“Paul’s old Cloak Left at Troas”

The Pastor’s Letter – (June-July 1974)

Dear Friends,

One of the great devices that our human heart employs to escape the rigours and irksomeness of the sacrificing side of the Christian life, is the thought and the idea that the men and women on the pages of the Bible were absolutely unique in every way, and so, quite beyond compare, imitation, or emulation by us. Without a doubt, the vast majority of those ancient saints rose head and shoulders above the head of any of us today, and were very often gifted and endowed by the Lord in a way unparalleled at the present.

Be that as it may, however, we use the Word of God wrongly when we use the exploits of the saints of the past as a motive to idleness and indifference rather than a spur to endeavour, just because we have been convinced in our hearts that we can never measure up to their unique performances or extra-special lives.

Now, it is surely to help us to guard against that crippling idea that the Word of God so often shows these mighty men and women of the past in some particular situation where we cannot but fail to realise that they were men and women “of like passions” with ourselves — compassed about with a dozen-and-one infirmities and having to live in these mortal “tents” as we have to live in them. Possibly one of the most vivid words in the whole of the Bible concerning this is found in Paul’s second epistle to Timothy where he begins to round off that epistle in chapter four with various requests and directives to his younger fellow-labourer in the gospel. By this time, he is “such an one as Paul the aged.” He has spent his life in the cause of the gospel, and is now imprisoned for the witness and the testimony of Christ. He is anxious to stir up Timothy to “come shortly” unto him, and he remembers with a sad and sorrowing heart how Demas has forsaken him, because he has fallen in love with the world. Titus has gone to Dalmatia, Crescens to Galatia, Tychicus he has despatched to Ephesus, Alexander the coppersmith has done him much wrong, when he has been called to make his defence no man has “stood” by him.

What issues are raised in that parting letter to Timothy, and what eternal matters are dealt with as the great apostle’s pen runs to the end of that parchment. And yet, right in the centre of all those things comes that never-to-be-forgotten word of request to Timothy that shows us our “brother and fellow saint,” and leaves us without excuse in the cost of discipleship. “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: for Demas hath forsaken me … the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee …”

What a telling and significant word that is. At first glance, and if we take no more than a first glance, we may well conclude that it is a trivial matter and hardly worthy of the great apostle’s hand — especially as his days and writing material are now coming to a close. But no, the Holy Spirit of God sees fit to have it recorded. And the purpose of its presence is, surely, to set before the continuing church of Christ on the earth the ever-abiding principles of the cost of discipleship for every age and for every saint in every age.

We do well to weigh the “human-ness” of that request of the mighty apostle. As we have said, he is now “Paul the aged.” In a very short time he will be “slain for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” And as he looks to the approaching winter and its cold icy blasts swirling through that Roman prison, he has one request to make of Timothy — when he comes to visit him with the warmth of Christian fellowship and love, will he also bring with him the warmth of that old cloak that he left at Troas with Carpus? Such a request never fell from the lips of a man that was ever anything more than a man. And if we endeavour to hide behind some form of unique humanity in the saints of the Bible as a reason for not being of the same spirit of selfless sacrifice in the cause of the gospel, we only betray the fact that we have, indeed, used their lives in a wrong way, and have fallen victim to the deceitfulness of that deceiving heart hat beats within us.

We do well to recount the early days of the apostle Paul: his standing was a noble one in the nation of Israel; remember how he enumerates all his claims to fame and righteousness before the Philippians? He was circumcised the eighth day, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the stock of Benjamin, etc. He had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and, as many believe, would have been successor to “the chair of systematic theology” in the schools of the Rabbis. The “fringes” on his garments would have long, his “phylacteries” large, and his robes flowing. What an absolute contrast is summed up in that one request — “The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee …” What absolute devastation is levelled at the idea that earthly prosperity and possession may be equated with rightness before God. Here is the greatest servant of the gospel that the world has ever seen, and as his life ebbs to a close in that Roman prison his worldly goods is summed up in an old cloak, six hundred miles away at Troas.

“Comparisons are odious,” they say, and very often, they are. We live in a day and in a country of super-abundance, when, in spite of all our complaints, we have received a multitude of provision. Therefore, the thought of being reduced to Paul’s condition appears unrealistic to us. But, we set aside the principle of sacrifice in the cause of the gospel at our peril, and very often completely miss the thought that the more we have received from the Lord, the more we have to sacrifice to the Lord.

However, the important thing to note is this, that when the Holy Spirit of God causes that request to be written and recorded in His Word there is a double edge to the purpose. In the first place, it shows us the sacrificing spirit of that great apostle, that at the end of a life that could have been lived in a far, far different way, he has but one old cloak, and that, so many miles away. But, over and above that, it shows us his great need and his great desire to have that cloak ere the winter winds begin to howl. It is a man, then, that makes the request. Not a super-man that has nothing to say to us in our own day or in our own lives, but an “old” man at this particular time, whose blood is, no doubt, running thinner than it used to do, and has his human needs for his very human life.

“The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” It would even try and rob the Lord of the “reasonable service” of His people today; and not only that, it would even endeavour to use the very word of God itself as the instrument to commit the robbery. Brethren! We are ever compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses; let us always try to run “lawfully” — according to the “rules” of the race, that we might attain the crown.