In and Out of Season
Todd McCoy
2 Timothy 4:2
“…preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”
We are just past the middle of August. I’m sitting on my sunporch in upstate South Carolina having experienced several days of extreme heat and finding it hard to believe that we’re just a few weeks away from the changing of the seasons. Fall is about to begin. If you don’t believe me, just walk in any Hobby Lobby!
Generally, people are good at recognizing changing seasons and changing times. Retail stores provide us with some of the first tangible evidence that there is a change on the horizon. Television programming provides another. The type of sports being played is another. And the weather provides another.
But what about spiritual seasons? One cannot read through the Old Testament or the history of the Church without recognizing there have been seasons of spiritual growth and strength and seasons of decay and decline. Looking around today, it is pretty clear what kind of spiritual season we are in right now. We live in an age of confusion and disorder. We are preaching the word “out of season.” How often I wished that I was ministering during a time of great spiritual renewal and transformation! How I wish that crowds were filling our sanctuary each week, longing to hear and respond to God’s word. How often I am disappointed that the resistance or apathy to the gospel isn’t just from outside the church, but sometimes even from within! I don’t know if you’re like me, but laboring “out of season” can be exhausting and discouraging. Paul’s words to Timothy are a touchstone of encouragement and a call to action in a howling storm of resistance. “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season.” What can I do to be ready no matter which season I am in? Remain faithful to the word. We can all quote the well-known verse from Hebrews: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) How often I need to remember that the word has power whether we see the results or not. The word has power because I don’t. The word has power and doesn’t need us to add “production” or “performance.” We know also that the word of God never returns void. I need to trust the word and the proclamation of the gospel, pure, simple, straightforward.
Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)There are many factors that have contributed to us living in “out of season” times. We can talk about the corruption of our institutions of government and their leaders. We can talk about the injustice that has pervaded our justice system. We can talk about the rise of secularism as our culture’s new religion (which is just the same old paganism with a new dress on…sort of like paganism in drag!). We can talk about the failings of the church to teach, worship and discipline according to the word. But in addition to these, we have a couple of generations that have failed to teach the next generation about the word. The decline into a time of being “out of season” is in no small degree because fathers have failed to teach their children. The change of our spiritual season begins with fathers loving God’s word and teaching it to their children by what they say and what they do.
Brothers, I need to be a better father! I need to be a better father not only to my own children, but to the children of God to whom he has called me to preach and teach. I suspect that there are many fathers who need to learn how to be better fathers. What can we do? “…preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” It isn’t glamourous. It won’t make us rich. It won’t even make us well liked by many. But it is what we are called todo, and it is what the season demands. Let us hold each other in prayer and encourage one another just as Paul encouraged young Timothy.