2 Timothy 1:5 – Four Signs Our Hearts Can Be Persuaded to Find Faith in Others
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 2 Timothy 1:1-5, New King James Version
Charles Krauthammer is honest enough in The Point of It All to admit that, even as a surgeon, witnessing his first birth by C-section, "It was difficult to see the poetry for the blood.“
Parents and other disciplers can relate. Perhaps that's why the Holy Spirit inspired Paul as Timothy's spiritual father to insert three words in 2 Timothy 1:5. Paul is realistic enough about Timothy's emotional bruises, blood beneath the surface, to call to mind the young pastor's tears. Yet, weakling wasn't Paul's final verdict.
Paul says I AM PERSUADED that the same faith abides in Timothy which has had more time to deepen, mellow, and sweeten his mother and grandmother. He waits. He considers. As he has said, he prays. He leaves, brothers and sisters, himself open to persuasion as to what Timothy is really made of.
Let's consider four factors which allow the visionary, persistent, gracious disciple-maker to see the poetry for the blood, to find the faith instead of focusing on the fear.
1. We can recognize the role of the sovereign gift of faith in our own testimony.
A faith-finder is accustomed to looking for it and focusing on it in his or her own life. The introduction to 2 Timothy shows that faith is the very ink soaked through and imprinted upon Paul's spiritual business card. He is honest, excited, grateful that God has called him to a work through faith for which he is entirely disqualified by history.
2. We are in the habit of preaching to our own hearts and minds.
Elsewhere, the Scripture says the man of faith calls forth the things that are not as though they are. Paul is insistent on this. He is talking to a Greek-Jewish halfbreed, outsider. Yet the words MY SON form in his mind and flow from his pen.
What Paul is determined to look for in the twists and turns of Timothy's life and emotions is already predetermined by Timothy's identity according to the sovereign grace to which Paul himself is already beholden. If faith is real and transformative enough to give Paul intimate relationships which will outlast those in this life, it is certainly vibrant enough to flash through any current weakness in Timothy.
3. We have been willing to invest time and authenticity in relationships.
Before the thwarted opportunity to despise Timothy's tears comes up, Paul already recalls them in the context of a relationship. They share a history, as Paul's concern for Timothy's stomach in 1 Timothy 6 and his investiture already in Timothy's heritage in 2 Timothy 1 show. As memorable as tears are, as much as they can make us shift our weight and stare at the floor when they flow undignified from a stranger, in a friend, in a son, they soften the ground of two knitted hearts for further relational growth.
4. We are in the habit of looking deeper than today's agenda.
Paul looks at his own present position and see dead people. He sees, as he has said, ancestors who died secure in a faith which is now clearer to him than it was to them. He sees, metaphorically, his own death both in terms of his aspirations and the weight of his past guilt. As God has been about centuries of work to bring him to this point, almost home at the old apostle faces impending execution, he can draw from a well of assurance that God will finish what he has started in Timothy.
2 To Timothy, a beloved son:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 2 Timothy 1:1-5, New King James Version
Charles Krauthammer is honest enough in The Point of It All to admit that, even as a surgeon, witnessing his first birth by C-section, "It was difficult to see the poetry for the blood.“
Parents and other disciplers can relate. Perhaps that's why the Holy Spirit inspired Paul as Timothy's spiritual father to insert three words in 2 Timothy 1:5. Paul is realistic enough about Timothy's emotional bruises, blood beneath the surface, to call to mind the young pastor's tears. Yet, weakling wasn't Paul's final verdict.
Paul says I AM PERSUADED that the same faith abides in Timothy which has had more time to deepen, mellow, and sweeten his mother and grandmother. He waits. He considers. As he has said, he prays. He leaves, brothers and sisters, himself open to persuasion as to what Timothy is really made of.
Let's consider four factors which allow the visionary, persistent, gracious disciple-maker to see the poetry for the blood, to find the faith instead of focusing on the fear.
1. We can recognize the role of the sovereign gift of faith in our own testimony.
A faith-finder is accustomed to looking for it and focusing on it in his or her own life. The introduction to 2 Timothy shows that faith is the very ink soaked through and imprinted upon Paul's spiritual business card. He is honest, excited, grateful that God has called him to a work through faith for which he is entirely disqualified by history.
2. We are in the habit of preaching to our own hearts and minds.
Elsewhere, the Scripture says the man of faith calls forth the things that are not as though they are. Paul is insistent on this. He is talking to a Greek-Jewish halfbreed, outsider. Yet the words MY SON form in his mind and flow from his pen.
What Paul is determined to look for in the twists and turns of Timothy's life and emotions is already predetermined by Timothy's identity according to the sovereign grace to which Paul himself is already beholden. If faith is real and transformative enough to give Paul intimate relationships which will outlast those in this life, it is certainly vibrant enough to flash through any current weakness in Timothy.
3. We have been willing to invest time and authenticity in relationships.
Before the thwarted opportunity to despise Timothy's tears comes up, Paul already recalls them in the context of a relationship. They share a history, as Paul's concern for Timothy's stomach in 1 Timothy 6 and his investiture already in Timothy's heritage in 2 Timothy 1 show. As memorable as tears are, as much as they can make us shift our weight and stare at the floor when they flow undignified from a stranger, in a friend, in a son, they soften the ground of two knitted hearts for further relational growth.
4. We are in the habit of looking deeper than today's agenda.
Paul looks at his own present position and see dead people. He sees, as he has said, ancestors who died secure in a faith which is now clearer to him than it was to them. He sees, metaphorically, his own death both in terms of his aspirations and the weight of his past guilt. As God has been about centuries of work to bring him to this point, almost home at the old apostle faces impending execution, he can draw from a well of assurance that God will finish what he has started in Timothy.
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