Chapter 25 – Derbe and Lystra: Timothy

Narration

Acts 16:1-5
 

When Paul and Silas came to Derbe and then to Lystra, they met a believer called Timothy.  He was a marvellous young man, very popular with all the believers in Lystra and Iconium.

His mother was a Jew, but his father was a Greek, so he was not circumcised.  With Timothy’s agreement, Paul circumcised him because of the unbelieving Jews in the area, since they would not allow any contact with him if he was not circumcised.  That would badly limit his opportunities of working with Paul and Silas, and his later chances of preaching to Jews, so it was the best answer.

Sketch 25.1

“You know, Silas, I think it would be good to have some extra helpers travelling with us,” said Paul.  “The work we do keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

“It does,” nodded Silas.  “When you suggested visiting the believers in the towns you and Barnabas had visited, that sounded fine.  But when we get to a town, there’s not just the existing believers to talk to, there are lots of others too.  Almost all the believers have someone they want us to speak to, whether it’s a neighbour, a friend or someone in their family.”

“Exactly,” said Paul, pleased that Silas shared his concerns.  “And yet I still want to have time to talk to others as well – people in the marketplace, or on the streets.”

“We’ll always have to be the ones who pass on the message from the apostles in Jerusalem, but having extra men helping with the preaching would be great.”

“Some mature, experienced helpers would be just ideal.  Spiritual men with a deep knowledge of scripture.”

“Men of the circumcision[1] are most likely to fit your requirements,” said Silas.

“That’s true – more of them have been immersed in scripture since childhood.  There aren’t many believing Jews here in Asia, though.”

“No, but I think we need some anyway.  I doubt that many Jews would listen to a Greek explaining the Hebrew scriptures to them!”

Paul laughed.  “You’re right about that!  Most of our countrymen view Greeks with disdain.”

“Why don’t we tell the believers here in Derbe that we’re looking for helpers, then wait and see what God provides?”

Paul agreed, and as soon as they could, they told the believers their need.

Then they waited expectantly for a response.

In Derbe, however, there was no response.  Gradually Paul and Silas resigned themselves to carrying on the work alone, and soon it was time to move on to Lystra.

Paul couldn’t forget the terrifying result of his first visit to Lystra, but he didn’t let it stop him.  He approached the gates with an enthusiastic step, a prayer in his heart and a smile on his face.

Travelling believers had already carried the news that Paul and Silas planned to arrive in Lystra that afternoon, and several believers were waiting eagerly for them at the gate.

Most of them Paul had met previously, but he didn’t recognise one young man who stood behind the others.  After greeting those he knew and introducing Silas to them all, Paul looked at the young man questioningly and he stepped forward while the others introduced him: “This is brother Timothy.”

“Hello, Timothy,” said Paul, greeting him in Greek

“Good afternoon, Paul,” Timothy replied with a teasing smile.

Paul looked at Timothy in surprise – he had answered in Aramaic!

“You speak Aramaic?” asked Paul.

Timothy nodded and was about to say more when Ampliatus, another of the welcoming party, interrupted, “Let’s go back to my house straight away.  I hope you’ll be staying with me, Paul and Silas.  My neighbours are very interested in Jesus now and would like to meet you.”

They all agreed and set off – except for Timothy, who had another hour or two of his daily work in the marketplace to complete.  Having taken a few minutes off in the now-satisfied hope of meeting Paul and Silas, he returned to work with a big smile on his face.

When Paul and Silas reached Ampliatus’s house, they were welcomed warmly.  After a while Paul inquired about Timothy, intrigued by his knowledge of Aramaic.

“Ah, Timothy,” said Ampliatus.  “A good lad.  A solid, serious believer.”  The others in the room agreed.  It appeared that no-one had a bad word to say about him.

“How did he learn Aramaic?” asked Paul.

“Mostly from his mother and his grandmother, although his father did speak Aramaic – but only when he had to.  He was a Greek from Lystra who spent some time in Israel about twenty years ago and was interested in Judaism for a while.  When he came back here, he married Timothy’s mother Eunice, whose parents also lived here in Lystra.  Eunice was their only child.”

“So was Timothy’s mother a Jewess?”

“Yes, and his grandmother too.  You probably met his grandmother when you were first here.  Her name was Lois.”

Paul nodded and smiled.  “Yes, I remember Lois.  A godly, gentle lady with a genuine love of God’s word.  She was baptised not long before they… before I left Lystra.”  Paul avoided saying “before they stoned me”, but Ampliatus understood.

“She was always very dedicated to Moses’ law,” continued Ampliatus, “so when she heard about Jesus she saw immediately where he fitted into the law and the prophets.  Eunice is also very godly and taught Timothy about God.  He knew the Scriptures well from childhood and what they meant – although his father wasn’t very pleased with that once he decided Judaism wasn’t for him.”

“Is the father still alive?”

“No.  He died not long after you left here on your way back to Antioch.  That left Eunice and Timothy free to pursue their interest in the Way.  They were already learning about it, but having his determined opposition removed made it easier for them, particularly for Timothy.”

Over the next three weeks, Paul and Silas were very busy.  They delivered a copy of the letter from the elders in Jerusalem and all of the other special greetings they had been asked to deliver from Derbe.  As requested by the believers in Lystra, they spoke to many neighbours, relatives and friends who were eager to learn more about the Way.  They also answered huge numbers of questions from believers, straightening out misunderstandings and explaining difficult scriptures to encourage the believers in their spiritual life.

Yet they could find no time for “green fields” preaching.  They seldom walked the streets except to visit yet another believer’s home – leaving them no time to touch the ignorant masses who lived in idolatry and barbarism.

“We must have more helpers!” said Paul forcefully to Silas one morning.

“Yes,” sighed Silas.  “The believers are doing a wonderful job of preaching to those close to them, but how can we spread it more widely – and more quickly?”

“All the believers have lives to live, families to care for, careers to develop, education to finish, and even their dead to bury at times.”

“And most of those demands on their time are genuinely necessary,” agreed Silas.

“They are, and the preaching work they do can only be done by people living where they do.”

“Nevertheless, we also need preaching that spreads the word to new communities, new towns, new provinces, new countries.  That’s what you wanted most, wasn’t it, Paul?  When you started your first missionary journey, there were no existing groups of believers in any of the places you visited.  Everywhere was new.”

“Until we started retracing our steps from Derbe to Antioch.  That was when we started visiting existing groups of believers.  That’s an important job too, but it’s a different job.”

“So are you looking for helpers for follow-up work or new preaching?”

“Both.  We can’t leave all the follow-up work to others because we’re the ones who were sent to carry the elders’ message to believers, but I can’t leave all the new preaching to others either – Jesus made it clear that it was a large part of the work he wanted me to do.”

“Shall we ask for volunteers here too?”

“I think we may already have a candidate here, Silas, but I think I’ll need to ask him to come with us.”

“Who?   Ampliatus?  I would have thought he was too busy with his…”

“No, not Ampliatus.  Timothy.”

“But he’s a Greek.  You were talking about one of the circumcision.”

“True, I was.  I know that Timothy’s father was a Greek, and I assume that he’s not circumcised.”

“He’s not,” said Silas categorically.  “Ampliatus mentioned that the local Jews won’t have anything to do with him because of it.  They seem to view him as even worse than a Greek.”

“I can believe it.  Most Jews seem to think that an uncircumcised half-Jew is worse than an uncircumcised Greek.”

“Doesn’t that mean Timothy wouldn’t be much help to us?  He couldn’t talk to Jews in the synagogue, and isn’t your first step in preaching in a new town always to go to the synagogue?  Timothy couldn’t do it.  Apparently Timothy travels around quite a lot with his trading, so all the Jews in this district know he’s not circumcised.”

Paul pursed his lips and thought for a while, then shook his head, sighed and said, “I suppose you’re right.  Maybe this is a case where it might be best to circumcise a believer.”

“How could we do that when we’ve been so loud in our opposition to the circumcision party?”

“We’ve been opposing the circumcision of Gentiles.”

“Isn’t Timothy a Gentile?  His father was Greek and he made sure his son wasn’t circumcised.”

“His mother also made sure he knew the law of Moses, and everyone agrees that he followed it very carefully from an early age – until he learned about Jesus and was baptised to follow the Way.”

“I just wonder whether it would weaken our case against the circumcision party.”

“I don’t think so….  You see, Timothy has always been dedicated to the law, and he knows he doesn’t need to be circumcised to follow Jesus.  And it’s important that he wouldn’t be getting circumcised for that reason.  He’d be getting circumcised so he could go into Jewish synagogues and preach to Jews.”

“So you’d ask him to come with us on the condition that he’s circumcised first?”

“Yes.  Otherwise, he won’t be able to help much in any of the towns around here.  If he wants to preach but doesn’t think getting circumcised is a good idea, then he can travel around this area by himself, preaching as he wants to.  I’m sure that God would bless his work.”

Later that night, the believers gathered together to listen to Paul’s teaching.  Afterwards, he made an opportunity to take Timothy aside to discuss this request.

“Timothy,” said Paul, “I would like you to come with Silas and me as we continue our preaching.  However, since you’re known throughout the district to be the son of a Greek and thus uncircumcised, there’s one important condition.  You would need to be circumcised first.  We intend to leave next week, so if you want to come with us, you’d need to be circumcised in the next few days.  What do you think?”

“I’ll come,” answered Timothy.  “I’ll be circumcised tomorrow and tell my boss I’m leaving.”

It was as simple as that.  Paul was filled with joy, feeling that the young man’s reaction was much the same as that of the twelve disciples when Jesus had called them to follow him.  Clearly Timothy was made of the right stuff.

Notes

[1] God made a covenant with Abraham that all his male descendants were to be circumcised (Genesis 17:10).  The expression, “the circumcised”, is sometimes used to refer to Jews in the New Testament (e.g., Ephesians 2:11; Colossians 4:11).  A related expression is “the circumcision party”, a group of believers who insisted that Gentile believers should be circumcised (Acts 11:2; Titus 1:10).  Paul strongly resisted this requirement.