Of all the things Paul could have said to Timothy in his last days, in this last letter, he says, “Do your best to come to me soon” (2 Tim 4:9). Paul wanted Timothy close. This is what friends do. Friends impose on each other when they are needy, because they value each other so highly.
A Precious Friend
Timothy was precious to Paul. Paul called him his ‘son’. Paul had given a pattern of life to Timothy. And of all of the teammates which Paul had, Timothy was different. Paul could describe Timothy to the Philippian church saying, “I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare” (Phil 2:20). So it’s Timothy that he asks for.
Persevering Friendship
Do you have those kinds of deep friendships? Few of us do. It’s hard to develop a friendship that perseveres through difficulties and distances. Paul and Timothy had that.
Paul wasn’t entirely alone. Luke was with him. In some ways, Luke was a friend to Paul like Lord Beaverbrook was a friend to Winston Churchill. Churchill said of Beaverbrook— “He’s a foul-weather friend” (That’s the paraphrase).
Luke was not a fair-weather friend who flies off when things aren’t sunny. He was a foul-weather friend. He’d stick with you through storms. Luke was that kind of friend to Paul. The result is that we have the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as the fruit of Luke’s ministry, and Paul’s influential friendship.
Strained Friendship
And the other person to note is Mark. Paul says, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim 4:11).
You will recall that Mark was one of the early companions on Paul’s mission team. He went with Paul when they set out from their base in Antioch and went to Cyprus (Acts 13). But when they went to the coast of Turkey, Mark quit (13:13). He quit the mission and quit Paul. And he returned to Jerusalem.
How to view Mark became a major disagreement between Paul and another friend Barnabas (Acts 15:39). Barnabas wanted to bring Mark on a new mission trip and Paul didn’t. So there was a break in the friendship between Paul and Barnabas over Mark. And another friend, Luke recorded it in Acts 15.
Repaired Friendship
The point to see here is that friendships can be strained, but they can also be repaired. Mark had been a flashpoint for all kinds of relational stress— not just with Paul but with others.
Yet unlike the wisdom of today, Paul wasn’t proclaiming Mark to be ‘a toxic friendship’ that he forever needed out of his life.
Instead, he made his choice about Mark, but he could still have hope in God that Mark could grow and change and ultimately become, as Paul said, “useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim 4:11).
Friendships are precious and we must have hope that in the long term, even when they are strained, friendships are worth working for, or as Tim Lane called them, “ a mess worth making”.
This article is taken from my sermon, The Legacy of Friends, Enemies and Frenemies here.
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