Having finished our summer-long trip following Israel’s journey from Mt. Sinai to the Promised Land in the book of Numbers and beginning a new series examining Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we find a consistent theme: that God’s promise for new life is not restricted to one group of people of one era in one location. God’s plan for humanity, since before Creation, is to have a relationship with faithful people. God expressed that desire to Israel while they camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, telling them in Leviticus 26:11-12, “I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.”
God fulfilled that promise as he led them to the Promised Land, revealing his presence among Israel with a pillar of cloud and fire above the tabernacle at the center of the camp. However, Israel tested that plan and God’s grace by rebelling all throughout that journey, and when they rejected God’s leadership at the edge of the Promised Land, God vowed that the generation he rescued from slavery in Egypt would not enter Promised Land. Still, while that generation died in the wilderness, God led the next generation into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, along with Caleb representing a faithful remnant of the rescued generation.
God’s plan to provide an inheritance for Israel required his people to follow faithfully. That was Israel’s mission, and it was passed from one generation to another. Israel’s legacy was not merely their occupation of Canaan but the faithful pursuit and passing of their mission from parent to child to grandchild, and on and on.
That legacy continued with Timothy. Paul wrote to his protege, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” God’s call to follow him in faith began with Lois, was passed to Eunice, and grew in Timothy, and that legacy of faith was meant to continue through Timothy, as well, as Paul wrote:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14-15)
Not only did Timothy inherit the blessing of new life through Jesus, he also inherited the missional legacy to pass it on to another generation. What began in the Scriptures passed down from Lois to Eunice to Timothy was continued through Timothy in the church; Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
This is the missional legacy of the church, our legacy, our mission. We not only inherit the blessings of the forgiveness of sins, salvation, eternal life, but we also inherit the responsibility to prepare the next generation to receive that inheritance, both its blessings and its responsibilities. The first generation that God rescued from slavery in Egypt was willing to receive the blessings, but they were not willing to accept the responsibilities of the inheritance. This is the warning we should have garnered from our study of Numbers, that the older generation must remain faithful not only in receiving the blessing but in passing it on to the next generation. Those who are not faithful in our missional legacy may find themselves scattered in the wilderness, while those are faithful may be the remnant who prepare the next generation and enter the Promised Land with them.
Our inheritance in Christ is a blessing that we must share. Let us continue to work together faithfully for the sake of the next generation, as well as our own.