As a 73-year old man, it’s okay for me to admit this. We older guys can be a real pain in the neck. For example, when a senior church member looks down on you, a young pastor, with a condescending eye. When your sermon, or your comment in a meeting, or whatever your contribution, doesn’t count for much. And why does this happen? You aren’t being unfaithful to Scripture. You aren’t lapsing into fallacious reasoning. In the moment, there seems to be only one reason why you don’t carry the weight you deserve: your youth. And there is nothing you can do about the sheer fact of your age.

But maybe there is. Paul, the older pastor, advises Timothy, the younger pastor, about this very problem: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Let’s think our way through this insightful verse, phrase by phrase. It’s in the Bible to help young pastors today.

Let No One Despise You for Your Youth

It’s not that the despisers consciously intend to diminish you. But still, they sometimes do. I respect Paul’s frankness in putting this problem right out on the table in plain view of his young friend: “Sadly, there are some people who will just plain despise you. I understand this insult. You do too.”

Any of us can cheapen, scorn, marginalize, roll our eyes at — these are the ideas behind the word despise — another person within the thoughts of our minds. The other person might have no awareness of what we’ve done. But still, in our mental categories, we relocate that person from serious to frivolous. Then we don’t have to deal with him anymore. This cruelty of heart is a knife-thrust into the body of Christ.

Paul fully expects Timothy, as a young pastor, to be on the receiving end of this foolishness. For example, the despisers might say things like, “Son, when you grow up, you’ll see things my way.” Or, “Son, I was a member of this church before you were born. What do you know?” It can take many forms.

“Don’t let your despisers live rent-free in your head.”

But the apostle, himself an older man, respects his young friend, puts his arm around Timothy’s shoulder, as it were, looks deeply into his eyes, and says quietly, “Don’t let your despisers live rent-free in your head. They have no idea who you are, what you offer, how much your ministry is worth. The Ancient of Days sure never speaks to you the way they do.”

Younger pastors — and older pastors! — should never allow uncomprehending people to define for them their identity and worth. Only God has the right to speak to us at that deep level. Here’s what he says: “You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4). Stabilized by the good news of our worth in the eyes of our Lord, any pastor can stand tall with dignity and keep going.

How then can younger pastors best respond to the inevitable slights?

Set the Believers an Example

“But set the believers an example,” Paul says. In other words, “Timothy, you can’t stop the unfairness. But you can still defeat it — and without becoming a jerk along the way. You can win by the undeniable reality of your consistent, publicly obvious example. Your despisers can count your years, but they cannot discount your maturity. Every church needs a grown-up in the room — always. You be the grown-up. It has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with character.”

Pastor, your best answer to an insult — maybe not your only answer, but your best answer — is to embody the personal magnificence everyone in your church respects. Not that it’s easy. It is so tempting to mouth off at people who mouth off. We feel that itch inside for a quick remedy. But we all know Matthew Henry is right when he comments, “Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.”

God offers us deep wisdom in the biblical call to “the patient endurance that [is] in Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). Here is the insight: God uses time. God created time as his servant. And because you are God’s child, time is your servant also. In fact, “all things are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:21). So, the passage of time is working for you. While you keep going with patient endurance, plodding along in the power of the Spirit, not lashing back but doing the next right thing, your servant Mr. Time is quietly and successfully doing his behind-the-scenes job, moving events toward your vindication. You don’t have to make a satisfying outcome happen. God will make it happen, using his servant and your servant — time. Your exemplary character over time is a powerful answer to your detractors.

Yes, I know. We all hate patient waiting. Amazon Prime built its business on our impatience! But whenever we force a hurried victory, it always backfires on us. Humble waiting, filling in the interval with sustained integrity, creates no regrets, leaves no bitter aftertaste.

Here are the actionable areas of growth that can make you admired more and more in the eyes of older Christians:

Speech, Conduct, Love, Faith, Purity

“In speech,” because our words shape the culture of our church, moment by moment. And when the pastor’s words make the moment better, and the people in the room become more hopeful and settled and confident and united, that pastor, however young, will be admired. “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (Proverbs 10:11).

