Good morning. It is quite common as we read our New testament to find words and ideas whose first meaning and application is for the military. The apostle Paul uses military imagery with some frequency, such as the command in Ephesians 6:10ff to “put on the full armor of God”. We find another example of this in 2 Timothy 2:3 as Paul writes to his young protégée, Timothy: Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
When Paul dictated those words which would be sent to Timothy, he was being held in the worst possible conditions for a prisoner of Rome. Gone were the days of imprisonment when Paul was secured, but in a private home. At the time of this writing, Paul was being held in a hole in the ground. His physical condition was horrific. When he spoke of suffering, he knew firsthand how terrible it could be. Timothy was, at that time, serving the church in Ephesus, which was not a terrible place but one that had dangers and the potential for persecution.
Paul addresses Timothy as, “a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” He reminds the young man that as a soldier for Christ he needed to be ready for anything, which included suffering. They were not empty words. Early Christians, especially leaders like Paul and young Timothy, were often the subject of extreme persecution for their faith.
We speak with regularity of the ongoing battle in our world between the darkness and the light of Christ. We speak of the battle between the righteous ones of Jesus and our ancient enemy, the devil. But do we think of ourselves as soldiers, and as soldiers ready to endure suffering for our faith?
As soldiers in the midst of battle, wounds are inevitable. How are the wounded treated by their peers? There is an old saying that the army of Christ tends to be the only army in history that frequently shoots its wounded. That is a nasty thing to say, all the more painful because we know that it can be true. When the enemy wounds one of us, the telling signs are often of moral failure. That is where we are weakest, as the enemy well knows. When one of our own, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our fellow soldiers in the ongoing battle, fall…do we mend them? Do we restore them? Do we welcome them back to our side in the fray? Or do we cast them aside as ones no longer trustworthy?
Please, let’s be good soldiers for our Lord today. Ready to endure suffering if we are called to do so. But at all times, may we be ready to love and encourage, heal and protect, our fellow soldiers in the faith.
This much we already know: In the end, when the battles are done, WE WIN!
Vern