Kilpatrick Baptist Association

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, not to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.  1 Timothy 1:3-4 ESV

 

The trip from Ephesus to Macedonia is today a 12-hour and 22-minute drive.  It is 1,091 kilometers or 677 miles.  I can appreciate a drive like that.  Stacyleigh and I were a 12-hour drive away from our families in Rincon, GA when we went to seminary.  We had been married for a year when we left.  One of our big expenses was a long-distance telephone bill each month.  We couldn’t have Sunday lunch with the family so we developed friendships with other seminary students and church families.  Being away from home and that far away from home does change the dynamic of relationships.  We have others in our church family who went off to college or in the military deployed to other states or countries.  I knew a missionary family in Jakarta, Indonesia.  Their oldest daughter came back to the states to go to college.  In the first year, she had a car accident.  We got to talk a little about that with them.  Can you imagine trying to talk your daughter through taking care of car repairs, insurance claims, and injuries from a different time zone.

 

Paul is writing a letter to Timothy from 12-hours away.  Land lines have not been invented yet much less cell phones.  I find it frustrating trying to talk my dad through cell phone issues.  Sometimes it is easier to drive 2 hours away to take care of an issue.  Paul will not have that luxury.  We are so spoiled with the technology we enjoy.  Even so it is still difficult at times.  Paul leaves Timothy in Ephesus to stifle errant teachings and to teach the true Good News of Jesus Christ.  He can’t pick up the phone every day or send an email every day to encourage Timothy.  Of course, once Timothy receives the letter, he can read it every day or at least every week.

 

The church in Ephesus doesn’t have the canonized scripture to read and study.  They might have some access to an Old Testament scroll or two.  We have heard those great testimonies from the Gideons of someone being in the hospital and picking up a Bible and reading to find comfort and encouragement.  We can check the messages we hear or the lessons we receive in Sunday school or Bible study.  Sadly, even with all the access to God’s Word we have, we still have errant teaching.  I cannot imagine what a challenge planting a church in that culture would be.  Yet God was faithful to develop the church into what we enjoy today.  May we seek to be just as faithful to serving Him and teaching His Word.

 

Mark Sellers, Marshall BC