World exploration, scientific discovery, and medical advancement owe much to young people’s enthusiasm. It is also intriguing to explore their dynamic role in the founding days of new faiths and in the revivals that changed the shape of established ones.
Jesus chose both youthful and mature people when He was founding Christianity. For instance, there is evidence that the apostle John was still doing sterling work as a minister of the gospel six decades after Calvary. So when Christ called him and the other Galilean fishermen with the words, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19, NKJV), John may have been in his twenties, and thus younger than Jesus Himself.
Timothy meets Paul
Acts, as the book is named in the Bible, has often been known as The Acts of the Apostles. It tells the story of Christianity’s spread from Jerusalem and Palestine through Asia Minor to Europe—and the empire’s capital, Rome. Even though the apostle Paul went to Rome as a prisoner, his witness there was steadfast: “He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28:31).
It was in Asia Minor, now Turkey, that Paul, the intrepid evangelist, met a promising young half-Greek, half-Jew named Timothy. The apostle was on his second missionary journey when he came to Lystra, where Timothy lived. Timothy’s mother was Jewish and a believer, but his father was a Greek (Acts 16:1).
We know that Timothy was raised in a devout home, for in his second letter to the young disciple, Paul wrote that “from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).
However, it was probably not easy for young Timothy to transition from his Jewish beliefs, in which he was raised, to the new faith now called Christianity. The Old Testament may have repeatedly prophesied the coming Christ, and Timothy knew his Bible well. But when Paul and Barnabas first arrived in Lystra, there was an upheaval as the people wanted to deify them as the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes.
“Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over,” turning the people from adulation to hatred for the two disciples. “They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.” Grieving disciples gathered about his motionless body when, surprisingly, consciousness returned, and “he got up and went back into the city.” The next day Paul was well enough to press on to the next city, Derbe (Acts 14:19, 20).
For Timothy, joining the Christians would not have looked like a promising career move. Christians were seriously misunderstood by pagans and fiercely persecuted by Jews. However, Timothy obviously weighed the situation and decided for Christ, for when Paul arrived in Lystra again, Timothy was “a disciple” and “the believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him” (Acts 16:1, 2).
But there was a challenge ahead for Timothy. The great apostle Paul “wanted to take him along on the journey” (verse 3). Did Timothy have flashbacks to the way the mob at Lystra first treated Paul? Did he envision similar trials ahead?
Timothy on tour
When I was a child, our family drove across Turkey from the Gallipoli region to Syria. In 2009 my wife and I, in company with four friends, drove many thousands of miles around Turkey. Both journeys impressed me with the vast distances that the apostle Paul traversed to share the good news about Jesus. Another young man, John Mark, had abandoned the missionary enterprise, because the journey with Paul through this terrain was just too daunting for him. But Timothy lasted the distance, through Phrygia and Galatia and on to Troas, a city on the shore of the Aegean Sea.
Distance, cold, heat, and danger failed to discourage Timothy. In Philippi, Paul and Silas were “severely flogged” and then “thrown into prison” with their feet fastened in stocks (Acts 16:23, 24). Evidently Luke and Timothy escaped the lash. Even though the missionaries were continually dogged by opposition, they persisted in their Macedonian mission, finally reaching Berea.
Luke observes that “the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men” (Acts 17:11, 12).
Soon, however, Jewish agitators arrived in Berea from Thessalonica, so “the believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea” (verse 14).
This was Timothy’s introduction to the Christian ministry as a coworker with Paul, Silas, and Luke, in the vast geographical area of southeastern Turkey and Greece. He had ample reason and abundant opportunity to reconsider his commitment to both Christianity and to ministry, but Timothy was unshaken in his resolve.
shepherd of the flock
Academics believe that the apostle Paul’s second missionary journey, when he called Timothy to join his team, may have taken place between AD 49 and 52. Paul probably wrote his first of two letters to Timothy sometime between AD 63 and 66.
Timothy was obviously still a young man even then, for the apostle warned him, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young” (1 Timothy 4:12).
Despite his youth, however, Timothy had gained considerable experience by then. Paul had sent him to Thessalonica and to Corinth to help those particular churches (1 Thessalonians 3:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 4:17; 16:10), and later Timothy pastored the church at Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3).
Timothy, with his blended Jewish and Greek heritage, must have symbolized for many early Christians the hope that Christianity would transcend every barrier, including the restrictions of race that were so real during the first century. But the supreme privilege of Timothy’s career was to be a coauthor with Paul and Silas of letters that eventually would be recognized as new scriptures. Raised with a love for the Old Testament, it was an awesome privilege for the lad from Lystra to help create parts of the New Testament (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Philemon 1:1).
It was customary for many ancient teachers to expect their students to learn by heart major blocks of instruction. We can imagine Timothy memorizing at least some of the main admonitions conveyed in the stirring letters Paul wrote directly to him.
“Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs,” the apostle declared. “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 6:10–14).
Many of the apostle’s vivid admonitions must have passed through Timothy’s mind, counsel such as Paul’s instructions to “preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2).
young people today
My family enjoys fellowship in a church that has scores of attendees about the age that I think Timothy must have been when he joined Paul’s second missionary journey. These young Christians do not face persecution or seemingly interminable foot-travel through dangerous terrain. But they give liberally and work passionately for others. Some of their projects take them to distant regions such as Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. Others coach local students or run clubs that divert disadvantaged youth away from hopelessness and drugs toward constructive activities. They often appear on the doorsteps of the frail and the aged with a simple offer—to weed, to trim, or to mow. Instead of taking student holidays, these young people get their hands dirty working within remote communities.
Clearly, Timothy’s other-centered passion is alive and well among young people of the twenty-first century. Theirs is a quiet witness for a dynamic faith that is often better expressed in doing rather than telling.
