Recently I was traveling and had the gift of sitting in the emergency exit row of an airplane. After everyone got on, the stewardess came to the people sitting in the exit row and started talking. There was one person who kept their ear buds in and didn’t look up. The stewardess stopped three times, tapped the person on the shoulder and signaled for them to take out their ear buds and pay attention. They didn’t respond. Finally she stopped, another stewardess came up and they told the person they could either be reseated or take out their ear buds and listen and respond to the instructions. It is annoying to be interrupted by someone telling you something that you won’t remember anyway. The only reason your are sitting in the exit row is because there is more leg room, you really aren’t primarily interested in saving everyone else’s life in case of emergency. But the primary purpose of someone sitting the exit row is to be prepared for an emergency and be the one who takes action. The stewardess’ role is to do their best to insure that everyone sitting in the exit row understands the main purpose of sitting in that seat.
Many of us don’t thrive in life, because we have been distracted by other things and those things take our best time, energy, and focus. Especially in our world today, it is easy to become distracted and focused on random things that aren’t of primary importance but they end up consuming our best time, resources and, attention. Think about how much time you have spent on thinking or talking about monkey pox, vaccine mandates, abortion rights, gender identity, what book is in the library, the supreme court justices, Trump’s Mar a Lago raid, Biden’s gaffes when talking, mid term elections, Judge’s pursuit of the home run record, your child’s teacher, the coach who isn’t playing your daughter, the neighbor who doesn’t mow his lawn regularly, the lack of service at your local restaurant. Now compare that with the time that you have spent talking, investing and actively doing things around the things that are the most important. If you are like me, you are more than slightly embarrassed with the results.
Paul knew the culture at the time of his writing the letter to Timothy was going through similar distractions. He reminded Timothy of a couple of important habits to live a thriving life.
2 Tim 8 Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead. This is the Good News I preach. 14 Remind everyone about these things, and command them in God’s presence to stop fighting over words. Such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them.
Paul instructed Timothy to remember the Good News that he was about. Paul knew that Timothy was in conversations and debates that would distract him from staying focused on the purpose of the Good News. Paul didn’t want Timothy to get sidetracked and end up walking in the weeds of spiritual confusion. But verse 14 gives a more direct danger of not keeping the main thing the main thing. Paul encourages Timothy to remind people of the main thing and then goes on to say that Timothy should command them to stop fighting over dumb things, wording, phrasing, and other issues. (Not that the issues don’t have importance but they can easily distract from the main thing) Because the result is the arguments that Christ followers can have over little wording, religious practices can ruin some people’s chance to hear clearly the message of the gospel.
American Christianity 2022 would benefit from spending time on this instruction from Paul. Many of us who call ourselves Christians have gotten into bitter debates over our thoughts and perspectives on a variety of issues and nonChristians have observed these conversations and have decided that they want nothing to do with Christianity because of them. Maybe even worse yet is that young people who grew up in church, but never rooted into a relationship with Jesus, are walking away from Christianity because when asked difficult questions externally or internally they do not have an answer. American Christianity over the last 2-3 decades has trained up the next generation by offering attractive, comfortable experiences of church in the hope of keeping the next generation in church and have missed helping them experience the main thing. Most people who leave the church are walking away from their relationship with church not Jesus, because unfortunately the majority of them do not have a relationship with Jesus. We, as Christian leaders and parents, have taken our eyes off the main thing and we are now experiencing the cost of that.
If churches and people want to thrive in 2022, we must keep the main thing, the main thing. We must not bow to the pressure to redefine the main thing, but instead as Paul tells Timothy, “Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead. This is the Good News that we preach.”