Because you are young.

Four couples sat around a glass patio table, the sun sinking down into the horizon. We all leaned in quietly, listening, hands folded, some of us glancing down and trying to process the news we’d just received. For every one of us, it meant our futures – the future of our families – were changing.  And as for me, the initial reaction, which was a mixture of panic and disappointment, was slowly offset by a quiet settling within my heart.  My husband and I were brought back to that awkward sensation of wandering in a desert with an unknown destination. All of us thought we knew the plan, and it was foolish. But this was what we’d signed up for: being sent into the desert and told to walk until God said, “Stop.”

All of us were members of a newly formed church-plant team. And all of us were under the age of 30.

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Choosing to address this topic in my blog was difficult; I don’t take it lightly. When inappropriately handled or emotionally fueled, it’s destructive.  Brothers and sisters leave churches over it.  But the very fact that I am in the demographic which I’m addressing – a 26-year-old in leadership in a church – I think will be a boon and not a hindrance.  Something caught my attention and led me to the call to write this as I meditated on 1 Timothy 4:12:

“Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.”

In reading and meditating on this passage in the past – perhaps a product of the folly accompanying immaturity in faith – I often heard it read as this instead:

“People who are looking down on Timothy because he is young, cut it out!”

And I used it that way – when I’ve heard stories of criticism from older Christians in the church coming against those who were rising up in a call to leadership, or perhaps when I’ve seen dear friends and companions in the faith denied precious opportunities for lack of experience, regardless of qualification and calling.  This was my go-to verse.

I quoted this verse, even in recent days, in incredulity. Why are older believers ignoring it? Don’t they hear Paul’s instruction that they have to stop looking down on Timothy?

However, I ignored something I should know by now to never ever ignore as an English major: authorial intent.

When Paul writes this to the young man he trained up in the faith, Timothy, he wrote it with instructions exclusively for Timothy: do not let.

If this group of miscreant elderly chaps or lasses was ever scolded by Paul for their prejudices against a youthful leader in the Gospel, we don’t see it. What we see is Paul’s admonition to Timothy, a young man Paul describes as his “true son in the faith.” (1 Tim. 1:2).  Paul trusts Timothy not based off of Timothy’s years of experience, but based of his personal experiences with Timothy.  

He trusts him enough to send him to minister to the hurts and needs of the bruised and battered church in Philippi.  In fact, in his words, he couldn’t send anyone else.

“If the Lord Jesus is willing, I hope to send Timothy to you soon for a visit. Then he can cheer me up by telling me how you are getting along. I have no one else like Timothy, who genuinely cares about your welfare. All the others care only for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ. But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a son with his father, he has served with me in preaching the Good News.” (Phil. 3:19-22)

I think Paul knows here that there could potentially be concern about Timothy’s age when he comes strolling into a spiritually hurting community of believers ready to care for them.  Paul could probably already hear the protests in the back of his mind after writing verse 19, and knew he’d have to explain himself over the course of a paragraph.

“I have no one else like Timothy,” he reassures them, “who genuinely cares about your welfare.”

Timothy’s age doesn’t prevent him from being truly broken for the condition of this church and hurting for them in their time of need.

“All the others care only for themselves…”

Timothy’s age doesn’t automatically result in pride, selfishness or a need for applause, accolades or a pat on the back.

“… and not for what matters to Jesus Christ.”

Timothy’s age doesn’t prevent him from being deeply concerned for the things of God: making disciples (Matt. 28:18-20) and building up of the church (Eph. 4:11-13).

“But you know how Timothy has proved himself.”

Timothy’s age plays no factor in his faithfulness in these matters.

Paul’s history of interactions with many in the church, by this point in his life, is extensive. There’s no doubt in my mind he had a whole host of people with more life experience flashing through his mind as he pondered and prayed about who to send into the spiritual fray in Philippi. But life experience was not what determined his final choice about who to send.

“Like a son with his father, he has served with me in preaching the Good News.”

Paul knew Timothy’s heart because of how he served alongside him. Where others had life experience, Timothy was held up as the example of self-sacrifice.  He labored with such a deep love for the body of Christ. It was his labor of love – choosing to lay down his youthful years on the altar in devotion to Christ for the building up of His church – that qualified him for the task before him. Paul knew all of Timothy’s sleepless nights, the tears Timothy wept over wandering brothers and sisters, the sacrifices he made in his personal life and his career, to give to the church.

And his admonition comes to Timothy, and Timothy alone: do not let.

Timothy was already being the example. Paul told him, essentially, to keep doing exactly what he was doing.

Young brothers and sisters with a heart to lead, to serve, to sacrifice for the sake of the church: don’t let others look down on you because of your age.  God’s power and might and movement don’t come through what we judge to be appropriate by our own examination.  When Samuel was sent by God to find a king who would rule and reign as a man after His own heart, it was the youngest of Jesse’s sons that He called. When God wanted to build a family by which the promised Savior would come, he came to an elderly couple well out of their childbearing years.

Your age is a number that plays no role in your standing before God, has no bearing on your capability. Is it not God and God alone who empowers us for service?

Your passion for the gospel is invaluable. Your sacrifices can’t be numbered or ranked. The merit of your experiences is weighed not by their quantity, but by the heart with which you walked through them.

I have seen people lay down every ambition for the sake of Christ. Give up their homes, their career paths, the approval of family members, the comfort of their relationships or friendships or neighborhoods or anything familiar. And it is these people – whether 20 or 50 or on their way to a retirement home – that I will invite to labor alongside me for the sake of the Gospel. It is these people that I will follow into the desert.