EPISODE 200 2 TIMOTHY CHAPTER 1 " Last Words"

Welcome to Share the Word. Second Timothy not only holds an emotional importance, the reason of which will become evident as you listen, but chapter one begins with Paul encouraging Timothy to boldly embrace his faith and ministry, reminding him to stand firm and not be ashamed of the gospel, even through suffering and opposition. Second Timothy chapter one. Last words. We purposely say the letter we call Second Timothy for the last writing in our series from the Apostle Paul because it may well have been the last writing from the Apostle Paul. It's definitely the last thing we have from him preserved in the New Testament.

Next to Jesus, we have more written about the Apostle Paul than anyone else from the first generation of Christians. Why is that? Well, because he did astonishing things, and he left us an inspiring example of what one person fully sold out to the cause of Christ and the gospel could do. Just to put his life into review, Saul of Tarsus became a follower of Jesus after a dramatic conversion to Christianity. At the time, he was a radically zealous young Pharisee who believed Christianity was a heretical cancer growing on the true religion of Judaism. While en route to hunt down and arrest Christians fleeing Jerusalem from the persecution he led, Jesus arrested him on the road to Damascus.

That's how he described it. The risen Christ confronted him in a blinding vision, which caused his entire world to turn upside down. What he had been certain was not true, he became convinced was ultimately true, absolutely true, and that everyone needed to hear about it. This was about 35 A.D. when Saul was in his early 30s. For the next 10 years, Saul, whose Christian name became Paul, was prepared in one way and another to fulfill the special calling God had chosen him for. He was, as God put it, the perfect instrument to penetrate the Gentile world with the gospel of Christ.

In 46 A.D., he was invited to a thriving young church in Antioch, Syria, by the early Christian leader Barnabas to help lead the growing congregation there, the first Christian church where Jews and Gentiles worshipped together as equals. After spending a year in Antioch serving on the leadership team and experiencing firsthand what a local church should be, God impressed on the other leaders there that it was time for Paul and Barnabas to carry the gospel westward to places it had never yet gone. Over the next 20 years, Paul, with one team he put together and then another, traveled thousands of miles evangelizing and planting churches from Galatia in what is today eastern Turkey to as far west as Spain.

With strategy of targeting the major cities of the Roman Empire, believing Christianity would radiate out from them, he established churches in Galatia, Roman Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, and beyond. And importantly, over those 20 years, he had the foresight to train, through instruction and modeling, many others who would form the next generation of Christian leaders, Timothy most noteworthy among them. Paul met Timothy on his first missionary expedition to Galatia, or maybe we should say Timmy, because he was likely only 14 or 15 years old at the time. He, along with his mother and grandmother, godly Jewish women, became founding members of the Christian church in Lystra, Galatia.

By the time Paul and his team returned to their town about five years later on another mission expedition, Timothy's spiritual growth and character were so impressive that Paul invited him to join him on his traveling team. Timothy was probably 20 or in his early 20s at that point. These two became very close, and Paul grew to regard Timothy as if he were his own son. For much of the next 15 years, they served Christ together, traveling, evangelizing, planting churches. In time, Paul entrusted to Timothy the key oversight role for the churches in and around Ephesus, which was an extremely important hub of Christianity in the second half of the first century. That's where he was when he received the letters we call First and Second Timothy.

But returning to Paul's timeline, he was arrested in Jerusalem around 57 A.D. by long-standing enemies of his on trumped-up charges, spent a couple years in jail in Caesarea because the Roman governors of Judea did not know what to do with him. Then he was sent aboard the ship to Rome, where he spent the years 60 through 62 A.D. under house arrest, waiting for a trial before the Emperor Nero. If you want to understand what led to all this, listen to our podcast starting at Acts chapter 21. Being confined in Rome for those two years did not stop the expansion and development of the Christian movement, however. As Paul put it, I may be in chains, but the gospel is not chained.

It was not then because, by then, Paul had trained like Timothy, Titus, and maybe a dozen others who were carrying on the work, and Paul himself was staying in touch with them and with all the early churches through letters and emissaries coming and going from his confinement. The book of Acts, which is the history of the first 30 years of Christianity's growth, ends with Paul still under house arrest, hoping for a hearing before the Emperor Nero. It's unclear whether that occurred, but on some grounds, Paul was released from that imprisonment and was able to resume his evangelism and church planting work. Based on his own stated intentions in Romans chapter 15 and the confirmation of a couple extra-biblical sources, we believe that this is when he pushed further west to Spain.

Piecing clues together, it seems that after he returned to Ephesus, where he saw Timothy for what proved to be the last time, then apparently intending to once again cross over and visit the churches in Greece, while at the port city of Troas, preparing to cross over, he was arrested and returned once again for a final time as a prisoner to Rome. What led to that? Well, during those years Paul was in the west, something had happened that changed everything: the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. I believe we discussed that tragedy earlier. That suspicious fire, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the capital city, people in the know then and many historians now believe was intentionally set by Nero himself. Why would he have done that?

