Who Are Your Three? Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy

I’m going to ask you three questions. Answer them for real, out loud if you’re alone.

One: who is one person, right now, who is further along than you spiritually and has permission to tell you the truth about your life? Not an author you admire. Somebody who could call you this afternoon.

Two: who is one person who knows the real version of your life? Not the church version. The actual one.

Three: who is one person you are deliberately investing in? On purpose. Not your kids; that’s a different obligation and you’d better be doing it. Somebody outside your house.

Here’s what I’ve found after walking a lot of people through those questions. Almost nobody has all three. Most people have one. A fair number have none and have never noticed, because nobody ever laid it out like that. And whichever one is empty for you is very likely the reason something in your walk with Christ feels stuck.

Up, across, and down

Here’s the claim: every disciple needs someone ahead, someone alongside, and someone behind. Three relationships, and you are probably missing one.

I’ll be upfront about something. The church loves a framework, and a lot of them are made up. Scripture doesn’t hand us a three-box diagram. The grid is mine. But the people in it are right there in the New Testament, and I think the grid simply describes what they were doing. Their names are Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy.

Paul is the one ahead of you. Someone further down a road you want to be on, who is allowed to tell you the truth. Not necessarily older. I’ve had people ten years younger than me who were further along in exactly the thing I needed.

Barnabas is the one alongside you. A peer. Someone in the same season and the same fight, who knows what your life looks like from the inside.

Timothy is the one behind you. Someone you’re pouring into, on purpose. Not “I’m an influence on a lot of people.” A person with a name.

Up, across, down. Each one does a job the other two can’t.

The chain in one sentence

Paul’s last letter is written from a Roman prison. He’s cold enough to ask Timothy to bring his cloak. He names the people who’ve walked away. He knows how this ends: “the time of my departure has come” (2 Timothy 4:6).

So what is a man at the end of his life worried about? The chain of custody.

He starts here: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). Notice two things. “My child” means this is a relationship, not an org chart. And “be strengthened” is something done to Timothy, not by him. Before Paul gives a single instruction, he grounds Timothy in grace. Pouring into people runs on grace, not grit.

Then the verse this whole series is built on: “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Count the generations. Paul. Timothy. Faithful men. Others also. Four, in one sentence, from a man who will never meet the last two.

The word entrust is a banking word. It means to deposit something with a trustee for safekeeping. Timothy is a trustee, not an owner. What he’s holding isn’t his to change and isn’t his to keep. And Paul gives him a selection rule that’s worth noticing: pick people who will be able to teach others. Not the people who will soak up the most. The people who will pass it on.

Here’s the part that applies to you. That verse assumes all three relationships are running at once. Paul is ahead of Timothy. Timothy is ahead of the faithful men. The faithful men are ahead of the others. Every person in the chain has someone up and someone down.

So which generation are you? And who’s the one after you?

Barnabas, the most underrated man in the New Testament

We meet him in Acts 4. His real name is Joseph, and the apostles gave him a nickname: “Barnabas (which means son of encouragement)” (Acts 4:36). Imagine being so consistently the person who lifts others up that it becomes your name.

Now watch him work. Saul of Tarsus has just met Jesus on the Damascus road, and he comes to Jerusalem:

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. (Acts 9:26–27)

You can’t blame the church for being afraid. This was the man who had been dragging believers out of their homes. Saul kept trying to get in, and they kept saying no. His own testimony was worthless, because the man giving it was the problem.

Then Barnabas does three things. He takes hold of him. He brings him to the apostles. And he tells the story. That third one is the hinge. Barnabas supplied the testimony Saul couldn’t supply for himself. Somebody else’s word was the only currency that worked.

Sit with this for a second: without Barnabas, there is no Paul in Jerusalem. Arguably there’s no “generation one” in 2 Timothy 2:2. The most important missionary in church history needed somebody to stand next to him when his reputation wasn’t enough.

And Barnabas didn’t do it once. In Acts 11 the church in Antioch is growing fast, and Luke describes Barnabas this way: “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:24). Then he goes looking for Saul, who has been off the map for years, brings him to Antioch, and they teach that church together for a full year. He didn’t just vouch for him. He went and got him and put him to work.

That’s what alongside does. Alongside doesn’t teach you. Alongside believes you when nobody else does.

