Vision: The Enemy of Opposition

2 Timothy 4:14

Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

In last month’s leadership blog, we discussed mediocrity, the enemy that causes us to be content with average and keeps us from excellence. For the most part, we control this enemy and a spiritual leader will discipline himself to strive for something special and rare!

But there is another enemy that will harm us and we often have no control whatsoever of this enemy. This enemy is opposition. And every leader, especially every spiritual leader, will face opposition.

One of my favorite people in the Bible is the Apostle Paul. He certainly faced his share of opposition. There are several examples from his life that demonstrate the opposition he faced, but for today, let’s take a look at only one.

In II Timothy 4:14 we are introduced to one such enemy - a man named “Alexander the coppersmith.” Once we arrive at II Timothy 4:9, we are approaching the final verses of Paul’s last letter to Timothy. This is a rather transparent passage and we get the sense that Paul knew this could be his final farewell. Verse 9 begins with an appeal from Paul to Timothy to come and visit him quickly. And what follows is a small list of others, some that had MOVED ON FROM ministry and some that had MOVED ON IN ministry.

In vs. 14, Paul, without much detail at all, simply refers to one of those who opposed him and did so with apparent pain. Paul says, “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm.” There is the opposition and he has a name, Alexander. A quick study of Alexander the coppersmith will not provide you with much information. There is just not much known about him. Some will connect him to the passage in Acts 19 and I Timothy 1, but this is speculation.

And the absence about details of his life causes me to realize something about our opposition. For the most part, those who bring opposition to leaders, especially spiritual leaders, will likely drift away into obscurity in the future. Perhaps there is a reason we don’t know much about Alexander the coppersmith and perhaps that reason is simply that there will always be Alexanders, who oppose the work of God. And in the end, they seem to drift away without much known about them. Paul didn’t make much of Alexander and neither should we make much of the Alexanders that oppose us and oppose the spiritual work we are attempting to carry out.

Yet still we are left to face the question of how we handle opposition. There are many things we can learn about handling opposition. For example, we can learn from Nehemiah about how he handled Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite. Or we can learn from David how he handled Saul or his own son, Absalom. Or we can look into the life of Jesus Himself, the greatest leader ever, and see how he handled the Pharisees and others who opposed Him.

However, for today, there is a lesson for us to learn from Paul and how he handled Alexander the coppersmith. In 2 Timothy 4:14, the Bible says that Paul simply said, “The Lord will repay him according to his deeds.” Now I am quite sure there were other things Paul had to do, but for the moment simply focus your attention on the big picture. For Paul, he left Alexander up to the Lord to deal with. For Paul, Alexander was the Lord’s business and not his. His perspective as a spiritual leader was significant. There were things Paul could control but this was not one of them. So Paul left Alexander to the Lord.

At some point, every Pastor, every leader faces opposition. Some of that opposition will be from the inside and some will be from the outside. There is a lesson from the life of Paul for us to learn. It is simply to leave those who oppose you up to God to deal with and not let them distract you from the work, the vision, and the calling of God in your life. Stay at the work with focus and determination.

And leave the opposition to God to repay.