To make way for a very ambitious rebuilding of the capital that he envisioned. But when rumors spread that Nero may have been behind the destruction, the emperor shrewdly turned the spotlight, the suspicion, on the city's Christians. He blamed them. Christianity was a rapidly growing, but at that point largely misunderstood movement, which many were wary of. Some people feared its potential to seriously upset the status quo. So Nero scapegoated the Christians, which led to a time of very serious persecution.

Christianity became an illegal religion in the empire, and that is what led to the apostle Paul's re-arrest, since he was known to be its chief ringleader. This time, he was not put in a relatively comfortable house arrest situation, but was taken to a place in Rome called the Mamertine Prison. At this point in Rome's history, prison wasn't a place criminals went to serve out sentences for a crime. Prison was just a temporary holding place until your trial or until your punishment was meted out. And the Mamertine Prison, it was a cold, dark, subterranean dungeon, a place for the condemned. Paul knew that, and he didn't expect to be freed.

That's clear from this letter. It was from there, though, that he wrote to Timothy this last epistle, and near its end, the memorable lines, The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. I'm struck by these words to Timothy and to the world, really.

The word he used translated departure, the time for my departure has come, was from the idea of loosing the mooring lines of a ship so it could begin a voyage. That was Paul's confidence in the promises of God. The Romans could kill his body, but he would then just be moving on according to the promise of eternal life Christ had made him. This was at or about 67 A.D., and Paul was a man in his late 60s. I've said all this to be sure you understand the background of this letter, writing quite different in tone to anything we've seen from Paul before, and that's understandable considering where he was and under what circumstances he was writing. Listen now to his opening lines of chapter one.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I have served, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded now lives in you. Sounds like last words, doesn't it? This can't help but make me think what last things I would want to say to my children.

Paul realizes he would not see Timothy again, so his mind goes back. He remembers when he met him as a kid. He remembers his mother and his grandmother and their sincere faith. He remembers, I'm sure, that first exciting missionary trip through Galatia, where he and Timothy's paths first crossed, and then the years they worked together to spread the gospel and plant churches. And he remembers the last time they were together too, remembers Timothy's tears at their parting. It was probably in Ephesus, just before Paul headed north to Troas, where, as I said, he was arrested for the final time.

Considering what was then going on in the empire and who Paul was, they both understood at that parting it was very unlikely they would see each other again. In this lifetime, anyway. That's why Paul said, I'm writing to you, Timothy, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. Although he badly wished he could be together again in this life, the chances of that were now all but gone. But, but the promise of God in Christ Jesus, the promise of life, eternal life, Timothy, we will be together again in glory, he is reassuring him. And I'm certain they are.

This is all very human, isn't it? Very personal. The one thing Paul says in that opening that I find challenging is how he could say that he, and I mean Paul, had served God with a clear conscience. What a thing to be able to say at the end of your life's journey. I don't know about you, but I don't want to leave this life behind and the people I love behind, knowing there are important things that were left unsaid and left undone. A clear conscience means not that you're perfect or that you haven't messed up at times over the years, but that you've made things right with God and with men the best you've been able.

I know we talk in one lesson about the value of a clear conscience and how to gain one. It was episode 116. Go back there. Give it a listen if this topic interests you. You don't want to be where Paul was when he wrote this, knowing the end is near, feeling the burden of things on your conscience that you've never tried to make right. As his spiritual father and mentor, Paul had very important things on his mind he wants to encourage and challenge Timothy with.

Remember, the survival and success of the Christian movement would now depend on him and others like him. Paul is keenly aware of that. Listen to some of what he felt the need to impress on Timothy at this point. Referring back to his confidence in the sincerity of Timothy's faith, he goes on at verse 6, For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner.

Rather, join me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace, grace given us in Christ Jesus before time began, now revealed through his appearing, our Savior Jesus Christ, who destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Of this gospel I was appointed a herald, an apostle and a teacher, and that is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know in whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. So, Timothy, what you heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ. Guard this good deposit that was entrusted to you.

Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. In these last words, Paul urges Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God in him through the laying on of Paul's hands. The gift he is referring to is Timothy's pastoral gift, that is, the gift of teaching and leading others. Fan into flame pictures a person blowing on glowing coals or kindling that need more oxygen to once again burst into flames. The laying on of hands is a way the church has always ordained men for special ministry. So Paul is reminding Timothy of that when he committed his life to ministry, to spend his life and use his gifts for Christ's purposes.

Did Paul have some reason for believing Timothy was slacking now, or that he was discouraged, or too stymied by fear? I don't know, but he certainly knew that that was possible in the current climate. So he's challenging Timothy to burn brightly like a torch, to keep leading the way for others who are looking to him now for leadership. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. So don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner, Paul says. Rather, join me in suffering for the gospel.