“In conduct,” because our magnanimous interactions with people in the church and in the community argue forcefully for our nobility of stature. In every conversation, whatever the topic, what’s really happening in that moment is the display of personal character. And no one can keep you from the conduct that even a cynic is compelled to respect.

“In love,” because the tender selflessness of love feels like the presence of the risen Christ. You might or might not be a great preacher of sermons, but every pastor can be a great lover of souls. When exhausted people drag themselves into church on a Sunday, as they do every Sunday, you be their gentle shepherd leading them to their ultimate Shepherd. They will thank you. And the tone of the whole church will change.

“Nothing is so breathtaking as a pastor who believes in God and walks with God.”

“In faith,” because nothing is so breathtaking as a pastor who believes in God and walks with God. I remember my dad quoting Ralph Cushman: “There is something magnificent about these prophet-dreamers who are so sure of God.” That’s you. Go ahead and show it. Your people will be inspired.

“In purity,” because in a predatory world, a man who isn’t out for himself, a man with whom vulnerable people are safe — that man will be sought after. And the younger he is, the more striking his purity will be. A young man with a fatherly heart for people? Anyone who disparages such a pastor will end up only embarrassing himself.

Setting an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity — you don’t need money in the budget for that. You don’t need anyone’s permission to start. You are right now fully equipped in every essential to set an uplifting example for everyone in your church, for God’s glory.

It almost makes me feel sorry for your haughty critics. The future will be hard on them. But your future ministry will be more and more fruitful, because patient, gentle, exemplary saintliness is the greatest power in all the world. God is faithful to make it so — and to keep it so.

Audio Transcript

Why did God need part of Adam to make Eve when he made Adam from the dust? It’s a Bible question from a female listener to the podcast. We don’t have her name, but we have her question: “Hello, Pastor John! I was just wondering why God chose to do surgery on Adam to remove one of his ribs to craft Eve when, as God, he could have just made Eve entirely from dust in the same way he made Adam. I am very intrigued by this fact in Genesis and wonder if you have any thoughts to explain why it was done this way, and if it carries a particular meaning that he did it this way. Thank you.”

Well, it is intriguing, and there are things to see in the text that we might miss that would make it even more intriguing if we didn’t read more slowly. So, let’s read the passage that she’s referring to, and then I’ll point out some maybe surprising conclusions.

Parade of Beasts

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him’” (Genesis 2:18). So, God is going to finish his creation so as to make it completely good. That’s the setup at the beginning of the paragraph: “I’m going to make this completely good. It’s not yet finished. I will make him a helper fit for him.” That word fit means suitable, proper, corresponding to.

I think it’s important to notice that he’s looking for a helper fit for Adam to complete his creation, and he starts by making from the ground animals of the field and every bird of the heavens. “Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast . . . and brought them to the man to see what he would call them” (Genesis 2:19). So the man’s going to name these animals in order to discern their nature, which means their fitness for being a suitable counterpart to him, and he’s going to wind up naming this woman as well. So we’ve got this parallel between, “Let’s start with the animals and see what happens and then move from there.” “And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2:19).

The man names the beast, discerning its nature — its fitness to be his partner. “The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20). So the first step that he took was to produce a suitable helper in animals, and that totally failed. We need to ask, Why would God do that? Why would God enter on a process of making animals when he knew that’s not going to work — that’s not going to find a suitable partner?

Someone Like Adam

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs” — the word can mean side, so not from his foot and not from his head, but from his side — “and closed up its place with flesh” (Genesis 2:21). So, he really did surgery. He opened the skin and took out a rib, and he closed it.

“And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made” — literally he built — “into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called . . .’” — and that’s reference back to the naming of the animals. “So I found now an essence, a reality, a character, a being like me.” “She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:22–23). She shall be called ishah, because she was taken out of ish, in the Hebrew. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24–25).

No Helper Among the Animals

Now, our friend asks about the significance of the woman being made from the man’s side or rib and not from the ground, and I would say that’s not an incidental part of the text. She’s right to ask. To see the significance, we need to follow what’s happening.

