Soldier, Athlete, Farmer: Pictures of the Patient Pastor

While Jesus was masterful at sermon illustrations (in His case, often through parables), the apostle Paul wasn’t half bad either. In 2 Timothy 2:3–7, he uses a series of three illustrations to show his protégé, Timothy, what it means to be a pastor and a Gospel minister:

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

By pointing out the devotion of the soldier, the discipline of the athlete, and the diligence of the farmer, Paul highlights three key aspects of Gospel ministry. In doing so, he urges Timothy, and anyone who has followed in Timothy’s footsteps, to patient, disciplined service to the Lord.

The Devotion of the Soldier

A good soldier in any army has to be willing to take his share of suffering and remain focused on the objective. Military service is not about attending parties in dress uniform. It is a matter of life and death, and it involves training, preparation, and readiness in keeping with those stakes.

Thus, as Paul reminds us, the soldier is not to be “entangled in civilian pursuits.” And as it is with the soldier, so it is with the pastor. It’s not that ministers of the Gospel are to cease being in the world (John 17:15). Rather, as we remain in the world, all of our goals and concerns must be subservient to the overarching goal of serving Christ. In other words, we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”¹

Wartime metaphors have been out of style in pulpits for some time. Many of us would be hard-pressed to recall the last time we sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers” with our congregation. But let’s not be put off by the cultural moment! In invoking this image, Paul is not encouraging us to the violence of war but to the devotion of a good soldier to his or her commanding officer. One old children’s chorus puts it well:

The Lord has need of me;

His soldier I will be.
He gave Himself my life to win,
And so I mean to follow Him
And serve Him faithfully.
So although the fight be fierce and long,
I’ll carry on—He makes me strong.
And then one day His face I’ll see,
And oh, the joy when He says to me,
“Well done, my brave crusader!”²

The Gospel minister loves the Lord Jesus, and so he suffers for Him—not only from the assaults of the enemy but also through the diligence of faithful service.

The Discipline of the Athlete

Paul’s emphasis on “the rules” for the athlete points to the regulations involved in running a race. Athletes compete according to the rules, or else they face disqualification. A bad drug test will quickly strip away all the glory of a victory.

Some today teach the dangerous notion that once a person has discovered the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, any mention of rules is an intrusion into the freedom that is enjoyed in Christian living. This is woefully inconsistent with the biblical witness. We know that the Christian is not under the law as a way of justification and that Christ has fulfilled the law for us. At the same time, we know that in Christ, we are given a new ability to obey the law, and our new freedom is expressed in glad obedience to His commands—that is, freedom from sin and freedom to do what is right. As the Westminster Confession says, “The Spirit of Christ subdu[es] and enabl[es] the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.”³

Pastor and hymn writer George Matheson captured the counterintuitive nature of this reality in one of his verses:

Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Your arms,
And strong shall be my hand.⁴

Pastors are to model this kind of obedience to the church. Paul had urged Timothy in another place to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12). The pastors whom Timothy raises up, too, are to be “above reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6–7), committed to and consistent in the kind of godly behavior to which Christ calls every Christian. They are not to “profess to know God, but … deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16). Running the race with scorn for the regulations will ultimately bring disgrace.

The Diligence of the Farmer

Compared with the other two illustrations, farming carries little sense of drama. The daily routine of the farmer on arable soil is just plain old practical hard work. It is a picture of patient and diligent perseverance. It is, as William Carey described it, “plodding”: “I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit.”⁵

Christian ministry is not a leap from one spectacular victory to another; it is a matter of faithfully getting up in the morning to plow the land and sow the seed in the expectant hope that God will make it grow (1 Cor. 3:7). This is a hard word for our instantaneous world. You may sit with a young man or woman early in the morning over coffee and read the Scriptures together, half asleep, and think little has been gained by it. Yet years later you may find that God has sprouted those seeds into Christian maturity.

But if it is a hard word, it should also be an encouraging one for pastors who feel their ministry is seemingly unfruitful. The seed planted today will take time to grow, and some seeds may not grow in our place or in our lifetime. Many of the greatest joys of faithful, plodding pastors will be posthumous joys—seeing that seeds planted in their time and place bore fruit for eternity.

This takes hard work. The gifted pastor should never add laziness or pride to his giftedness. Yet simple gifts exercised with humble diligence will produce more than we had imagined, if we remain faithful to do the work.

“Think Over What I Say”

Paul’s illustrations present us with an opportunity for reflection, with the promise of the Lord’s help—as Paul tells Timothy explicitly: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” As we come to the Scriptures and don’t merely read them but think about them, meditating on them “day and night” (Ps. 1:2), we will find that God blesses the effort and gives understanding. In these three illustrations from Paul, there is wisdom that will sustain the pastor through difficult seasons of ministry—if we are willing to think about them, pray over them, and allow the Spirit to guide our responses and actions.

This article was adapted from the sermon “Proclaiming Boldly, Suffering Bravely” by Alistair Begg.