Coming Up For Air

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 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 fathe...

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 [b]genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice… From 2 Timothy 1, New King James Version Elyse Fitzpatrick in her influential parenting book, Give Them Grace effectively reduces the opposite approach. “We're very comfortable thinking, good parenting in, good children out.” Since we are as permanent she says to reducing parenting, and relationships generally, to a pragmatic, manipulative formula which she has stated with such directness, I've decided to share four of her factors for parenting differently. Perhaps some of these distinguished the faith which Paul recalls dwelt in Timothy's mother Eunice as it did in his grandmother Lois. 1. “I thought parenting ...

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.   From 2 Timothy 1, New King James Version T.S. Eliot deems dangerous the tendency "to associate tradition with the immovable; to think of it as something hostile to all change; to aim to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation in perpetuity". "Tradition without intelligence, he challenges, "is not worth having.” As a vibrant antidote to immovable tradition personified, 2 Timothy 1:5 gives us a glimpse of Timothy's grandmother as Paul's paragon of abiding faith. Be warned, this isn't your grandmother's faith. Whate...

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. "The hardest war to fight," insists Switchfoot in "Against the Voices "is the fight to be yourself." I call that vigor to mind when I consider Paul's verb describing faith in 2 Timothy 1:5. I suspect that if we were to animate faith with verbs, they would be somewhat defensive, impersonal verbs like proclaim, conform to, and pass on uncorrupted. The faith Paul recalls as coursing through Timothy's family line is not a brand, a banner, or a badge. When Paul describes faith here, he describes it as dwelling in succeeding generations. Paul seems to experience a sense o...

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 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… "My guilt," realizes Tim Keller in retrospect in Songs of Jesus as he meditates in print on Psalm 130, "was like low-level chronic pain. When it was removed," he says of his personal epiphany, "I realized it had drained my life of joy and confidence." Having lived into adulthood and mistaken zeal in ministry with something like the low-level chronic pain of guilt that Tim Keller describes, the apostle Paul seems determined to exercise the possibility of the im...

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… Drawing from the deep well of David's Psalm 30:5 assurance that sorrow may last for the night but that joy comes in the morning, Tim Keller extends in Songs of Jesus , "While God can be angry with his people, anger is never the final word, and so joy is always on the way, always coming to those who believe in him. In Jesus," Keller's sense of persevering joy builds, " this principle goes even further, to "sorrow PRODUCING joy." Paul has the same sense of the continuity of the human emotional spectrum in 2 Timothy 1:4. He specifically calls to mind Timothy's tears. He knows life and distance are painful. He isn't a Pollyanna.  Yet he, like Keller, sees times of sorrow and vulnerability as a means to a greater end, THAT he...

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… From 2 Timothy 1, New King James Version As much as I love the pith and penetration of a good quote, or a bad one to make the opposite point, I don't always source them well. Thus, we will have to leave a sentiment I came across with respect to tears for the angels to credit, were more likely for Christ to hold to account. The writer said tears are OK, but that when they are finished, one still has to figure out what to do. Casting Crowns in one of my favorite songs and albums, both titled Between the Altar and the Door gives a holy sheen to the idea that tears are temporary. They are, the song laments, often dry before we get leave the floor of our repentance. Paul has a different idea about tears, though. Their purpose is apparently more lasting than the evaporation of saltwater f...