To Coach or To Mentor, that is the question

But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

1 Timothy 6:11

A popular euphemism in today’s management culture is to use the word, “coach.”  When someone displays the behavior, activity, or disposition that management doesn’t agree with or pushes against management’s status quo, management believes that the employee must be coached.  This brings about visions of an overweight man chewing tobacco or smoking yelling at the players to do this or that.  As Tom Hank’s character once said, “There is no crying in baseball!”  Not all coaches or coaching is bad, but an athletic coach tries to direct or tell the players (employees) how to do something.

“Coach” is from the Middle English, coche, a large kind of carriage.  Around the time the word was created, people were being transported in wagon or carriage by a team of horses.  It wasn’t until the late 1840’s until “coach” was used as business is using it today.  At Oxford University, “coach” was slang for a tutor who “carried” a student through an exam.  The word gives a sense that the student was nowhere and knew nothing before their coach came along.  They were so daft that the coach carried them to a passing grade on the exam.  Coach is officially defined as a person charged with the instruction and guidance of another, one who instructs or trains, or one who instructs players in the fundamentals of a competitive sport and directs team strategy.  Coaching is telling someone what to do - whether it is right or wrong is up to interpretation.  Let’s compare “coach” to the word, “mentor.” 

“Mentor” is Latin from Greek Mentōr or wise advisor.  “Mentor” was a character in the "Odyssey," a friend of Odysseus, adviser of Telemachus, Odysseus' son (often actually Athene in disguise).  The word revolves around a trusted counselor (a person who gives advice) or a guide (a person who directs another's conduct or course of life).  Specifically, a mentor is an experienced adviser and supporter who is usually somebody older, wiser and more experienced, who advises and guides a younger, less experienced person.  Whereas a “coach” prescriptively directs a person, a “mentor” advises and shares their experiences with a person.  A mentor is trustworthy and builds a relationship with the person whom they are advising.

Paul writes to Timothy these letters in the Bible as his mentor not his coach.  Paul advises Timothy in the things of God and supports him on his walk with God.  In our passage tonight, Paul shows Timothy the characteristics or the pursuits of a “man of God.”

1. Righteousness (in the Greek, dikaiosuné) which means justice, justness, righteousness, righteousness of which God is the source or author, but practically: a divine righteousness.  A man of God pursues the approval of God for his actions that they are right and aligned with God’s mission, to reach and teach.
2. Godliness (in the Greek, eusebeia) which means piety (towards God) - properly, someone's inner response to the things of God which shows itself in godly piety (reverence), furthermore a "godly heart-response" naturally expresses itself in reverence for God, i.e. what He calls sacred, worthy of veneration.   A man of God is humble, reveres God, and gives God all the glory.
3. Faith (in the Greek, pistis) which means belief, trust, confidence, fidelity. Faithfulness is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people.  A man of God believes in Jesus and what he did for us on the cross with all his heart.  He does not waver from his faith.
4. Love (in the Greek, agape) which means benevolence, good will, esteem. Love in a way that prefers divine love, which centers in moral preference.  A man of God loves his neighbor as he loves his God.
5. Patience (in the Greek, hupomoné) which means endurance, steadfastness, patient waiting for, remaining under, endurance; steadfastness, especially as God enables the believer to "remain (endure) under" the challenges He allots in life.  A man of God is patient as he waits for God to answer him.  A man of God endures the tribulations of life always faithful to God.
6. Gentleness (in the Greek, praotés) which means mildness, gentleness, meekness, kindness, temperate, displaying the right blend of force and reserve (gentleness). A man of God avoids unnecessary harshness, yet without compromising or being too slow to use necessary force.

The key to this passage as with any passage in the New Testament is “love.”  In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus made clear how to be a man of God.

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Love is also the difference between a coach and a mentor.  A mentor loves who they are mentoring where a coach loves the result of the coaching.