The other day I was listening to a radio program that discussed the power of the exclamation mark.  The purpose of the show was to help the listeners understand that the exclamation can be both overused and underused thanks to text messaging, email and facebook.  The punctuation mark once had some punch to it. Now it is overused making it seem cheesy or, underused, making it seem harsh.

Let me show you how this is true in both cases.  Have you ever seen a text message or facebook message of a tween?  “OMG!!!  LOL!!!  !!!!!”.   That would be considered an overuse of an exclamation point.

The undeuse of the xclamation mark would look something like this (let me set up the scene for you):  An employee is asked to put together a business strategy for the upcoming fiscal year.  Hours and hours went into this business plan by the employee.  Finally the document ends up on the desk of the CEO a day early.  The employee is beaming with pride and anxiety as it is delivered.  The employee leaves a note for the CEO to text the employee with some thoughts on the business plan.

Two days later the employee receives that message.  It says:  Great.  We’ll talk.

Can you imagine what the employee was feeling when receiving that message?  They are wondering if this is good or if this is bad. An exclamation point would change the whole feel of that message.

The person doing the radio commentary of the exclamation point said that the power of the punctuation marked died when talking and the hand written letter died.  I think he made his point.  It’s true, we don’t write many letters anymore.  But there is a positive side to our lack of writing letters.  Since we don’t write letters much anymore, when you do get one it has great impact.  You feel extra special (or extra angry depending on the contents of the letter).

This month we are going to look at a letter written to a young Pastor who was left in charge of a church with tons of problems.  His name was Timothy and the person who wrote the letter was Paul.  Paul was mentoring two young pastors actually.  Their names were Timothy and Titus.  When Paul started a church in a town called Ephesus, he had left and it had fallen apart.  So he goes back there with his young apprentice (Timothy) and writes this letter of encouragement to him for Timothy is now in charge of this messed up church.

The odd thing about this letter though, is that it really was not for Timothy.  This letter was actually for the church.  The contents were to be read by Timothy, but explained to the church in Ephesus.   A church that had huge issues.  What were those issues?

Issue 1:  Paul wasn’t around much.  If the guy who started the church, taught the church and influenced the leaders is either somewhere else starting a church or is in jail, issues tend to come up.  As  the old saying goes “When the shepherd’s away the sheep will play”.  This letter is not just to encourage Timothy as pastor, but to get the leadership to be responsible while Paul’s influence is from a distance.

Issue 2:  Because Paul was not present, wrong teaching (which meant wrong teachers) infiltrated the church.  There is some debate whether there was “Gnosticism” going on in the church, but the letter seems to point out that there were people who were semi-Gnostic plus Jewish who were trying to water down the Jesus story.   In other words “escapism” and “law” were being preached instead of freedom in Christ.  Paul did not hold Timothy accountable for this diversion.  Instead he held the leaders of the church (overseers and deacons) responsible for this issue and they needed to fix it.  What you need to understand is that church did not just take place in one building on one day.  Ephesus had many house churches that Timothy was the pastor of.  But all of these houses had overseers and leadership.  They were the ones that were responsible for making sure that each house stayed doctrinally correct.  Timothy taught, prayed and loved, the overseers and deacons kept things going straight and narrow.  They had missed their call.  Actually, in the first letter to Timothy, Paul calls out two people who were diverting the true gospel message (1 Tim 1:20).

Issue 3:  The church seemed to believe (like many churches in that day) that Jesus was going to return any minute.  And that was true.  But Paul recognized something that was awry and encouraged Timothy to encourage the church for the long haul.  In other words “Don’t be idle waiting for the great day – keep living, working, loving…”.  This issue I believe is connected to issue #2: Gnosticism.

This letter is a letter that was meant for a church going through a shift.  A church going through a crisis.  A church that needed people to step up to the plate and be leaders.  This letter was a letter that was to encourage a young pastor to keep on keeping on.  A pastor who was entrusted with a message of love and life.  This is a letter that said to a congregation “Don’t go back to the way things were”.  As NT Wright puts it:  Don’t go back to the default setting.  What were the default settings?  Law and escapism.

Paul gave the church the amazing news that there is a better way at life.  Keep working that out!  Timothy was placed there to keep that message alive.  Really, that is the point of his letter.  (Note the proper use of an exclamation point).

 My sources for this series are as follows:

IVP Dictionary:  Paul

Paul for Everyone:  The Pastoral Letters by NT Wright

NIBC, 1and2 Timothy, Titus  by Gordon D. Fee

Hermeneia:  The Pastoral Epistles by Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann