Witnessing
1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: 2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. 5 As for you, be sober in everything, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NRSV)
STORY
Johnny Cash, having once himself been in prison, made it his mission that throughout his career he would sing in penitentiaries, hoping his life story and the words of his songs would reconcile others to the good life. On New Year’s Day he performed in San Quentin Penitentiary, and there was an inmate in the audience who heard his message and took it to heart. The early years of this inmate were spent living in a house that his father fashioned from an abandoned refrigerated railroad car. When he was nine-years-old his father died, throwing his child into a world of chaos. Two years later the boy hopped his first railroad car and began a life of crime. In 1958 he was sentenced to San Quentin for burglary. This inmate dabbled in singing and playing the guitar prior to prison, but after hearing Johnny Cash, the year was 1959 or 1960, we don’t know which, he vowed to make music his life’s ambition. Upon his release from prison, he pursued his dream and became one of the greatest Country-Western singers of all time, with 38 number one country hits. That inmate’s name was Merle Haggard.
DEVOTION
When Paul wrote his letter to Timothy he was imprisoned in Rome, most significantly for the disruption he caused in Jerusalem. Paul had already gone to trial once, and his second trial was soon to convene. Paul made no pretense that the verdict of his second trial would be capital punishment. Paul, having been a faithful servant of Jesus the Christ, willingly accepted his approaching execution, which would be beheading by a sword. Historians record Paul’s execution on June 29, 67. Paul, who was a few years younger than Jesus, died at the age of 63. Paul, on his missionary journeys, travelled over 10,000 miles.
Paul is writing the last letter of his missionary service to his beloved Timothy. Their relationship is so intimate that Paul often referred to Timothy as his “son.”
Timothy’s father was Greek and his mother was Jewish. Paul, on one of his missionary journeys, met Timothy in his home town of Lystra. As a result of Paul’s testimony, Timothy became one of the apostle’s earliest Gentile converts. In the succeeding years, Timothy became a constant companion of Paul. The scriptures indicate that Paul actually made Timothy his successor, who would oversee the churches that Paul established after his execution in Rome.
In a letter that is absent of doctrine, as a father would speak to a son, Paul encourages Timothy to continue the ministry that they established in partnership. Paul offered Timothy a lot of advice in his two letters from prison, one of which focused on witnessing. The advice that Paul gave to Timothy is advice that we all must heed, “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.”
Johnny Cash, standing on the stage in San Quentin Petitionary, didn’t know if the time to preach was favorable or unfavorable, but preach he did. With that witness, one unknown convict, Merle Haggard, became a Country-Western and gospel singer.
Haggard sang many traditional hymns, and many that were not generally known to the public. One of which is Life’s Railway To Heaven. This hymn was written in 1890 by a Baptist minister in Georgia. The lyrics are a reflection of Merle Haggard’s life journey. The hymn compares our lives to riding on railroad tracks. These tracks, like our lives, have many twists and turns. Though as Christians we ride these rails secure in knowing that our lives are guided by a brave engineer – our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.
The first stanza reads:
Life is like a mountain railroad,
With an engineer that’s brave;
We must make the run successful
From the cradle to the grave;
Watch the curves, the fills, the tunnels,
Never falter, never quail;
Keep your hand upon the throttle,
And your eye upon the rail.
The refrain gives all passengers on the train of life security as it reads:
Blessed Savior, Thou wilt guide us,
Till we reach the blissful shore,
Where the angels wait to join us
In Thy praise forevermore.
In the shadow of the Apostle Paul, Johnny Cash, with his witness at San Quentin Penitentiary, and Merle Haggard, with his gospel hymns, became representatives of Timothy as they stood on stage. Let us be certain that our spiritual testimony, as followers of the teachings and life of the Apostle Paul, bestows upon us the recognition that we are the Timothy’s of the church today.