"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV
His judgement will be, in part, that He shows up and everyone will suddenly know that He Is very very real.
I'm reading 2 Timothy chapter 4 again and again and marveling at the seeming disorderliness of ministry around Paul. He delegates. He lets people be led but calls out the carnality of Demas and you have to wonder why he highlights that transgression the way he does.
"Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." - 2 Timothy 4:9-18 ESV
He speaks about 'all the nations hearing' but it seems like this is a small band of likeminded people running in different directions at times with sparse resources.
Still...
We see things from farther down the line, don't we? The nations did and are hearing. It was people like them... like us who told the world. People shivering because they needed a garment left at a person's house in haste. People who relied on the faithfulness of others but were sometimes disappointed.
What are my excuses again? Can I justify nursing hurts stemming from things that should have happened in my mind but didn't? Do I have a Demas or a Titus or an Alexander? Paul had a gracious mind towards those people but he also wasn't naive or too proud to ask for help from Timothy.
God was going to rescue him but He was asking Timothy to bring the cloak, books and parchments. Paul wasn't hyper-spiritual living in quasi-spiritual isolation from people and their weaknesses. He asked things of people who sometimes failed to come through.
Can the Holy Spirit help you and I think like Paul was thinking?... like Jesus Is thinking? I say He can and gave us this book so we could make choices about what we read here and mix faith into what we are reading and hearing.
Help us God. Help us to have this mind. We are so far from the 'end of ourselves' like Paul was here. This is the thinking that gets the Gospel into all the world and we want that because You want that.
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