Faithful Mentorship

If you’re able to, I invite you to turn to 2 Timothy and to chapter 3 and to follow along as I read.

Timothy, in chapter 3, begins, you know, “In the last days there will be all kinds of dreadful things,”[1] and you can do your homework on that. But he then, having outlined the fact that the problems would be present, that there would be opposition to the gospel, and so on—and then he says, “You…” (addressing Timothy):

“You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you[’ve] been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

And this is the Word of the Lord. (Just checking for Episcopalians in the group. That’s all right.)

A brief prayer:

Father, what we know not teach us. What we have not give us. What we are not make us. And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, I chose the second letter of Timothy somewhat arbitrarily. The more I read it, the more I said to myself, “There is some sense in which 2 Timothy provides us with a mentoring manual”—admittedly, Timothy’s circumstance is different from many other people, and Paul is unique, but to the extent that it is an older man counseling a younger man as this older man has now reached the end of his journey. In chapter 4 he says, “The time has come for my departure. I’m already being poured out like a drink offering.”[2] So he’s absolutely committed to making sure that his young mentee, Timothy, is going to hold the line.

You know, to one degree or another, all of us are here today as a result simply of those who have had an influence for good on our lives. And as you go through your life, all the stages of life, it is important, once you get to a certain age at least, that we all have a Paul and that we all have a Timothy—that we have a mentor and that we have a mentee; that we have someone that we are constantly looking to and then that there are others who may in turn be looking to us.

As you go through your life, all the stages of life, it is important, once you get to a certain age at least, that we all have a Paul and that we all have a Timothy—that we have a mentor and that we have a mentee.

Personally, if I can share just a little of my background, I enjoyed the same privilege growing up in Scotland as Timothy did growing up elsewhere, insofar as I was brought into a Christian home. Added to that, the influence of people in my life has been and continues to be immense. All those names would be irrelevant to you, but they are profoundly meaningful to me—young guys who were intelligent, who were athletic, who had business acumen, who were humble, and who were genuine in every expression of friendship.

And I could add to that, to this point today, those that, at seventy-four, I continue to look to who mentor me. Some of them are dead. Some of them are pictures on my wall. Some of them are books in my library. So we all understand the importance of this. Otherwise, I guess there wouldn’t even be a thing called Mentoring Alliance.

And the two key characters here are, of course, Paul and Timothy. And before—if I get the opportunity again tomorrow morning and Sunday to speak—before I get to some of that, I thought it’d be good… Just let’s make sure that we don’t miss who we’re dealing with here when we’re thinking of Paul.

Paul, the Mentor

Paul, as you know, was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.[3] In fact, his biography, his background pre-Christ, he states very clearly, doesn’t he? “I don’t consider that I’ve made all these things my own,”[4] he says—“because I come from a background where I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. I was circumcised on the eighth day; of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew. I was a Pharisee. As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, I was blameless.”[5] This is how he describes himself when he writes to the Philippians.

It’s an interesting choice of God, isn’t it, to choose somebody who is so grounded and so opposed to Christianity—to choose this person—to make him the fellow who writes over a third of the New Testament itself and who makes him the apostle to the gentiles, so that all the people that were coming under his influence were coming under the influence of this man whose background, whose ethnic heritage, whose religious background was vastly different from what he now expressed. So that anybody, if they were just to come and read this for the first time, they would say to themselves, “Well, how in the world is it that Saul of Tarsus—proud, arrogant, influential, hating people and hating Christ and hating Christians—how is it that he comes to be this person?” Well, of course, we know the answer: He’s changed by the power of God.

Up until this point, if he became a mentor to anybody, before his conversion, he could have done great on rules. He could have done all kinds of things on strategy. He could have explained many, many things. But what he couldn’t do was explain the wonder of the grace of God.

And, of course, when Jesus grabs ahold of him, three things happen to him. (Well, many things happen to him.) And these three things will happen to everybody when they become a Christian.

Number one: that he had, immediately, a changed attitude to the person of Jesus Christ. Up until that point on the road, he was an opponent of Jesus Christ. He despised him. His eyes are opened, he is set free from his background and his bondage, and he has a new view of Jesus.

Secondly—and this would be true of a new Christian: They have a new view of the followers of Jesus. The reason he was on the road to Damascus was to persecute them. He becomes a follower of Jesus, and he wants to go to them. But he’s going to them in an entirely different way—in the same way that some people used to go to church… I see this often in businessmen who’ve done very well. They go to church reluctant. They tell their wives, “Well, I’ll come for one of the services, but I’m not coming for another one.” It usually goes like that for a while, and then, all of a sudden, you look out on these men that you know well, and they’ve begun to sing! And they’ve begun to say, you know, “I’ll see you again next week.” And you say to yourself, “Oh, I think there’s been a change here!” They didn’t say very much, but it was obvious.

