Let No One Look Down on Your Youthfulness

The Meaning of “Let No One Look Down on Your Youthfulness”

In 1st Timothy 4 .12, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said, Let no one look down on your youthfulness. You've got very good arms.

He didn't fall? Inconceivable! You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

You keep using that verse. I do not think it means what you think it means. Welcome to the podcast, ladies and gentlemen. I hope that you and your family are doing well today. My name is Justin Peters.

I want to thank you very much for joining me. We've heard this phrase from time to time, right? When the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, Let no one look down on your youthfulness. I believe that King James says, Let no one despise you for your youth.

When we hear that, we often think of Timothy as a teenager. Like he's a high school kid. Because Paul says, Let no one look down on you for your youth. We just think he was almost like a kid. Well, that's not actually the case.

Timothy’s Background, Conversion, and Age

Let me give you a little bit of background information here. Timothy was from the town of Lystra. That was his hometown. We know from Paul's second letter to Timothy that Timothy had been taught by his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois, respectively, the Scriptures.

He was well grounded in the Scriptures. Because of their faithful instruction, Timothy knew that a Messiah was promised. Israel's Messiah would one day come. Of course, Timothy did not know who that would be.

Until the Apostle Paul came to his town of Lystra. Paul was on his first missionary journey and came to Lystra. There, Timothy heard the gospel from the Apostle Paul. We don't know if this was in an open air setting or maybe Paul and Timothy had an opportunity for a one-on-one conversation.

They met each other. We don't know. Whatever the case, Timothy heard the gospel from Paul. Then Timothy realized, through the convicting and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, is the promised Messiah.

Timothy was converted there. Timothy, in all likelihood, was probably between 17 and 19 years of age when the Apostle Paul came to Lystra and Timothy was converted. Timothy was maybe as old as 20, but probably 17 to 19 years of age.

At Timothy's conversion, and by the way, this is the youngest conversion of which we know in the New Testament. This is the youngest recorded conversion of anyone in the New Testament. Now, that is not to say that maybe there were not some others who were converted at a younger age, but this is the youngest of which we know, Timothy.

Timothy as Paul’s Traveling Companion and Pastor at Ephesus

As I said, this was on the Apostle Paul's first missionary journey. By his second missionary journey, Paul had chosen Timothy to serve as a traveling companion. Timothy went to Paul and ministered with him and served with him in places like Athens and Corinth and Berea.

And so Timothy became Paul's traveling companion. But by the time the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to Timothy that bears his name, the first letter to Timothy that bears his name, 1 Timothy, this was 15 years later.

This is 15 years after Timothy's conversion. And by this time, Timothy is serving as the pastor of the church at Ephesus. And so 15 years later, Timothy is now in his early to mid -30s. So Timothy is now probably 33, 34, maybe as old as 35 when Paul wrote and said, let no one look down on your youthfulness.

So not nearly as young as many of us have imagined. And Paul wrote this letter to Timothy as a very practical letter just to give him some practical instructions about church life, how to be a pastor.

Paul addressed different issues within the life of a church, the care for widows, warnings about false doctrine, false teachers, qualifications for elders, one of which, interestingly, is, as Paul said in 1 Timothy 3, 6, an elder should not be a new convert.

But by this time, Timothy was not a new convert. He had been saved for 15 years. But even as a man in his 30s, many people still looked at him as a bit young to be a pastor. So it was kind of interesting.

Qualifications for Elders and the Need for Maturity

Now, I do not think there's anything wrong with a man in his, you know, mid to late 20s and forward being a pastor. An elder is not to be a new convert. Now, I don't know that we can put a time frame on that per se.

There is a reasonable amount of time that needs to transpire between the conversion and your stepping up to be an elder slash pastor in a church. You know, if you're converted on a Tuesday, I don't think you need to be serving as pastor the next Sunday of any church.

You know, there's got to be some time there. There needs to be a time of maturing, even a time of testing. The Apostle Paul himself had his time in Arabia, right? So even the Apostle Paul needed a season for maturing and testing.

One thing to keep in mind, though, in this day and age, in this day and age, no one came from a Christian background. Okay, zero of the Christian converts in the first century came from a Christian background.

No one grew up going to church with mommy and daddy and going to vacation Bible school, and this is just all they had ever known. No, when you became a Christian in the first century, you were signing up for persecution from the Romans, from the powers that be, from the Jewish authorities, probably even from your own family members.

So a conversion, a profession of faith, meant something back then. It carried a lot of weight because people knew there would be a cost to it. And so when someone professed Christ 2 ,000 years ago, that profession of faith carried a lot of credibility.

And even at that, we know from 1 John 2, right? Even some of those folks who made professions of faith, they were not all genuine converts. They went out from us. Why? Because they were not of us. So anyway, all these things we need to take into account when we talk about how old should someone be before they become a pastor or a leader in the church.

I don't know, again, I don't know that you can mark a date on the calendar, but there does need to be a season of maturing. There does need to be a season of testing. Paul had his time in Arabia, and this is the man who wrote, you know, a third to a half of the New Testament, depending on who you think wrote the book of Hebrews.

So, all right. Anyway, all that to say, dear ones, Timothy was not as young as many of us imagined him to be. So, I hope this was interesting for you, and thank you for watching. Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.