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Doing Dishes

August 4, 2024

Book: 2 Timothy

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Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:20-26

How should we handle conflict and controversy within the church? What does being “holy” for God actually look like? Join us as we walk through Paul’s instructions to his young disciple in 2 Timothy 2:20-26.

Good morning Calvary. I was asked to introduce myself today and that’s always a little awkward to do. I can give you my name. I’m Josh. I could tell you I was on staff with Calvary for a while before starting seminary training in 2022. I can tell you about my likes and dislikes. We don’t have time for a lot of these, so I’ll just settle for one. I don’t like doing the dishes. Anybody with me here? Yeah. You know, probably started for me in childhood. We didn’t have a dishwasher, so whenever I was told to do the dishes, I would look over to the kitchen sink and see something like this. Piles of the sort of dishes, decorated with everything from leftover food residue to half eaten and rotting meals, would inevitably form our family’s own micro Galapagos, overwhelming the sink space and laying claim to all surrounding counters. Perhaps it’s partly because of this I didn’t exactly jump at the reminders to get these done. Perhaps it’s also partly because of this, we didn’t have company over often. But those few times we did have guests, while the kitchen still wouldn’t have made it into any magazine displays, comparatively speaking, it looked pristine. Because dirty dishes don’t typically make a great impression on guests, and they certainly don’t bring honor to the master of the house. In a similar way as God desires to use us as his instruments in this world, we should make sure that when he reaches for us to use us for his purposes, we are prepared and available for him.

This morning we’ll spend some time discussing exactly what this does and doesn’t mean by going through this section of Paul’s second letter to Timothy. In it, Paul begins with an illustration we’ll spend some time grappling with. We’ll consider a basic application of the metaphor and work through the several practical applications which follow. Then we’ll wrap up by taking a look at the heart and motives Paul calls Timothy to hold as he exercises his authority in the early church.

Is anybody uncomfortable yet? All right then, let’s roll up our sleeves. Looking at Paul’s illustration in verse 20, it’s easy to assume he’s just copied and pasted it from Romans 9:20 – 24. But he hasn’t. First of all, in 2 Timothy, Paul uses gold, silver, wood and clay vessels rather than just the clay vessels we see in Romans. And while he’s making an argument there that all of creation is used by God to show his glory, here he narrows the scope to what he describes as a great house. Now, one consistency between these two passages is that the Romans passage conveys that God has his plan, which no man can thwart. Which carries over to Paul’s assurance to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:19 that despite the harm caused by some in the church, God’s firm foundation stands. But two verses later, Paul indicates that while man cannot thwart God’s purposes, he can prepare himself so that God’s purposes can be easily carried out through him. In order to do so, he must cleanse himself from what is dishonorable. To figure out what that means, we’ll need to dig deeper into this illustration. There are several possible ways to interpret this, and the differences really come from various understandings of Paul’s phrasing and categories. In order to simplify things as much as I can for us today, while trying to give the different perspectives a somewhat fair hearing, I’ll plan to spend about ten minutes fleshing out four possible interpretations, and we’ll try to draw what conclusions we can along the way. I want to encourage you not to check out during this stretch, because I believe closely examining these few words in verse 21 is the key to understanding Paul’s fuller meaning throughout the rest of today’s passage. To make it easier to reference, I have named these four theories 1.Top Shelf 2.The Refinery 3. Cleanliness is next to godliness and 4.The Clean up Song.