They’ve got a new view of Jesus. They’ve got a new view of the followers of Jesus. And like Paul, they’ve got a new and a real understanding of the mercy of God. Of the mercy of God. First Timothy is where we have this wonderful statement by Paul, not in 2 Timothy. I just mention this so that you have to go and scurry and look for it later on. But it’s in 1 Timothy, and it’s in chapter 1: He says, “Formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, … insolent opponent. But I received mercy.”[6] “I received mercy.”

Remember Portia to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice? It’s a long quote, but I won’t do it all. But she’s speaking to Shylock, and she says,

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy.[7]

Mercy.

Has anyone come to your office lately or your school to take those big mugshots of you? They come into your office; they make you sit behind the desk. I just saw one of Gavin Newsom in Vogue magazine yesterday afternoon. I can tell you why I was reading Vogue yesterday afternoon. It’s really none of your business. But I thought it was a sort of classic Newsom pose. But it was sort of… I said, “I wonder who told him to look like that?” But the temptation is, when you have your photograph taken like that, you may be tempted to say to the photographer, “You know, I would really like this to do me justice.” And the photographer, if she’s brave, she’ll say: “Begg, what you require is not justice but mercy—mercy—with a face like yours.”

You see, what happened to him was that he was brought to his knees, right? He was cast down on his face, and all the things that meant identity to him, everything that meant significance to him, everything that was the framework of his influence all of a sudden is brought to nothing. And essentially, what God does is humble him. We’ll say more about this as the weekend goes on, if we have the chance. But it would seem to me that both for the mentor and the mentee, humility is at the very heart of the thing that makes it work.

I’m a big fan of a writer called Robert Harris. He wrote a trilogy on Cicero. In the book Conspirata, he writes this wonderful piece. The voice in the book is Tiro, who is Cicero’s slave. There are many opponents of Cicero, not least of all Crassus. And Crassus decides that the best way he can get to Cicero to bring him down is not by disparaging him but by flattering him. And so, here we have it: He comes in to Cicero, and he blows smoke, and he gives him all kinds of accolades. And Tiro is in the room, and he’s listening. This is what he says:

There was a time when Cicero would have spotted such an obvious trap a mile off. But I fear there is in all men who achieve their life’s ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction. [And] instead of staying in his seat and [disowning] such praise, Cicero rose and made a long speech agreeing with … every word [that Crassus had said].[8]

I tell you, I wouldn’t like a mentor who had a fat head. In fact, none of my mentors have had fat heads. I can do a good job of having a fat head, but not those guys.

Well, we could say more about Paul, but that’s Paul.

Timothy, the Mentee

Let’s go to Timothy. Timothy. He is the mentee in this.

Incidentally, mentee is a word, is it? Is it okay? Did you Google it, anybody? I mean, it means the person being mentored. Nobody ever—I never heard anyone say, “I’m a mentee.” You were giving out “mintees,” if I understood correctly, to the people from somewhere out there nice.

Anyway, Timothy. We know Timothy’s background. He had a godly granny. He had a godly mom. His dad wasn’t in the same category, but he is the son, in the gospel, of Paul, and Paul is committed, as he writes both in his first letter and in his second letter, to him.

Now, I just suggested to you that Paul is a very interesting choice, isn’t he, to be the apostle to the gentiles? God knows what he’s doing. And Timothy is a very interesting fellow to be the one who’s entrusted with the privileges and responsibilities that are about to become his. Because when you read the New Testament letters, you realize that, for example, Timothy was physically frail. You know that because of the wine thing: “Take a little wine for your tummy’s sake—to settle your tummy.”[9]

He’s physically frail. He’s naturally timid. He writes to the somebodies, and he says, “And when Timothy comes, put him at his ease.”[10] In other words, Timothy’s not a fellow who comes walking in the room and says, “Hey! I’m glad to be here. You know, I’m a mentee of the great Saul of Tarsus,” and stuff. No. If you went for him, you’d be looking and say, “Is Timothy in this room?” He’d be over here somewhere, and someone’d say, “Come on, Timothy. You’re going to give a talk now.” He said, “Okay, I’ll be there in just a moment.”

Also, he was youthful. That’s why he said, “Let no one despise … your youth.”[11] So, obviously, he didn’t have a full-grown beard and whatever else. He was a bit of a youngster.

And once again, like Paul, that is the deal. You see, Paul understood—because he wrote about it later—Paul understood that he was an old clay pot. He was an old clay pot. Because he knew that God puts his treasure in old clay pots.[12]

Now, if I understand anything about encouraging younger people or people who are under the framework of influence, many times, because of the nature of the background of the people that are there, they know themselves to be old clay pots—to a degree that they think there is no real potential for them going forward, because of background, because of circumstances, and so on. And so the worst thing that can happen to the person you’re trying to mentor is if you give the impression that you are not an old clay pot, but you’re a very nice glazed piece of pottery, and that you are like the finished article: “And, little mentee, if you begin to figure things out the way I’ve figured it out, then maybe you’ll become a shiny pot like me.” Nothing could be worse, could it?

