“Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers” (2 Timothy 2:14).
Virtually everyone knows what it’s like to interact with a contentious individual who is eager to quarrel over something. Such people are relatively easy to find at work, at school, online, and other areas as well. Therefore, it becomes our responsibility to put 2 Timothy 2:14 into practice as we engage with those who seek to interact with us in this manner.
You see, we are likely to encounter many different types of personalities with varying levels of spiritual knowledge and/or emotional maturity as we go about our daily lives. Some of those individuals may approach a self-professed Christian seeking answers to difficult spiritual questions to help promote their understanding. Others may prefer to ask contentious questions in pursuit of some other agenda.
While this may be an unfortunate reality, it was something that Jesus experienced on a personal level…
“As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions. They wanted to trap him into saying something they could use against him” (Luke 11:53-54 NLT) (1)
Paul the Apostle will go on to talk about the challenges of dealing with such personalities in the Biblical letter that follows 2 Timothy…
“Stay away from those who have foolish arguments, who talk about useless family histories, or who make trouble and fight about what the Law of Moses teaches. These things are useless and will not help anyone” (Titus 3:9 ERV).
With this in mind, it’s important to seek God’s wisdom and discernment in addressing genuine requests for information while calmly responding to those who may only wish to provoke a fruitless and argumentative exchange. Since there may be any number of challenging issues to contend with, it often makes better sense to focus on the core truths of Christianity and “…the things which are proper for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1) as we engage in these conversations.
Paul will return to this topic later in this chapter with some more good advice…
“…a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).
We’ll explore this important subject at greater length over the next few studies.
(1) See Mark 3:1-6 and John 8:1-12 for other examples of such experiences from Jesus’ life.