four apostolic gift functions is to fight heresy. The word heresy means to believe something contradictory to Biblical truth. As the church began, it was so important to protect the gospel. There were so many false notions about God and the meaning of faith in the ancient world. Just as for us today, Paul taught Timothy how to identify and defeat the heresies in the Ephesus church.
Many doctrinal attacks come from the outside. The unbelieving world simply cannot understand God and his commitment to turn the world upside down. The Gentiles hoard food, clothing and the pleasures of the world, neglecting God because they believe there is nothing to gain beyond this earth. I would argue that the attacks from inside the church are more painful. Those who live outside the Book, but see themselves as Christians, lash out and eventually split believers, woo many away into false teachings and weaken the gospel witness. The issues Paul instructs Timothy through were already mentioned in his final words to the Ephesian elders. He warned them that heretics, fierce wolves, were already in the church. Heretics will always water-down the call to obedience and compromise to the fallen culture.
LEADERSHIP VALUE: Heresy - Leaders who finish well live in the Book, and fight heresy (doctrine and conduct) in their lives and ministry.
7. WARFARE
Young Christian leaders must live in the reality that we are not alone. We live in a world, planet earth, which is inside another world, where two Kingdoms are fully operational and at war. This statement is confirmed as we consider the angel Gabriel’s famous visit to Daniel. As the great prophet suffered under dark circumstances in Babylon, the angel visited him to deliver a direct message from God. He opens the visitation with an apology for his tardiness. Gabriel said he was delayed because he was in fierce battle with the dark prince of Persia. This brief report teaches us at least three things: (1) Spiritual warfare is normal. Notice that Gabriel doesn’t even attempt to explain his battle. He expects Daniel to know this; (2) Spiritual warfare is regional. There is an organized dark army and there is a military ranking of demonic leaders. The prince of Persia is a high-ranking demon over the massive region of Persia; (3) Spiritual warfare and evil spirits are responsible, at some level, for the sufferings of God’s people.
In the same way, as Paul instructs Timothy, he doesn’t make a huge deal but also does not ignore it. Paul gives Timothy a balanced approach to spiritual warfare. He knows that evil is a part of this world. I love how Darrell Johnson explains it, “Evil is more than human meanness and madness.” When we experience evil, we know it. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t see spiritual warfare as the cause of everything. He doesn’t even advocate a special attack plan or any special instructions. This is probably because he had already done this as he identified 5 pieces of armor and 2 offensive weapons in the final chapter of Ephesians. Paul teaches Timothy that the main methods of attack of Satan are doubt, pride, deceptive teaching and crossing the conscience and weakening integrity in lust and financial matters. Apostolic leaders can take authority in spiritual warfare and bring God’s power by speaking a word of faith and truth, and cast out demons in power encounters.
DID TIMOTHY FINISH WELL?
Timothy’s name is mentioned 31 times in the New Testament. Paul’s written advice to Timothy is a blueprint for how God develops serious Christian leaders in their 20s. His last mention in Hebrews 13:23 shows that he learned his lessons well. Early ministry is where foundational character is built. Timothy made it through the great challenges of leading the Ephesian church with the help of a great mentor.
Timothy finished well. Therefore, he should be carefully studied as an example of how a next generation leader is trained, transitioned into ministry and taught to persevere until the end. Let us learn from Paul and Timothy and prepare for a strong finish today.