He means, if it comes to that. Humanly speaking, there certainly were reasons for Timothy to feel afraid, to want to hide his faith in Christ and his association with the apostle Paul. But that's certainly not what the Holy Spirit within him would have him do, and that would go against everything Timothy promised at his ordination. None of us are certainly in a place to judge him if he was hesitating to pick up the banner and lead as boldly as Paul had. Most of us are intimidated by far less than what he was facing. What do we have to be afraid of when it comes to being bold about our faith?

For most of us, maybe a little ridicule. Someone may unfriend us on Facebook. Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. That's a challenge not just for Timothy, but for every one of us. These verses reminded me of my own ordination, of the Christian leaders and pastors of a generation before me who laid their hands on me, remembering that they are now counting on me, as they are all gone, and that certainly Christ is counting on me to be faithful, to use my gifts, to not be ashamed, to carry the torch. A few nights ago, feeling challenged with those thoughts, I looked through all my pictures, going back 40-some years, to find a photo of my ordination, and I found one, and I printed it, and I framed it, and I put it in my office, right on the wall where I can't help but see it as I work there every day.

Paul is reminding Timothy of that day in his life, and of those who laid their hands on him, that they are trusting him now to carry the torch forward faithfully, to not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, to keep boldly using his gifts in the power of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, the evidence that we have is that Timothy did. Paul goes on to challenge his son in the faith, What you heard from me, keep as a pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit. You hear us talk about this often on Share the Word.

Why? Because the New Testament talks about it so often. It's one of the biggest of the big ideas. Paul has known Timothy for around 20 years when he wrote this. Much of that time they were working together in ministry. Paul had taught Timothy personally, and Timothy heard numberless sermons and teaching sessions from the Apostle Paul as he watched him minister in this community and that community, this church and that church.

Timothy was very acquainted by now with Christian doctrine and practice. This charge from Paul is to always bear in mind that what he has heard time and again, that is the pattern. You know what a pattern is, right? It's something you copy. It's something that's repeated. You don't freestyle when someone gives you a pattern to follow.

Paul is saying, What you have heard me teach, you teach, Timothy. What you have heard me preach, you preach, Timothy. Another version puts this: Retain the standard of sound words. And another one, trying to be accurate and capture his meaning, Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you heard from me. This is easier for us in one way than it was for Timothy, because we have the pattern, the sound words now, the sound teaching that Paul was referring to, not just in our memories as it was for Timothy largely, but we have those words all written down in the New Testament Scripture. What it has to say is the pattern.

Guard this treasure that's been entrusted to you, Paul urged him. One more time, let me urge you, emphasize here, the Christian faith, the corpus of doctrine and practice that make up Christianity, was delivered to us by Christ and his apostles once for all time, and it's been safeguarded to us through the Holy Spirit's inspiration in the New Testament writings. This is the pattern of truth from which we cannot deviate. This is the treasure that we are to guard. Probably the best known lines from this wonderful chapter, a section straight from the heart of the Apostle Paul, are at verse 12, where he writes. Though I am suffering, yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

I know whom I have believed, not just what I believe, but whom I believe, that is Jesus Christ. I believe Christ, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him against that day. What had Paul entrusted to Christ? Certainly his eternal soul, but a lot more than his soul, his whole life too, with all its astounding accomplishments, as well as all its pain and suffering and disappointments. It had all been done for Christ, all because he trusted Christ and his promises.

So Paul was confident not only that he would be in heaven one day soon because of the one in whom he believed, but that on that day, the day he would see Christ, he'd be welcomed with the well done, good and faithful servant, because he had left it all on the field, as we'd say, given his best for the cause of Christ and the gospel, and he badly wanted to have the same thing play out in Timothy's future. Do you feel his passion for that? Does it challenge you at all? Thanks for listening today. This has been Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul.

You know, as a young child, I wrote a letter to my grandfather, me in the U.S. and he was in Italy. No cell phones, just words on a page, hoping he'd get better. Now, I don't know if he ever got my letter, and if he didn't, he certainly didn't know I ever sent one. Paul's love and care for Timothy was evident in his letter. It certainly served as a fatherly message of encouragement, hope, and a reminder that his life and actions served Christ. It was as though he was saying, Son, carry on and don't fall like some of the others.

It was clear that Timothy held a special place in Paul's heart. We all have the capability of encouragement, guidance, and today, unlike Paul's time, we have the ability to immediately connect with those that we love, and we can share our hearts and the good news of the gospel. I don't know if my grandfather ever got my letter back then, but I will never regret picking up the phone to do what the Apostle Paul did so lovingly. Don't wait to make that call. Do it now and share your testimony of how Jesus changed your life.