'Success' in the Christian life and ministry should not be measured in worldly terms. Re-reading the late John Stott's The Message of 2 Timothy – Guard the Gospel has been a powerful reminder of that.
The Anglican evangelical pastor and scholar wrote this 127-page gem when he was Rector of All Souls Langham Place in central London. I read it on the retreat before my ordination as a Church of England 'priest' (I now prefer 'presbyter' as the more biblical term for a Christian minister of the Word and Sacrament) in Chester Diocese in 1997.
2 Timothy is Paul's final epistle before his martyrdom in Rome in probably AD 64 during the Emperor Nero's brutal persecution of Christians. The recipient was the younger Christian minister whom Paul had left in charge of the church in Ephesus in Roman Asia, now part of modern Turkey.
Stott wrote: "We are to imagine the apostle, 'Paul the aged', languishing in some dark, dank dungeon in Rome, from which there is to be no escape but death. His own apostolic labours are over. 'I have finished the race,' he can say. But now he must make provision for the faith after he has gone, and especially for its transmission (uncontaminated, unalloyed) to future generations. So he sends Timothy this most solemn charge. He is to preserve what he has received, and to hand it on to faithful men who in their turn will be able to teach others also."
What is striking about Paul's situation at the end of his life is how isolated he was. Ten years previously Paul had enjoyed phenomenal success in Ephesus and further afield in Asia. The Acts of the Apostles describes how Paul proclaimed the Christian message daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus: "This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19v10 – Revised Standard Version).
But now Paul writes to Timothy: "You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Timothy 1v15). He also records that during the first judicial hearing of his case in Rome "no one took my part; all deserted me" (2 Timothy 4v16).
The list of fellow Christians he asks Timothy to greet at the end of his letter shows that he had a small network of supporters. But this was a tiny band compared to the numbers of people he had influenced, particularly during the 'ministry explosion' in Ephesus.
In worldly terms Paul was a loser. His predicament would probably not be one that a 'thriving church' in an affluent area in the 21<sup>st Century West would want to depict on its website.
But Paul did not allow his circumstances to depress his faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He was confident that the Lord would one day return to judge the world and vindicate his faithful servants: "For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4v6-8).
Stott commented on Paul's statement that he had finished the race: "Some years previously, speaking to the elders of the very Ephesian church over which Timothy was now presiding, Paul had expressed his ambition to do just this. 'I do not account my life of any value,' he had declared. 'nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus ...' (Acts 20:24). Now he is able to say that he has done so. Both the verb and the noun he uses are the same."
My ordination in 1997 took place shortly after Tony Blair led New Labour to electoral victory over the Conservatives, enabling neo-Marxist ideology to become firmly entrenched in British society. The Conservatives refused to reverse the Blairite hegemony when they regained political power in 2010.
The established Christian denominations in the UK have fared very badly since 1997. The number of people attending Church of England churches has probably more than halved if the decline during the period between 1997 and 2003 is taken into account.
In 2003, the first year the central Church started collecting attendance data that allows for a statistical comparison with now, all-age average weekly attendance in C of E churches was 1,126,000. By 2023 that figure had declined to 685,000.
But however dire the situation may be in the secular culture and in the visible Church, Paul's attitude and example in 2 Timothy are inspirational. His exhortation to Timothy is surely pressingly relevant to those called to proclaim the Christian message in every age and generation:
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry" (2 Timothy 4v1-5).
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