It makes sense to start with number one. Top shelf. Where this understanding is coming from is the result of asking the question of verse 20. Are gold and silver grouped together to align with honorable use? And are the latter categories of wood and clay, therefore lined with dishonorable use? If so, one possible way to read verse 21’s call to cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable. Being the wood and clay vessel,is that you should remove people who are engaging in dishonorable conduct. Last week, Josh Laack covered Paul’s discussion of some men who were behaving quite dishonorably, even to the point of having their talk, compared to gangrene spreading through the body. And gangrene could be dangerous business. You may have to amputate the part of the body affected by gangrene just to save the rest of the body. So to some degree, this top shelf understanding makes sense in view of the prior passage. After all, if vessels in the great house are dishonorable, they’re bringing dishonor to the master of the house and causing others to as well, aren’t they? Another thing this top shelf interpretation has going for it is that the word dishonorable here can also be translated common. And this would make sense. Gold and silver aren’t common. They’re called precious metals for a reason. They’re exceptionally valuable metals specifically for their rarity. Wood and clay dishes, however, would have been common and of little value, easily thrown out and easily replaced. Take a moment to imagine the most famous person you can think of, someone you highly admire and respect. Okay, besides Jesus. The next most famous person. All right. Got it? Okay, now imagine you’ve invited this person over to have dinner at your house. You’ve hired servers for the occasion, and when they bring the meal out and set it in front of your honored guests, you see something like this.The meal is in a Tupperware dish, and this person is handed a plastic fork to eat with. Clearly, the caterers had ignored your instructions to use only the gold and silver dishes from the top shelf and instead grabbed things out of the plastics cabinet. Everything inside you is probably screaming, “Hey, this is meant to be an honorable, dignified occasion. Get those cheap common dishes out of here!” They are certainly not top shelf quality. And now you’re honored guests may very well feel like a dishonored or common one. In contrast to what is common, what is holy is set apart, which would leave us in uncorrupted company as we seek to serve our God. Those top shelf gold and silver dishes are probably not used on a daily basis. If they were used regularly, there’s a chance they would be dirty or damaged and be unavailable for use in this grand event you’ve arranged. In case you missed it, 2 Timothy 2:21 says that if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. It’s also worth noting that the Greek in verse 21 doesn’t actually include the word dishonorable, as the ESV suggests, but actually gives a more ambiguous if anyone therefore purifies himself from these things, which is thought to indicate the latter things. And if those latter things are, as the top shelf theory suggests, the wood and clay vessels as they align with what is common or dishonorable, then it sounds all the more like it’s those people represented by those wood and clay vessels, which Paul is calling Timothy to cleanse the church of. There are drawbacks to the top shelf interpretation, though, and we will get to those later.

We’re calling the second approach the refinery. This one is similar to Top Shelf in some ways. Gold and silver are still seen as the purified, honorable ideal, and wood and clay are still seen as the common or dishonorable alternative, but it further leverages that translation of common in place of dishonorable, suggesting that any of us who live with a common mindset have the chance to stop being wood and clay vessels, stop being common and instead become cleansed gold and silver vessels by making the changes Paul lays out later. The main difference of the refinery view is an internal focus rather than external. Instead of cleansing the church by cutting off dishonorable people, you are cleansing yourself of dishonorable behavior. But while every metaphor has limitations, this puts a particular strain on Paul’s illustration here, because it means the wood and clay vessels must somehow become gold and silver through these efforts. Somehow these lesser quality materials must be refined into high quality products. Maybe it would look something like this. A little cleaning reveals that the clay cup was actually a golden one underneath.

Okay, everyone’s heard the expression cleanliness is next to godliness, right? You probably know this phrase is not actually in the Bible, but we’ll use it to name this interpretation. The cleanliness is next to godliness argument says that Paul actually isn’t pitting gold and silver vessels against wood and clay ones. He is just saying all of these vessels are part of a great house, and they can all be honorable or dishonorable. Going back to the dinner party you were throwing, this might look like using the plastic Tupperware back in the kitchen to preserve some of the ingredients. The Tupperware does have its place and proper function in the house, and the fancy dishes may be used for the meal itself, but they all just need to be clean in order to be ready for proper use. If the dinner is already started and one of the silver dishes, for example, has really tarnished and still has several bits of evidence from the meal served at the previous event stuck to it, you would probably get it out of there as soon as possible. In this case, and the great house Paul speaks of, we’d get rid of what is dishonorable, being the vessels of any kind which aren’t cleansed so that the vessels that remain can be fit for service to the master together.

