It’s always worth noticing that the command to make disciples is not just make lots of new Christians, but also therefore to grow all those Christians up into maturity. Maturity might include sometimes not associating with certain people for your own sake—immaturity definitely should.

When reading through 2 Timothy with some folk a few weeks back, I got a number of questions about some of Paul’s instructions that seemed very strange to my fellow readers.

There are a number of people that Paul seems to not want Timothy to associate with. He lists some individuals but then at the start of chapter 3 describes a long list of character traits before saying ‘avoid such people’ in verse 5.

The question as people framed it was ‘why should we not associate with them, surely we want them to hear the gospel?’

I answered the question briefly, for the sake of time, explaining that you might go in thinking you’re going to pull other people out but actually you will be pulled in. For our own sakes we should be careful who we eat with (1 Corinthians 10).

I could have gone on to describe that in our day the most winning ‘strategy’ for the gospel is institutional subcultures… but I didn’t and I don’t want to write that post today either.

I’d like to draw out two threads that the questions revealed in people’s thinking, that I suspect are quite common.

Who are these people?

The assumption is that these people need to be preached the gospel, because they’re sinners. That’s a reasonable inference. What I think we miss is that, most likely, these people—these lovers of self and of money, proud, arrogant, disobedient to parents, abusive… he goes on at length—are within the church.

How do we know that? Context helps, Paul is instructing Timothy on how to deal with false teachers and quarrelling within the church. Beyond that though, the passage directly tells us: one of the dispositions listed is ‘having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.’

To have the appearance of godliness, you need to be within the visible church.

Now, you might want to say that these apparent sinners within the church need to be called to repentance in the gospel. You’re right that they do. It’s fascinating then that Paul’s advice to Timothy is to avoid them.

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