First, Adam is said to be alone, and that’s not good, so the text is designed to tell us how God makes his creation finally good — namely, with Adam not being alone. But the next thing that happens is odd — namely, making all the animals (or pointing out that God had made all the animals) and bringing them to the man. So note three things:

He says explicitly that they were made from the ground (Genesis 2:19).
They were brought to the man for naming (Genesis 2:19).
His naming is connected with whether the animals are fit or suitable helpers for him (Genesis 2:20).

“The text is designed to tell us how God makes his creation finally good — namely, with Adam not being alone.”

So Adam, in naming the animals, is in fact identifying their nature, their fitness or suitability for him as a kind of partner that would make creation finally and fully good. And one might ask, Why did God parade the animals before Adam in search of a helper fit for him since God knew he wouldn’t find one?

And my answer is that he did it precisely because he knew he wouldn’t find one. In other words, he did it to make crystal clear to Adam, “What I have designed for you in my mind — you’re not going to find it among the animals. Don’t even think that you could find what I have prepared among the animals. The kind of helper that I have in mind for you, Adam, isn’t that kind.” “But for Adam there was not found” — among all those animals — “a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20).

Perfect Complement

So, having made that crystal clear, God puts Adam to sleep and really does surgery. He opens his side, takes a rib, closes up the side, and then it says that God built the rib from his side into a woman, and the word is ishah, and the generic word for Adam is ish — man, ish.

Then it says — and here he uses the very same words from earlier when he brought the animals to Adam to be named — he “brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22). And so we wait to see what he will name her — that is, what nature he will find in her that corresponds to his own nature or not. And here’s what he says: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ishah, because she was taken out of ish” (Genesis 2:23).

“Eve is like Adam and yet perfectly unlike Adam so as to be the exact suitable counterpart for Adam.”

So, unlike the naming of the animals, this creature’s name shows she is of the very nature of the man. The animals were not of the very nature. “And that’s probably why he took them out of the ground and took her out of me,” Adam said. “Therefore, I name her ishah, because she was taken out of ish.” That is, “She is the suitable helper. She fits, she corresponds, she is not an animal. She’s my unique kind, she’s human like me. She’s one flesh with me. Therefore, this concept of helper is not impersonal like an animal, like oxen can be helpers to farmers. She’s different. She will be essentially personal and human like me. She is like me and yet perfectly unlike me so as to be the exact suitable counterpart for me.”

I think that is true not only anatomically for the sake of sexual relations, but far deeper than that in profound personal, psychological ways. They are each other’s perfect, God-designed complement. Together they are good. Now it’s good — creation is good — that man and woman are now both created in the image of God, of the same human nature, “bone of my bones,” “flesh of my flesh,” and he could have said a lot more, I think.

Bone of Bone, Flesh of Flesh

Then the next verse takes this complementary, perfect correspondence into marriage and says that, therefore, because they were made bone of bone and flesh of flesh, this profound oneness of nature is going to be found in marriage. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). So he just said, “She is bone in my bones, flesh of my flesh.” And now in marriage, they become one flesh. The marriage union takes the unity of male and female to its deepest physical, psychological, personal level, and that becomes a picture — a drama, the New Testament says — of Christ and the church.

Now, there’s a lot more to say about the implications of man being made first, the woman being made from man and as his perfectly suited helper, and the woman becoming, in Genesis 3:20, “the mother of all living,” and Paul draws out these implications in 1 Corinthians 11:8–12. But for now, I would say God’s aim in not making the woman from the ground, like the animals, but from Adam’s rib, his side, was to make clear to him and to us that she is radically, gloriously, profoundly human, like Adam, over against all the animals, who were utterly unsuited for man.

Audio Transcript

On Friday we looked at the return of Christ. It has not happened yet; it’s yet to come in the future. When? Today we talk about timing; namely, we are going to look at one of the clear pieces of evidence that Christ’s return is drawing near. Here’s the question from a listener to the podcast named Alex. “Hello, Pastor John! I have a question about what Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, where he said of the end times that ‘lawlessness will be increased’ and that ‘the love of many will grow cold.’ What does Jesus mean when he says love will grow cold? Where will this be evidenced? What is ‘cold love’? And how can we prevent this in our own lives?”

