Bible Sunday 2018 - Telling it like Timothy
Telling it like Timothy
For Bible Sunday 2018, the Bible Society drew inspiration from 2 Timothy 3: 14 – 4: 5. It is a passage that continues to sound prescient in our own age:
“For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” (4: 3-4)
(Or as the Revised English Bible puts it: “each will follow his own whim and gather a crowd of teachers to tickle his fancy”.)
In response, the writer urges us to recall how, and from whom, we learned the Gospel message (3: 14). It offers a moment, perhaps, to recall who for us have been prophets. Consider singing in particular George Briggs’s God has spoken – by his prophets (StF 157), or two other hymns on the prophetic legacy of teaching and challenge: The prophets’ voice comes down the years, StF 162) and When listening prophets dare to speak, StF 163.
Remember, too, Timothy Dudley-Smith’s popular hymn, Lord, for the years (StF 470), which speaks of the Word of Life that fires us and which (quoting 2 Timothy almost directly) “teaches and trains, rebukes and inspires us” (v.2).
(Alternatively, anticipating the festival of All Saints, consider John Bell and Graham Maule’s For all the saints who showed your love – “who sang your songs and shared your word” (StF 746, v.2)
Resources offered by the Bible Society include a sermon by Krish Kandiah, founder of the adoption and fostering charity Home for Good and author of Paradxology: Why Christianity was never meant to be simple; also an order of all-age worship, and a youth talk.
In Scotland, the Scottish Bible Society invites people to order resources from its Bible Sunday Scotland page.
Some online resources that will help you explore 2 Timothy include:
- From Biblica, the International Bible Society, a brief summary of when and why Paul may have written this letter.
- Bible Odyssey – a short overview of the Epistles, asking which ones may or may not have been written by Paul himself. Many scholars think 2 Timothy was written by someone other than Paul.
- The Text This Week offers a range of commentary and interpretation materials relating to this passage.