DEFENCE IS THE KEY

I spent yesterday afternoon driving my children to all of their afternoon activities. The tedium of this constant driving was only relieved by the opportunity to listen to the broadcast of my favourite football team (The Manly- Warringah Sea Eagles) demolishing their opposition. Apart from the obvious delight I distilled from their victory; a statement by one of the commentators got me thinking about my faith:
Manly’s defence was the key to their victory.

Defence is the key to victory? What a thought. I considered the number of articles and comments I had read recently, both through the media and blog-sites, describing circumstances where Christians have been under attack. From the scathing criticisms directed at those fighting for the preservation of the life of Terri Schiavo, through violent attacks on Christian communities in the Middle East, to reports from pastors of being denigrated, undermined and/or sacked by their own congregation we are seeing a powerful, if not unprecedented, move against the spiritual strength of the Church.

How do we defend against such things?

In pondering this issue I was reminded of Great Britain during the early years of World War Two.

In June 1940, after retreating from devastating losses on the European mainland at the hands of Nazi Germany, the small island of Great Britain waited anxiously for the blistering attack by the German Luftwaffe which was sure to follow. Outgunned, outmanned, isolated, and with morale at an all time low, the government of that nation met to contemplate surrender. However, on June 4th, 1940 the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, rallied the British parliament (and people) with one of the most famous speeches ever recorded:

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans;
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever
the cost may be; we shall fight them on the beaches,
the landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills.
We shall never surrender…….

Britain made a stand against the onslought of the enemy and turned the tide of the war. But this is not the only historical precedent from which we should draw encouragement. Jump back almost 2,000 years and transpose the besieged island of Great Britain with the beleaguered church at Ephesus. Replace that great orator Churchill with another renown speaker: the apostle Paul. Now substitute the British House of Commons with the young, inexperienced and struggling pastor Timothy and you get a sense of the emotional backdrop against which the 1st epistle to Timothy was written.


The Book of One Timothy is an encouragement to a pastor under siege.


Throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean; churches were growing and the church structures were becoming both complex and corrupted. Things were particularly problematic for the church in Ephesus. The city of Ephesus was the occultic centre of Asia Minor, and its evil was infiltrating the fabric of the church, manifesting as false teaching and worship modalities that combined Christian with pagan practices. Heresy had increased markedly, and apostasy was rampant. Timothy, who Paul had entrusted with this difficult and important ministry, was struggling to hold it together.


Paul, like Churchill almost 2,000 years later, is attempting to rally Timothy to prevent him from breaking from his responsibilities and succumbing to those forces that are working against him.

This was a critical moment for the Church in Asia Minor. Retrospectively, we know that the Church in Ephesus became the cornerstone of Christianity in the region for the next two centuries. But, at this particular point in time, Timothy could not know that. All he knew was that the Church under his administration was under serious spiritual attack, and he was losing control of it fast. He wanted to run.

The letter to Timothy, like Churchill’s message to the British Parliament, (and like coach Des Hasler’s message to his Manly Sea Eagles) is a lesson in how to stand firm under severe spiritual and personal assault. Paul’s first letter to Timothy is often cited as an example of how to instill pastoral leadership; but it’s more than that; it provides a strategy for waging spiritual warfare against Satanic attack.

Winston Churchill said “never give up”. Des Hasler’s instructions are to “tackle, tackle tackle”. Paul’s instruction to Timothy was to confront the problem head on, to never lose faith, to be patient, to build a team around him that would do the job not just say the right things, to lead by example and to pray- to ask for the binding , empowering support of the Holy Spirit – the greatest defence of all.

So lets get our defence in order and “never give up”, just “tackle, tackle, tackle”