Category: 2 Timothy (Page 1 of 2)

Last week, I said that last week’s passage (4:6 – 8) was like the final action scene of a movie where everything finally comes to head and then dissolves. Everything that the apostle Paul has been saying in this letter, about finishing faithfully while guarding the gospel, is finally ending, and his death by execution is right around the corner.

I love a good story! Good stories keep your attention until the very end; they generally have a main character/hero, a villain or a bad guy, some supporting characters that are caught in between good and evil, an ultimate vision of freedom, the threat of doom, some kind of increasing action, the final scene where everything climaxes and dissolves, and then the credits. The text in front of us today is like the final scene in a good story, where the entire story climaxes and dissolves (next week is the credits).

I have been engaged in the work of preaching God’s Word for a little over twenty years now and this passage has often been on my heart and mind as I prepare to step into the pulpit, or as I walk into a leadership meeting, or as I sit down with a couple to navigate marriage and family issues, or as I meet with someone who is trying to work through some deep sin patterns in their life.

I think this section of 2^nd Timothy (3:10 – 17) is all about continuing in the faith or continuing to follow Jesus when the world around us seems to be headed for certain destruction.

The Christian life is not for the faint of heart. Despite the false notion that Christianity is all about attaining health, wealth, prosperity, or becoming a better version of the you that you want to be, Christianity is actually a very difficult and painful life to live.

Making disciples is no easy task. In verse 1 of our text, the apostle Paul warns young Timothy “that in the last days there will come times of difficulty”. Young Timothy is one of the pastors in the church at Ephesus; the church that the apostle Paul had planted many years earlier.

Paul’s opening words of this text – “Now in a great house…” – reminds me of the image he used to describe the church in 1 Timothy 3:15 where he says that he wants the members of the church to “know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth”. Paul’s point with the image he is painting is that the church is the great household of God and God intends to fill his home with people who live to serve him above all else.

When I read the words “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved” in verse 15, I begin to think about how powerful the desire for approval is. The desire for approval can be a very hard thing to satisfy.

In our study of this letter, we have observed the Apostle Paul instructing young Timothy to cultivate a godly legacy (1:1 – 7), to not be ashamed of the gospel but to guard the gospel (1:8 – 14), to be a faithful friend until the very end (1:15 – 18), and to continue making disciples who make other disciples (2:1 – 7). Can I just make a quick observation and say that I think everything the Apostle Paul is laying out here, is super hard?

How do you entrust the gospel to other people; how do you make disciples who make disciples? This letter we are studying is the Apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy, but it is also the thirteenth and final letter from the Apostle Paul in the Bible. The Apostle Paul has written a total of thirteen letters among which we find the letter to the Ephesians and then two letters to young Timothy who is the pastor at Ephesus.