Now, if that sounds wasteful, especially with the gold or silver dishes, and you’re thinking, why not just wash them or polish them up, then you’d probably prefer the clean up song theory. Well, my two year old son has created a minefield in the living room by covering the floor with a layer or two of Legos and Hot Wheels cars. From time to time, I’ll start singing a song with him and it signals we’re going to get this taken care of. Okay, even though I sing it with him, I don’t really sing it in front of others, so I need anybody willing to jump in and help me out to sing along with me here. Are we ready? Clean up, clean up. Everybody everywhere. Clean up, clean up. Everybody again. Clean up, clean up everybody. Clean up, clean up everybody. That was beautiful. Pastor Jamie is going to recruit some new singers for the worship band after that. With the clean up song view. Just like cleanliness is next to godliness, all of the dishes have a place in the great house, even if they serve different purposes, and they may all get dirty from time to time. But unlike cleanliness, is next to godliness, the clean up song theory says Paul, is directing anyone, everybody, everywhere to cleanse themselves not from other dirty dishes in the house, but from dishonorable or common behaviors. It’s more like the refinery perspective and focusing more on behavior than people. The clean up song theory invites all dirty dishes to become clean ones. Again, you’re not cleansing yourself of dishonorable or common people here, but rather from dishonorable or common behavior. And if everyone participates in cleaning himself or herself, we’re doing the dishes, all of the dishes. And while we mentioned earlier, the verse is leading up to our passage this morning, favoring the top shelf or cleanliness is next to godliness models saying we should cut off from unwholesome people around us and external cleansing, if you will. The verses after this illustration seem to point more to an internal and individual cleansing with an external effect. Verse 22 says, so flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. As we come out of the illustration, Paul gives this as the application. So do this. While it can be tempting to really camp out on the flee youthful passions and try to figure out every little thing we might be doing wrong. We’re not going to go there just yet. Instead, let’s take a closer look at what we pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Notice how relational each of those items are righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

And Paul’s instructions are not just to flee and pursue, but to flee and pursue, along with those who are aligned in spirit. Be reinforced by godly community rather than try to do this all on your own. But even people in the church can have rough edges. What do we do when there’s friction? It’s really nice to know this was all written to the early church, isn’t it? I mean, here we are 2000 years later, and we’ve really figured out how to do life together without any conflict or controversy, haven’t we? No. We’re likely just as divided today as they were back then, if not more so. There are many controversies and points of conflict we can engage in today with one another within the church. And you and I may not know each other, but here’s what I know about you. If I say think of someone you disagree with, you already have someone in mind. When we start talking about controversy and rough edges, it’s easy to nod our heads and point our fingers and say, yeah, they should really change. It’s natural to go there because our way and our view is the right one, isn’t it? If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have it. So if those people would just agree with me, then we’d all be right together and we can get along.

Notice that in the four interpretations of Paul’s illustration, not one of them involves one dish cleaning another. You’re either cleaning yourself or you’re cleaning your environment of people who aren’t cleaning themselves. Brothers and sisters, the second option is often so much easier, and I would argue, more common than the first. This is probably why I lean away from the top shelf and cleanliness is next to godliness understandings. There are people I just disagree with and those same people disagree with me. How will we ever solve this problem? Well, we could sit down together daily facing the challenges inherent in relationship between people with different perspectives, backgrounds, values. But our first move is often instead to just part ways and allow each other to hold our views but in separate worlds. In our political culture, families are fractured right now because of disagreements over issues. Those meant to be closest to us have grown to distrust our motives and to even fear us. And us them because we feel so strongly about our side of the argument. Within the American church, it seems there’s this weird reinterpretation of Jesus’s command to the disciples in John 13:35 that understands him as saying, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have all of the right answers. Which, by the way, isn’t the correct quote. It is, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Calvary, this is how we show ourselves to be holy and set apart from the rest of the world.