The key to the usefulness in bringing somebody to where we are is in acknowledging who we are and acknowledging the grace and the mercy of God—so that Timothy is able to acknowledge all that Paul is prepared to say concerning himself. “Timothy, let’s not kid ourselves: I’m the chief of sinners,” he says. “My life would be a disaster were it not for Jesus.”[13]

The key to the usefulness in bringing somebody to where we are is in acknowledging who we are and acknowledging the grace and the mercy of God.

Sometimes I think even in churches that many of us attend, it’s very difficult for people to come in and acknowledge that they would like to be mentored, because everybody seems to have got their stuff together. “Well, I couldn’t come clean. If I come clean now, they probably won’t want me.”

Well, then the mentor has got to be prepared to tell the truth: “Do you know what I’m really like? Do you know that I wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places?[14] Do you know what it means for me to be faithful to my wife on a daily basis, not only when she’s in my company but when I am free from her, and she is free from me, and we’re gone? Do you understand that? Do you understand how important it is that I myself read my Bible, that I am following Jesus, that I’m being filled with the Holy Spirit?” The person says, “Oh, I never… I didn’t realize! I thought you were just… There you were!” No, Paul never did that, and Timothy understood it.

The Qualities of a Mentor

Well, I think it’s somewhat presumptuous of me, perhaps, to suggest in conclusion just a couple of what I would regard as the qualities that are essential in a mentor. I’ve really come here to learn about this, but since I haven’t heard anything yet, I’ll go with my suggestions, and then by Sunday, I can clean them up, and we’ll go with yours.

Simple stuff. Number one—quality number one: a living, growing faith in Jesus. A living, growing faith in Jesus—not an academic grasp, not an intellectual assent, but a personal, living faith in Jesus. No one has any right to mentor anybody at all within the framework of Christian conviction without that as the starting point. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there aren’t some who have become mentors because they want to be able to encourage others, and along the entry point of that journey they themselves have come to living faith in Jesus.

Secondly: a growing interest in the wellness of others. A growing interest in the wellness of others.

Thirdly: a sober estimate of oneself. Remember Paul in Romans 12: He says, “I don’t want you to think of yourselves more highly than you ought but to think of yourself with sober judgment according to the grace that God has given you in Christ Jesus.”[15]

[Fourthly] (and it goes with the others): selflessness. Selflessness. I tell the young guys that have followed me in pastoral ministry over these last years, “When you get up there, be yourself, and forget yourself.” And the second part should go first, really: Forget yourself, and be yourself. Selflessness.

And fifthly: kindness. Kindness. My English teacher at Ilkley Grammar School in Yorkshire was called Mrs. Walker. Her husband was called Mr. Thomas Walker. I know that because he was my art teacher. And he used to give assignments for art to be done at home. For example, he gave us out books about this size of just white, and he’d say, “Okay, go home and draw a chair.” And he would always give marks for your stuff. But he only gave marks out of five. And I remember distinctly the embarrassment I felt when I brought my chair back, and he gave me a quarter. No, I don’t mean twenty-five cents. He gave me a quarter out of five!

The following week, he wanted us to go home and draw a glass of water. (Try it.) I came back; I said, “Mr. Walker, I can’t draw a glass of water.” He says, “All right, lad.” And he came, and he sat down beside me. And he started, and he paused, and he said, “Listen: I’ll get you started, but I’m not going to do it for you. I’ll get you started.” He didn’t say, “You know, you are the worst person in the class”—although I think I qualified for that instantaneously. I was. That’s okay. But it was the fact that he sat beside me. He sat beside me. Because I was his mentee.

Qualities of the mentee: number one, a desire to learn; number two, a teachable spirit; and number three, a sober estimate of where we are.

Well, thanks for listening. Just a brief prayer:

Father, thank you so much that the Bible just pulsates with the story of your amazing grace—that Jesus steps down into time, and the rest is history. Thank you that the ascended Christ has poured out gifts upon the church[16] so that we might have the privileges of living for Jesus and serving Jesus. Thank you for this amazing alliance that has spanned so many years and has influenced and continues to influence so many lives—young men, young women, and some older too. We pray that the events of the balance of this day and, indeed, of the weekend itself will set forward your purposes for this time and will enrich our lives. Grant that we might be a help to one another and not a hindrance as we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] 2 Timothy 3:1–5 (paraphrased).

[2] 2 Timothy 4:6 (paraphrased).

[3] See Acts 23:6; Philippians 3:5.

[4] Philippians 3:13 (paraphrased).

[5] Philippians 3:5–6 (paraphrased).

[6] 1 Timothy 1:13 (ESV).

[7] William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 4.1.

[8] Robert Harris, Conspirata: A Novel of Ancient Rome (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 233.

[9] 1 Timothy 5:23 (paraphrased).

[10] 1 Corinthians 16:10 (paraphrased).

[11] 1 Timothy 4:12 (ESV).

[12] See 2 Corinthians 4:7.

[13] 1 Timothy 1:15 (paraphrased).

[14] See Ephesians 6:12.

[15] Romans 12:3 (paraphrased).

[16] See Ephesians 4:8.