– Lesson From The Life Of Bishop Timothy
– Timeless Instructions For The Young Minister
– Unveiling The New Testament Model
By Pastor Bimbo Animashaun
I want to tell you the story of a man; Timothy is his name. Great man of God!!!
A young man who was outstandingly outstanding by all indices and parameters of divine destiny.
Timothy was a young chap who defied the contradictions of his nuclear family trajectory and went on to fulfil divine purpose.
He came from a multi-racial family background – his Mum was a Jewess while his Dad was a Greek yet he scaled the hordes of a “disjointed” family structure.
Kudos to his mother; she prominently featured in his upbringing.
In a way, the young man Timothy was,TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, raised by a single mother yet he became a mighty pillar of the Christian Faith.
I personally believe that Timothy’s father’s absence, supposedly, in his all-round development, in a way, created a vacuum that could possibly be filled only by a FATHER FIGURE.
Absentee Fathering in any human society is the foundation for chaos and moral degradation.
Children who have no FATHER FIGURE train and nurture them, more often than not, constitute a nuisance to the society – they always go gaga and haywire, and such become delinquent to constituted authorities.
There’s something about FATHERING that we cannot overemphasize.
A synergy between fathers and children prevents a curse upon the earth, according to Scripture – Mal. 4:6, meaning that a circumvention of same creates a springboard for social disintegration and massive erosion of both moral and cultural values.
From the life of Timothy, we realize that God has a strategy to fill the fathering gap in human societies.
What probably could have been a bottleneck in Timothy’s journey was sorted out by DIVINE CONNECTION.
God, knowing the unspoken fears and challenges of Timothy, supernaturally linked him up with a RUGGED AND NO-NONSENSE APOSTLE in the person of Paul, and apart from the fact that Paul trained him for ministry, he also fixed the broken pieces in the jigsaw occasioned by his biological father’s “absence”.
Please note that I didn’t say that Timothy’s biological father was a run-away father or domestically irresponsible; he just lacked the spiritual resources to train the young man for his apostolic destiny, chiefly because of his Gentile affiliation not tempered by Christian orientation.
We also realize that Timothy’s faith was traced to his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice -2 Tim. 1:5, NO MENTION WAS MADE OF HIS FATHER, therefore it would not be out of place to affirm that Timothy’s father didn’t really do much about his spiritual upbringing.
But that would not be an albatross; the Apostle Paul, by DIVINE CONNECTION, came to fill the gap, even on a more spiritually sophisticated level. That’s God’s strategy! The New Testament records this:
ACTS 16:1-3.
Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named TIMOTHEUS, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and BELIEVED; but his father was a Greek:
Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.
Him would PAUL have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.
Timothy at this age, was 33 years old, according to Church History, and then one wonders why Paul still had to circumcise him.
That goes to show that his Dad did not owe any allegiance to the Jewish customs not to even talk of Christianity.
His mother was the only practising Christian according to verse 1 of the above-quoted scripture, for she BELIEVED.
Paul had to circumcise him to honour the Jews and also to “fulfil all righteousness”.
From that point on, the journey of destiny became upward and forward for Timothy.
Under Paul’s fathering and apostolic oversight, Timothy flourished in no time.
He stood tall and strong in the midst of his contemporaries, to the extent that the apostle Paul “put him above them”.
PHILIPPIANS 2:19-22
But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state.
For I HAVE NO MAN LIKE-MINDED, who will naturally care for your state.
FOR ALL SEEK THEIR OWN, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.
But ye know the proof of him, that, AS A SON TO A FATHER, he hath served with me in the gospel.
Timothy was faithful and loyal to the core. He practically passed through the hands of Paul in ministry.
THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED!
All the while, Timothy, most likely due to his lopsided paternal background, NURSED A HIDDEN FEAR.
It wasn’t the fear of the devil; it wasn’t the fear of a rattle snake; and it wasn’t the fear of premature death.
Somewhere in his consciousness, there was this fear of the unknown; the fear of not harnessing all the deposits of God in one’s life and fulfilling one’s potentials.
It was a mixture of inferiority complex and the fear of the unknown.
But Paul, HIS SPIRITUAL FATHER, saw it! In a very stern and pointed language, laced with apostolic authority, Paul wrote to him.
2 TIMOTHY 1:6-7
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that THOU STIR UP THE GIFT OF GOD, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US THE SPIRIT OF FEAR; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
In another instance, Paul, knowing that Timothy as a young man, had the tendency of being intimidated or cowed by the elderly ones, told him strongly:
1TIMOTHY 4:12
LET NO MAN DESPISE THY YOUTH; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Now these are words of A FATHER. As a spiritual father, Paul encouraged Timothy to explore all the possibilities of God in his life, not caving in to unspoken fears and apprehensions occasioned by fathering gap in his natural history.
Well, Timothy overcame his fears. Through his connection to his SPIRITUAL FATHER, the broken pieces in his jigsaw were fixed.
Many accounts of Church history tell us that he became the first Bishop at the church at Ephesus.
I once heard Rev. Adebayo Femi Ezekiel say that the church at Ephesus under Timothy grew up to become over 44000 in number, which initially was around 22000.
That’s a landslide, especially in those growing years of Christianity. Our God is awesome!
It is my conviction that God still replicates THE TIMOTHY MODEL today.
Pastors will come across people whose natural background failed them, especially the lacuna in fathering. We’re not to blame them – it’s not their fault.
We’re to rise up to the challenge and take the bull by the horn. We’re to fill in the gap based on the wisdom of God.
Honestly speaking, I have encountered people that I personally reasoned that did they fall from Heaven?
I mean I wondered if they ever went through any practical training and developmental process in the natural realm, but today, to the Glory of God alone, they’re great people doing great things in their respective spheres.
No genuine spiritual father who is worth his salt forcefully looks for people to father. Fathering is a BURDEN; not a LUXURY.
God alone understands the pain that spiritual fathers sometimes go through and He comforts them.
They will have to bear the “liabilities” of those that they watch over and what have you, and sometimes the children they raised will turn against them, telling them that they had no input in their lives.
As I close, it’s important for the reader to bear in mind that God, based on his divine prerogative, is the One Who orchestrates DIVINE CONNECTIONS AND DESTINY RELATIONSHIPS.
Why Timothy came under Paul’s leadership, not Peter’s, lies within the ambit and purview of God’s omniscience.
All we need do is to cooperate with God in honouring and nurturing God-ordained relationships in our lives.
That way, everyone of us is just one step away to destiny fulfilment. That’s the story of the young Bishop Timothy.
I believe his life is an encouragement to any adventurer on the destiny lane.
No generation can do without fathers!
Any generation that despises FATHERS has cut its FEATHERS.
Fathers are covers.
Fathers are ladders.
Fathers are levers.
Fathers take us farther.
May it not be said of my generation that we despised the fathers.
We are a people of honour!!!
Yes we are!!!
The Grace of the Lord be with us all!!!
Amen!!!
Shalom!!!
Source: Bimbo Animashaun Teaching Ministries |Published with permission
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