Division is easy and common in our broken, sinful, individualistic culture. Love is challenging, and our display of it toward one another is ultimately meant to be proof to the broken world that Jesus is actually the hope for its healing. And do you want to know the context of John 13:35? Jesus had just taken off his robe, got down on the floor, and washed his disciples feet. This was the Creator and King of the universe, humbling himself out of his love for them. And it was uncomfortable. And we don’t like to be uncomfortable. Otherwise it wouldn’t be called uncomfortable. And Jesus comes along and tells us we need to wear that humility he demonstrated as we live with one another in love. This is so important. Don’t miss this. While we may have responsibility to cleanse ourselves from what is dishonorable, we do not do this by ourselves. Interaction with the people around us brings about reactions from those people, and it’s through those that I can see more clearly what needs cleaned in my heart. Wow, I just hurt that person. I didn’t mean to do that. It’s embarrassing. But now I have a choice to make hide and distance from that person and hope they just get over it. Or ask God to mature my heart and seek restoration of relationship with that person through forgiveness.

Ouch. That person just hurt me. I don’t think I deserve that. It’s painful, but now I have a choice to make. Try to punish that person with revenge or resentment, or ask God to heal my heart and forgive that person even before they come to ask for it. What’s the point? A few weeks ago, Pastor Brian said, we need each other. This plays into that need. We need one another to see where our hearts need cleansed from what is dishonorable. One vessel doesn’t clean another, but without the other being in loving community, the one often won’t even realize it needs cleaned.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Paul follows this up with some guidance to Timothy on how to handle the conflict and controversy that is already present in the church, and more which will inevitably continue to creep in. In verse 23, he says not to engage with it. If you’re dealing with people who do deal in conflict and controversy, don’t start to play into their game. And be careful not to become bitter and antagonistic along the way, because the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently, enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. I doubt any of us will look at verses 23 through 25 and disagree with Paul that these are the right things to do. The problem is that these have fallen out of favor in practice today. We’re kind of obsessed with drama, aren’t we? I find I watch some television shows and movies and get really wrapped up in a conflict between two characters that aren’t even real. And that same mindset can carry over into our ideas of community and spiritual truth. On a hunch, I searched spiritual discussions on YouTube. And my search didn’t turn up any actual exchanges between people engaged in a spiritual topic, but instead offered a series of videos intended for training in spiritual discussion. Youtube’s algorithm, though, thought it appropriate to suggest other offerings, most of which featured debates between two people with keywords in the title, such as savage fires back, humiliates and destroys. Do you want to hear some theological conversation video titles which probably wouldn’t get a lot of YouTube promotion? So and so responds to so and so in an unquarrelsome way. So and so corrects his opponent with gentleness. Maybe you’re thinking, well, yeah, those sound like they’d be boring, but that’s the point. Does our desire for entertainment and excitement extend into our spiritual conversations and into our personal relationships? Do controversy and quarrels have more appeal for us than pursuing righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart? These are important questions to ask because it’s easy to say we want to be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. But are we willing to cleanse ourselves from what is common and dishonorable? Until the answer to that question is honestly yes, we will continue to pursue youthful passions. We will engage with foolish, ignorant controversies knowing they breed quarrels. We will choose quarrels over kindness, losing our space to teach and instead participate in the evil around us, justifying our opponents in their opposition to us. Maybe by all of this, we’re just distracting ourselves from doing the dishes.

Okay, so the moment you’ve been waiting for, dealing with the youthful passions. Youthful passions are the things which are stirred up in the selfish and rebellious nature of our heart. But it is our tendency to focus so much on individual actions, which leads us to depend on behavior modification in our pursuit of cleansing ourselves of what is dishonorable. And this quickly leads to spiritual struggle at best and legalism at worst. Jesus, in Matthew 15 discusses the Jewish notion that failing to wash one’s hands before meals makes a person unclean. Here’s how the conversation goes. And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? He answered, every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. But Peter said to him, explain the parable to us. And he said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled, but whatever comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what the defile a person but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. To be clear, Jesus isn’t saying not to wash your hands. Please do. But what Jesus is actually doing here is identifying the root of our issue, and it’s not our individual actions. We tend to focus on them just because they are what we can see but the heart is the source. Yes, youthful passions lead to many words and actions, but the heart remains the root issue. Jesus says here that you can examine what’s in your heart by looking at what comes out of your mouth. Trying to watch our language will really only get us about that far. Avoiding certain words isn’t the answer. A change of heart is the answer. Man may wash his hands, but only God can transform the nature of a man’s heart. Even after having our heart changed by God, we still choose what influences it. The ways we engage with the youthful passions of the world around us affects us. I would have a hard time wording this better than Solomon does in Proverbs 4:23. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. It is because of Paul’s relationship with Timothy and seeing the transformation in his heart that he feels it appropriate to call Timothy as a young leader, to keep himself from the spiritual bacteria being spread in the church at the time. Pastor Kyle mentioned 2 Timothy being Paul’s last letter, and that we can see this as Paul passing the torch to his young disciple. He’s given Timothy direction and calling him to serve in messy conditions faithfully.