Yes, that last question is the nub of the matter, isn’t it? So, let’s set the stage from Matthew 24, where the quote comes from in verse 12.

Beginning of Birth Pangs

Jesus had just looked at the temple in Jerusalem and said, “Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). And then the disciples asked him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

Now, that phrase “end of the age” refers to the phase of history that we are in, ending with the coming of Christ in judgment, separating the sheep and the goats, raising the dead. We know that because of the way the phrase is used in Matthew 13:39–43, where Jesus interprets the parable of the weeds like this:

The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The disciples had heard Jesus talk about this. They had heard this description of the end of the age, and they were asking about the end of this period of history marked by that amazing final judgment. They didn’t know how that related to the destruction of the temple, when all the stones would be thrown down. They were asking about both. Jesus answers by describing the kinds of things that will mark this age leading up to the end of this age. For example,

Many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:5–6)

“Hate is the final outcome of hypocritical love — just the shell of love where the warmth has gone out.”

So, he says, “The end is not yet.” He has the end in view, but he warns them that there’s going to be some time lapse here. It’s not the very end yet. The end is not yet. These things will be happening on the way to the end. This will be your experience leading up to the end. Then he adds, “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Matthew 24:8), to make clear that there is some time lapse before the end. This is the beginning of the birth pangs. They will last for some unspecified time, and then there will be the end of the birth pangs as the new order is brought to birth.

Four Observations on ‘Cold Love’

He goes on:

And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:10–14)

Now, here are four observations.

1. Cold love is the opposite of warm familial affection.

For example, in Genesis 43:30, when Joseph was about to reveal his identity to his brothers, it says, “Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep.” We see the same thing in Hosea 11:8. God says to Israel, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? . . . My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.”

So, cold love is the shell of love that has lost its inner familial warmth.

2. Cold love betrays.

The effect of this coldness is that brother betrays brother. Matthew 24:10, “Then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.” That hate is the final outcome of hypocritical love — just the shell of love where the warmth has gone out, and ice has come in, and the upshot is no longer just hypocritical love but rather hate that betrays brother to brother.

3. Cold love results from lawlessness.

Jesus says that the reason for this upsurge of cold, hypocritical love that eventually betrays a brother is owing to the increase of lawlessness. Matthew 24:12, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” That’s worth thinking about, because you might want to turn it around like this: “Because love grew cold, there’s a lot of lawlessness.” The root of this growing coldness of love in the church toward each other is a deep hostility to authority. That’s my interpretation of lawlessness: a deep hostility to authority, especially God’s authority. That’s what lawlessness is at root. “I will not submit to law from outside my sovereign self. I’m not going to yield to authority anymore.”

Now, to use the language of Paul, the church becomes infected with “the mind of the flesh” rather than “the mind of the Spirit”:

The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. [That’s lawlessness.] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7–8)

The upsurge of lawlessness is the upsurge of self, the mind of the flesh over God, the insubordinate, “I will not submit,” stiff-necked self. And Paul speaks directly to this lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2 in relation to the second coming. He says that a great apostasy must come before the end, along with “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Make that connection between Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2.

The mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8)

So, just when anti-authoritarian lawlessness inside and outside the church seems to be reaching its fevered peak in history, Jesus will step forward and return on the clouds, and there will be a great reversal.

4. Cold love must be combatted.

Finally, a fourth observation to Alex’s question about how we can prevent coldness of love from taking over our own hearts. Since cold love, Jesus says, comes from the increase of lawlessness, we must fight upstream, so to speak, from the river of love. We’ve got to get up there to the springs. We must fight against arrogance and pride and self-sufficiency — that is, against the spirit of lawlessness in our hearts that says, “I will not submit. I don’t like people telling me what to do, least of all an omnipotent God.”

“The root of growing coldness of love in the church toward each other is a deep hostility to authority.”

Lawlessness means we want to be our own law. We don’t want anybody — especially an infallible, omnipotent God — telling us what to do. We want to create our own meaning, create our own identity, create our own rules. And when this happens, we have cut ourselves off from Christ and from the Holy Spirit — and therefore from love.

Let me end with the way Hebrews 10:24–25 exhorts us in view of the second coming:

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.