Embrace and Encourage Before You Exhort
2 Timothy 1:3-5
2 Timothy 1:3-5
I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.
None of us are perfect. All of us have our fair share of failures and flaws. Anyone who is in a close relationship with someone knows and understands this. We all make mistakes, become blinded by our sin, and at some point or another evoke and elicit the need for godly and gracious exhortation. However, as necessary as exhortation is, it can also be done poorly. Examples of poorly executed exhortation include over-emphasizing flaws, overlooking graces, and not valuing the interests of the other individual over your own. Yet what does it look like to excellently give exhortation? What does it look like to exhort with truth and grace and to correct firmly and lovingly? Today, we will be aided in learning this essential and yet difficult task by studying the next three verses in 2 Timothy. More specifically, we will look at one crucial principle in giving godly and gracious exhortation: embrace and encourage before you exhort.
Paul, after beginning his letter by stating his personal authorship and apostolic authority in verses 1-2, then begins an extended exhortation to Timothy in verses 6-14. However, just before that exhortation, Paul makes sure to embrace and encourage his young and struggling spiritual son with words of clear affection and obvious love in verses 3-5. Starting with words of written embrace in verses 3-4, Paul says, “I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” Two signs of written embrace can be seen in these two verses. For one, Paul expresses gratitude to the God of His ancestors with a clear conscience for Timothy and makes it clear to Timothy that he is constantly on his mind. Paul shows he is thinking of Timothy through the phrase “constantly in my prayers night and day”. What greater way is there to love someone than by pouring out your heart in constant prayer for them? Did not Jesus do the very same for those whom he greatly loved? (John 17). Like a true and loving spiritual father, Paul prays for his young disciple in the faith– an example we should all emulate as we seek to care for those we love.
A second sign of written embrace is seen in verse 4, where Paul recounts Timothy’s tears and expresses a deep desire and longing to see Timothy and be filled with joy. Paul’s reference to Timothy’s tears could likely be referring to a former farewell or their last time of parting, as tears are a typical response to farewells and goodbyes. Do you also notice how Paul says that he longs to see Timothy? Paul says that he longs to see Timothy so that he may be filled with joy. Being with Timothy brings Paul great joy. And Timothy would’ve undoubtedly known this in reading the first few lines of this letter.
In verse 5, Paul now switches from written embrace to written encouragement. Paul says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” From these verses, it is clear that Timothy was a part of an ancestry that deeply and dearly loved the Lord. Paul in these verses however, is pointing out Timothy’s continuation of this love and devotion, and is encouraging Timothy by confirming the certainty of Timothy’s faith. Again, we see Paul re-affirming and re-stating his affection for Timothy as a person, and his affirmation of Timothy as a faithful and devoted servant of Christ. Paul is intent on embracing and encouraging before he exhorts.
As stated earlier, 2 Timothy is primarily comprised of an exhortation from Paul to Timothy. However, as Paul demonstrates in several other instances (Phil 1:3-5, Col 1;3,9, 1 Thess 1:2-3), and in today’s passage, it is so important to embrace and encourage before you exhort and to give commendation before correction and critique. Now, this is not to say that godly exhortation and gracious correction are not necessary. They are, and as we’ll soon see, are helpfully demonstrated in detail in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. However, as Jonny Ardavanis has said, “truth is always best communicated in the context of deep relationship and sincere love”. Or, as the adage goes (or my iteration and paraphrase of it), “flies are most easily and effectively caught with honey over vinegar”. The principle behind both these statements? Embrace and encourage before you exhort. Confirm your love and assert your affection before graciously giving your correction and speaking the truth in love.
So how can we emulate Paul’s example of embracing and encouraging others before exhorting them? What person/persons in our lives need godly exhortation? In Ephesians 4:15, Paul calls us as believers to “speak the truth in love”. And as we close, it would serve us well to observe that behind all godly exhortation is the motive of sincere and genuine love. As Paul says in his first letter to Timothy, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Tim 1:5). Let us then aim to make love our ultimate motivator in our exhortation. Let us pray for exhortational interactions in which we speak the truth with both clarity and confidence, and love and affection. And let us remember to embrace and encourage before we exhort.