So I want to pause here for a minute, because we’ve covered a lot of ground, and I don’t want to throw all of this out there without leaving room to resolve some conflict together. Sure, we can see that we all need the Holy Spirit to cleanse our hearts, no matter what kind of dish we may imagine ourselves to be. And we can wrestle against the desire to part ways with people in the church who disagree with us and consider what it means to love them instead. You might be thinking, Josh, let’s be real. I can stay with a person saying it’s because I love them, but honestly, I’m probably tolerating more than loving. And that person I’m tolerating in the meantime is allowed just to spout off their wrong ideas and opinions and corrupt others with their views along the way. Doesn’t part of keeping my heart pure of negative influences mean I keep misinformed people off my radar? I mean, do I really have to be patient with them if they aren’t willing to do it for me? If I’m being asked to do this, it feels like we’re saying the issues don’t matter. It sounds like we’ve set aside the top shelf and cleanliness is next to godliness models. But hey, I’m busy. I don’t really have the space in my life to tolerate someone who’s just wrong. I get worked up because of how wrong they are, and I want church to be the place where I can just relax and worship and be in a peaceful space. Why shouldn’t I just go somewhere where that can happen, or make my current space into that by tossing the bad dishes into the dumpster? Here’s where we get to some of the heart and motives behind Paul’s instruction to Timothy. First of all, Paul doesn’t tell Timothy he’s never allowed to correct those bringing problematic matters into the church. It would be hard to be much of a leader without being able to give direction. The question becomes, what motive do we have in addressing conflict? In my experience, having a disagreement with someone I genuinely care about looks very different from disagreeing with someone I don’t care about. When I don’t care about someone, I’m pretty open to the possibility that this individual will walk away from the disagreement, and we don’t really have to address anything further if we don’t want to. When I care though, ending the relationship isn’t seen as an option for me. In our disagreement, there is a need for unity somewhere within it because by the time the conversation is over, I still desire to continue my life with this person in it. So Paul tells Timothy in verse 25 to correct his opponents with gentleness because of the possibility those dirty dishes might be given a change of heart by God. Then it’s like the spell is broken and they snap out of it, realizing they’ve been under the devil’s control all that time. We hope for that. Well, I hope we hope for that. That tendency to feel that we’re too busy to love the difficult folks around us has really ramped up in our culture. When we’re not busy with work, streaming services and social media have conveniently filled the gaps in our lives, promising to entertain us exactly as we hope to be entertained in a weirdly sterile way. People in relationships are messy anyhow, and our sin natures make us exponentially more so. So I am tempted to believe it’s so much more convenient to get rid of them, especially the ones who seem to bring conflict. But then I have to remember back before my heart was changed by God and ask, what would have happened if everyone just got rid of me? I’m sure I was, and sometimes still am a pain in the everything, but I am so thankful when I think back to the people who patiently endured, gently corrected, and ultimately loved me so that once my heart was cleansed, I was able right away to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the name of the Lord from a pure heart.

Now, all of this might sound great, but there’s one last factor to consider. What if someone’s heart doesn’t change? What if it never will? What if the dishonorable dishes are not only rough around the edges, but they are actively and intentionally poisoning the unity in the body and maliciously hurting the vulnerable people within it? Is there a point where correcting opponents with gentleness isn’t enough? Is there a time when patiently enduring evil is actually enabling evil to spread and flourish? And the answer is, that’s a whole other sermon. Paul does address this, so you’re welcome to read ahead and show up next week for Josh Laacke’s installment of our next gen series here at Calvary.

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