The new generation's Timothy

“Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”

-2 Timothy 4:2, NIV

In this verse, Paul instructed Timothy to preach the Word, and I believe that the youth of this generation are the new Timothy’s. As the new Timothy’s of this generation, we are instructed to preach with “great patience” and “careful instruction”.

Question: Why do we need to preach the Word?

1. To “CORRECT” the people’s way of living

-There are a lot of corrections needed to be done specifically on the people’s way of living nowadays. We can see that many people are selfish and worldly. Many are attached to the things of the world, but we must let them know that having expensive things or gaining success is not what life is all about. This is where we must jump in. We must preach about what life is really all about. That life is not all about working hard in order to get something and to become successful, but about having a relationship with God.

2. To “REBUKE” people from doing evil

-Old selfish desires and sins need to be stopped in order for people to change. Some of the people believes that what they normally do like smoking, drinking alcohol, having sex and taking drugs are not bad, but we must teach them that things like these will never do good in their lives. We must preach about immorality and its consequences so that they will know what they need to stop.

3. To “ENCOURAGE” people

-In our preaching, we must not just end up on giving the people knowledge about what is wrong, because if we do this we could just lower their confidence. Correcting and rebuking people from their mistakes are good, but in doing these, the people become more conscious of the mistakes they have done. Now this is where encouragement kicks in. We must encourage them so that they will have the fire to stop themselves from doing the wrong thing and do the right thing. We could not just see them walking with sad face after our preaching. Of course, we want to change them by encouraging them to do the right thing!

Question: Why should we have great patience and why should we give careful instructions?

Ø      We need to have great patience because we cannot change people instantly.

Ø      We need to give careful instructions because we could lead them into doing the wrong thing with our words.

So let me end up in this question. Do you think that you are the new Timothy of this generation? If you think you are, then go preach the Word! Good day and God bless.