Acts 16:1-5 – Timothy joins Paul and Silas..
- “A Snip in time, saves…”
- It is sometimes said that visionaries don’t see problems.
- That is untrue.
- A good visionary sees a problem before others do, and then deals with it in advance.
- Paul anticipates an issue with taking Timothy as a helper and disciple.
- If Timothy has been a god –fearing Jew the Jews would not have had a problem. But he was a Jew because Judaism is passed down through the mother.
- Paul understands the problem he is about to potentially face;
- He is about to go to various communities and pass on Halakhic decisions about the way they should govern themselves. He is to convince them to obey these religious legal decisions in order for Jesus’ dream of a new Kingdom to be demonstrated.
- He knows that when people are challenged they can become defensive and look for reasons to disregard or undermine the challenge.
- So often the issue they present is not the real issue and Paul saw in advance that the issue they could present was Timothy’s non-circumcision.
- Even though Paul often argues that believers do not need to be circumcised for salvation, he nevertheless pro-actively gets a specialist in to do the job. It was probably done by a specialist because adult circumcision was a complicated procedure.
- I listened to George Barna the author speak on Master Leaders. He said that one of the signs of great leaders is that they go looking for obstacles to confront. Poor leaders shy away from the issues but good leaders [of others and ourselves] go looking for them, anticipate the fall-out and confront the problem straight on.
- This is why the Holy Spirit is given to us.
- He shows us in advance the things that could trip us up. To ignore Him is just to delay something that will hinder us going on the journey the Father wants us to go on.
- Praying today for awareness.
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