Paul and Timothy: ahead and behind

Paul is the picture of ahead. He could write, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), and mean it. He reminds Timothy of what Timothy has watched: his teaching, his conduct, his patience, his suffering. Ahead lets you watch. Ahead tells you the true thing your friends are too kind to say.

Timothy is the picture of behind. Paul finds him in Lystra, a young man with a Greek father and a believing Jewish mother, well spoken of by the believers who knew him, and takes him along (Acts 16:1–3). Years later Paul writes to him like a father to a son, remembering his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice by name (2 Timothy 1:5). That’s what behind looks like when it’s done well. Not a project. A son in the faith.

Why the empty slot hurts

Each missing relationship has a signature. See if you recognize yours.

If you’re missing your Paul, you’re probably tired and a little proud, and you may not know it. You’ve got opinions nobody has pushed back on in years. Your blind spots sit undisturbed because everyone around you is a peer or a junior. When something hard hits, you’ll handle it alone, badly, and call it strength. This is the most common empty slot for men over forty, and it’s the most dangerous, because it feels like maturity. It isn’t. It’s isolation with a good reputation.

If you’re missing your Barnabas, you’re performing. There’s a public self and a private self, and the gap has been widening. You might be leading things and still be completely alone. The Preacher says two are better than one, and then he says the line that ought to scare all of us: “woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:10). Not if he falls. When. I wrote more about this in Every Man Needs Brothers, Not Just BuddiesComing October 21.

If you’re missing your Timothy, you’re consuming. Sermons, books, podcasts, articles like this one, and none of it is going anywhere. A Christian who only receives doesn’t stay the same. He goes soft. Knowledge with no outlet turns into criticism. You get very good at evaluating sermons and very bad at loving people. It’s a slow, sad thing to watch.

Which paragraph made you uncomfortable? That’s your empty box.

Honest objections

“There’s nobody ahead of me at my church.” You’re probably looking for someone too far ahead. You don’t need a giant. You need someone a few steps up the same staircase. Five years ahead is plenty. Sometimes two.

And you have to ask. This is the whole reason most people don’t have a Paul: everybody’s waiting to be picked and nobody’s picking. The ask is smaller than you think: Would you be willing to get coffee once a month? I’d like to learn from you. That’s the whole sentence. Most people say yes, and a lot of them will tell you nobody has ever asked them before.

Books and dead men are a supplement, not a substitute. Read the biographies. But a book can’t see your face when you lie about how you’re doing.

“Isn’t this a lot of meetings?” Less than you think. Your Paul might be an hour a month. Your Barnabas might be a text thread and a standing lunch. Your Timothy might ride along while you change your oil on Saturday. What this costs isn’t calendar space. It’s the willingness to be known. That’s the expensive part, and it’s why most of us would rather be busy.

“I’ve got two Timothys and no Paul.” Then you’re pouring out of a bucket nobody’s filling, and you know how that ends. Fill the empty one first. You can’t give away what you aren’t receiving.

“I don’t know if he counts.” Does he know your real life? Then he counts.

Your practice this month

Here’s the step. Three parts, all of them small.

First, name your three in writing. Draw three boxes on a card: Paul, Barnabas, Timothy. Put a real first and last name in each, a human being with a phone number. Not “my small group.” Not “somebody at church.”

Second, identify the empty slot. If a box is empty, leave it empty. That empty box is the most useful thing on the card. An honest empty box is worth more than a dishonest full one, so don’t fill it with someone who half counts just to avoid the discomfort.

Third, contact one of them. Not a plan. A step.

• If Paul is empty: send one text asking one person for one coffee.
• If Barnabas is empty: go to the person who already knows the most about your real life and tell them one true thing you haven’t told them.
• If Timothy is empty: take the name you’ve been praying for and find out one real thing about that person’s life this week.

Then carry the card. Put it in your Bible, your wallet, or behind the visor. In about ten days you’ll forget you did this, and the card is what will catch you.

Somebody stood next to Saul when nobody else would. Somebody is waiting for you to be that for them. Someone ahead, someone alongside, someone behind: find your empty box, and go fill it.

This article is part of The Investors, a two-year leadership track at Living Faith Church for people who are ready to pour into someone else the way someone poured into them.

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