A personal word to Timothy
1
📚Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to 📖 the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,2 📚To my dearly loved son Timothy: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 📚I thank God 📖, whom I serve, as my forefathers 📖 did, with a clear conscience 📖, that night and day 📖 in my prayers I constantly remember you. 4 📚Recalling your tears 📖, I have a great desire to see you 📖, that I may be filled with joy. 5 📚For I remember the sincere faith 📖 that is in you, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and, I am persuaded, in you also.
1:5 Timothy’s father and paternal grandfather were Greeks and may not have been believers, but his mother and maternal grandmother were Jews. Both his mother and grandmother had believed the gospel of Christ (Acts 16:1-3).⚜
6 📚Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
1:6 By the “gift” he does not mean a natural ability but a spiritual ability which God gave Timothy at a specific time. God’s servants may neglect such an ability or let its bright flame die down. So Paul gives this exhortation. Timothy received a gift by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church (1 Tim 4:14). We do not know whether Paul is referring to that occasion here. Two separate laying on of hands for different purposes was not unknown. See Acts 9:17; 13:3.⚜
Good gifts from God to believers
7 📚For God has not given us the spirit of fear 📖, but of power 📖 and of love 📖 and of a sound mind 📖.
Gladly suffering for Christ because of God’s grace and the power of the gospel
8 📚So do not be ashamed 📖 of the testimony of our Lord or of me his prisoner 📖, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel 📖, by the power of God, 9 📚who has saved us and called us with a holy calling 📖. This was not according to our deeds, but according to his own purpose 📖 and grace, which was given to us in Christ 📖 Jesus before time began 📖, 10 📚but is now revealed 📖 by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death 📖, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 📚For this gospel I have been appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. 12 📚For this reason also I suffer these things. However, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed 📖, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have entrusted 📖 to him until that day 📖.
1:12 Paul’s sufferings (2 Tim 2:9; 2 Cor 1:8; 4:8-12; 6:4-10; 2 Cor 11:23-27) came because he was a servant of Christ (John 15:18-21; 16:1-4). He could have avoided them by withdrawing from the ministry. He did not do so because he was not ashamed to suffer for Christ – quite the opposite (Rom 5:3; 2 Cor 4:17-18; 12:10; Col 1:24).⚜
Keeping and guarding the truth
13 📚Hold firmly the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, with faith and love 📖 which are in Christ 📖 Jesus.
1:13 What Paul had taught Timothy was the very truth of God. Christ Himself had taught Paul this truth – Gal 1:11-12; Eph 3:2-3. Timothy was not to make his own “pattern” of doctrine. Neither are we. Everyone should follow the pattern God has given once and for all. If we preach and teach we must continually consult this pattern and build our ministry according to it. If we do not, we will make a wreck of it in God’s eyes (however much we may seem to be a success in the eyes of men).⚜
14 📚By the Holy Spirit 📖 who lives in us 📖, keep that good thing which was entrusted to you.
1:14 The “good thing” was God’s revealed truth, the pattern of sound teaching. Why do Christ’s servants need to guard it? Because there will be those who try to take it away from them and the Church.⚜
Some are deserters, others are helpers
15 📚You know that everyone in Asia 📖 has deserted me, including Phygellus and Hermogenes.
1:15 Paul was in prison and in danger. It was a sad fact that those who should have stood with him and helped him then did not do so (2 Tim 4:16). Compare Matt 26:56.⚜
16 📚The Lord be merciful to the household of Onesiphorus 📖, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 When he was in Rome he sought me out very earnestly and found me. 18 📚The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy 📖 from the Lord in that day. You know very well how many ways he served me in Ephesus.