Keeping focus
Kent Hughes
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur stood a lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many of those who were rescued and also others from the surrounding area wished to become associated with the station and to give their time, money, and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The lifesaving station grew.
In time some of the crew became concerned that the station was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more commodious place should be provided as the first refuge of those snatched from the sea. The emergency cots were replaced with beds, and better furniture was purchased for the enlarged building. The station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely. Fewer members were now interested in leaving the plush station to go to sea on lifesaving missions. So they hired surrogates to do that work. However, they retained the lifesaving motif in the club's decorations, and a ceremonial lifeboat lay in the room where club initiations were held.
One dark stormy night a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick and obviously from distant shores. The station was in chaos. The event was so traumatic that the people contracted for outbuildings to be constructed so future shipwrecks could be processed with less disruption.
Eventually a rift developed in the station. Most of the members wanted to discontinue the station's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to their normal social life. Some insisted, however, that rescue was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But the latter were ignored and told that if they wanted to keep lifesaving as their primary purpose, they could begin their own station down the coast, which they did. Over time those individuals fell prey to the same temptations as the first group, coming to care more about comforting one another than rescuing the perishing. After a while a few, remembering their real purpose, split off to establish yet another lifesaving station. And on and on it went. Today if you visit that seacoast, you will find a number of impressive lifesaving stations along the shore. Sadly, shipwrecks still occur in those waters, but most people are lost.
"The Life-Saving Station" is a parable with deep historical roots that reach all the way back to the coast off ancient Ephesus. Paul's great fear was that the vibrant lifesaving station in Ephesus, the principal lighthouse in Asia Minor, would put out its light or forget its mission. Indeed, there had been shipwrecks from even their own number, men like elders Hymenaeus and Alexander who had abandoned "faith and a good conscience" (1 Timothy 1:19). These interior defections so early in the lifesaving ministry of the church at Ephesus were the reason Paul wrote to Timothy, who was to "command" such men "not to teach false doctrines" (1 Timothy 1:3).
Now at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul gives explicit instructions to the Ephesian churches on how to pray and live so that the lifesaving gospel will continue to go out to all people—praying and living for the gospel. Paul's concern was that false teaching by the likes of Hymenaeus and Alexander was turning the Ephesian congregations into elitist clubs that focused on "myths and endless genealogies" instead of the life-giving gospel (1 Timothy 1:4). His concern is easily seen in this section because he uses terms that stress the universal range of the church's responsibility—verse 1, "prayers ... for everyone"; verse 4, the divine desire for "all men to be saved"; verse 6, Jesus "gave himself as a ransom for all men"; and verse 7, which emphasizes ministry to "the Gentiles" and not just the Jews. The universality of the gospel—the fact that it is for everyone—is Paul's passion.
Now it is a fact that the Scriptures, and Paul in particular, teach divine election, and the complementary truth so clearly stated in verse 4: that God "desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." This, of course, does not mean that God wills everyone to be saved. If He did, all would be saved because no one can resist his will. What we have here is an expression of the divine desire that brought about the Incarnation and Christ's death on the cross - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
This (universality) rests on God’s unity – He is ‘one God’ (v.5). This truth has been perverted by some to support their exclusivistic delusion - ‘He is ours, and not anyone else’s!”. However the fact that He is the one and only God supports the universality of the gospel – He must then be the God of both Jews and Gentiles.
Our exclusive faith (there is one God, and there is one Mediator) leads necessarily to our inclusive mission (the ‘one God ... desires all people to be saved’).
Commentary on 1 Timothy 2:1-10 from: R. Kent Hughes To Guard the Deposit
© 2000 by R. Kent Hughes.