Acts 16:1-3 Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman… I. PAUL TOOK SILAS WITH HIM, but he could not give up a man like Barnabas and think no more about him. He who can forget old friends is no apostle of Jesus Christ. Besides, Paul was going "again" to the churches. The people would ask about Barnabas. We ask questions that open graves and heart wounds. The man who has not seen you for years asks you how that sweet little boy of yours is, and it seems to you incredible that a grief that filled your house with darkness had not made itself known to your friend. What must Paul's answer have been? He was a faithful man true as steel: he knew not the genius of equivocation and the fine art of telling lies. We have to account for old associations being ruptured, we have to explain new faces and new relationships. II. Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, and found "A CERTAIN DISCIPLE NAMED TIMOTHEUS." Long ago we read about a young man whose name was Saul. We begin in obscurity, we are pointed at as hardly to be identified. If the foolish tree could be taking itself up in order to show its antecedents, it would soon be killed. All that we have to do is so to lift ourselves up in God's light and rain, as to bring forth fruit. We may be now nothing more than "certain disciples," but we may still be disciples. III. TIMOTHY WAS THE SON OF A JEWESS AND A GREEK. Happy man, to stand between two civilisations! What must the boy have been? Two such fires meeting in his blood; two such histories recounting themselves in his memory! How able to look well round him and to understand the mystery of Law and the mystery of Beauty! His religion might go up into superstition, his philosophy might develop into scepticism and sneering; if he touched Christ, he touched One who to the Jew was a stumbling block and to the Greek foolishness, but to the believing Timothy the power of God and the wisdom of God. We ourselves see this double relationship sometimes in life. Your mother prayed — your father never prayed. You are a child of the night and of the day, and you feel it, and sometimes you are plunged in the darkness of the one parentage, and sometimes you are away on the bright broad wings of the other into the light. But is it possible that a Jewess could marry a Greek? I should have said, No, but for what you have done. IV. TIMOTHY "WAS WELL REPORTED OF." Character is very subtle. Timothy never asked any man to speak well of him, and yet no man could speak ill of the youth. Do not appeal to one another's charitable judgment for a character, but so live that character will come. Live your character; do not be painted as good men, but paint your own character in your own blood. V. "HIM WOULD PAUL HAVE TO GO FORTH WITH HIM." Paul could not do without youth. A young man can run, and is not burdened with a sense of his own respectability. God bless the young life! There are those who would snub the youthful soul, and never permit him to be seen or heard. Paul loved the young, and would never give them up so long as they were true; but if ever they began to prove themselves fickle, he would give them up and their uncle Barnabas with them. A soldier could not do with a coward; only be true, and Paul would be your lifelong friend. VI. HE TOOK AND CIRCUMCISED TIMOTHY. This from Paul, who would not circumcise Titus! But the reason is given (ver. 3). It was therefore no breach of the apostle's stern policy that, under circumstances so peculiar, he should respect a temporary prejudice. Now they start, Paul, and Silas, and Timotheus (ver. 4). Do not be afraid of the word "Decrees"; they were decrees of liberty. What they signed was the Magna Charts of the Church; freedom centred in God and in the Cross. Christ's followers are not lawless; they have decrees to keep. The spirit of authority is the spirit of rest when it brings with it the assurance that the authority is not arbitrary but rational, not local but universal, not imperfect but Divine. VII. "SO WERE THE CHURCHES ESTABLISHED," etc. These are the true results which accompany every true mission — edification first, and evangelisation second. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: |
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