This passage, which begins and ends with Paul’s suffering, centres on Scripture. It contains the verse which in Evangelical circles is probably the second best known (after John 3:16) Bible reference of all (more rightly it should be two verses, since one cannot understand 2 Tim 3:16 without the purpose declared in 2 Tim 3:17). [&hellip...
There are two takeaways from this chapter. The first is the lovely poem (or verse from a hymn) in vv.11-13 If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; 13 if we are [&hellip...
Sometimes it is the very people who respect the Bible most who are moost tempted to censor Scripture. This passage is a fine example of how we are tempted to massage Scripture to remove “difficulties” and make it sound more like something our world can understand. Why does our reading begin at v.3? The chapter [&hellip...
In this chapter Paul sets out some simple effective rules for Timothy about who are suitable people to be leaders in churches in particular he deals with “Bishops” and “Deacons”. Deacon means very different things today in Anglican and in Baptist churches, to name only two of the bewildering variety of leaders called “deacon” (all [&hellip...
The “Pastoral epistles” 1 & 2 Tim and Titus offer advice to two young companions of Paul’s travels called to church leadership – Timothy, in the big city of Ephesus and Titus on the island of Crete. There is even more debate about whether these letters were written by Paul than was the case for [&hellip...
