Guard the Deposit

Intro

Last week we finished up Acts and saw that Paul spent two years in Rome under guard awaiting trial. The whole time he was able to proclaim the Kingdom of God and the teaching of Jesus without hindrance. Today, we’re beginning a series on 2 Timothy.

This is the last of Paul’s letters, written after what has been recorded in Acts. Christian tradition tells us that Paul was apparently released from prison in Rome and continued ministry in some way. Some traditions suggests that Paul made it to Spain before his final arrest in Rome, which is where this letter was sent to Timothy. Whatever the circumstances, they seem to Paul to be leading to the end of his life around 67 or 68 AD.

Where are they?

Timothy has been posted in Ephesus by Paul for some time. Ephesus was a city well-acquainted with Paul and his teaching as he had spent close to three years there during his third missionary journey. According to the first letter, Paul left Timothy in Ephesus to appoint elders and deacons in the church there and ensure right doctrine and living according to the way of Jesus.

What is the occasion of the letter?

What we will see through our time in 2 Timothy over the next several weeks are personal instructions to Timothy about how to stand firm in the face of trials and Paul’s desire that Timothy come visit him before his death. The instructions center around continuing the work that Paul had started, using the gifts that the Lord had given Timothy and in the face of Paul’s imminent death continuing with fervor.

It is all too easy to cool in our affection for Jesus and the gospel as we get older. We can get set in our ways of ministry getting into ruts that don’t fulfill God’s task for us. Paul wanted Timothy to continue to have fire, pursuing his ministry each day as if it was his first. The solution to the potential cooling is to have sincere faith. Today, we’ll see Paul describe sincere faith with imperatives, or commands, which will help us understand what sincere faith looks like: fanning into flame the gift, not being ashamed of the gospel, sharing in suffering, following the pattern(example) of sound doctrine, and guarding the gospel.

2 Timothy 1 ESV

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 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 God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me— may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.

Main idea and where we’re going

With Jesus at the center of our faith in both content and empowerment, we are encouraged to sincere faith expressed by using our gifts, being unashamed of the gospel truths, sharing in suffering for the gospel, following the example of those who come before us, and guarding the gospel from false teaching.

This passage is intended to remind us that we are to continually strive toward sincere faith empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s background for exhortation (vv.1-5)

Explanation

Paul opens the letter with a typical greeting identifying him as an apostle of Jesus Christ by God’s will. In this letter, Paul deviates from his typical greeting and adds a clarifying statement regarding the goal of his apostleship. That clarifying statement is about life that is found in Christ. In John 10:10 Jesus had promised to give life to those who believe and that life would be an abundant life. This gift of life that we receive through Christ is what we call eternal life, which is about quality just as much as it is about quantity. The life that we’re given is life for all time, but one of abundance that we experience now as we are unified with Christ.

A typical Pauline greeting is grace and peace, but here in verse two we see the addition of mercy to that typical formula. Paul Yarbrough believes that mercy is a key ingredient for pastoral ministry because it is fundamental to personal salvation, the Gentile reception of the gospel, and God’s favor on judgment day. All of these are important to the church’s ministry of evangelism and soul care that is typical of pastors.

What comes after Paul’s greeting is also typical of his letters, a short prayer of thanksgiving for the recipient, the one exception to this is the letter to Galatia where he dives right into the content. Paul uses his thanksgivings to provide the themes of the letters. It is as if he is thankful in anticipation for the work that the letter will do to affect those things in his audience.

Application

Before we get into specifics about the themes, I want to stop for a second and talk about thanksgiving and gratitude. The writers of the New American Commentary write this about Paul’s opening thanksgiving:

1, 2 Timothy, Titus 2 Timothy 1:5

Gratitude is a sacrifice that continually pleases God (Heb 13:15). The imprisoned apostle, lonely and facing death, could have been filled with a morbid foreboding and an attitude of complaint. Instead, he expressed thanksgiving and gratitude at the memory of the faithfulness and love of his younger friend Timothy. Like a ray of moonlight penetrating the darkness of night, Paul’s gratitude for Timothy brought light into Paul’s inner man. His spirit of thankfulness prevented a focusing on himself and a preoccupation with discomfort and pain. It permitted him to focus on helping Timothy to fulfill God’s plan in his life. It thus allowed the apostle to accomplish more completely the divine will

Paul’s expressed gratitude helped him find joy in even the darkest of circumstances. Do you spend time in thanksgiving and gratitude, or what others call appreciation, especially in times of struggle? The challenge of that is if you don’t cultivate the habits of appreciation in the good times, they won’t be there when you really need them. Neuroscience in the area of gratitude is a booming area of study right now, and there is scientific evidence that practicing gratitude increases dopamine and serotonin and develops neural pathways that help us regulate heavy emotions and in some cases can be just as effective as medication in fighting depression. In other words, gratitude that has been practiced can be used during difficult times to give us the resilience that we need to persevere through the trial ahead of us. God has created us to be people who express gratitude and has wired us so that our gratitude will help us get through whatever trial we face.

You can practice appreciation by remembering the acrostic GAMES: Gratitude, Anticipation, Memories, Experiences, Singing. The first three are about taking time to embrace the scenes. Gratitude focuses on what is happening in the present, anticipation is looking forward to something that you expect will bring you joy, memories are events that have given you joy in the past. Experiences is using creativity to design something you’d like for the future like a vacation, project, or house. Singing is the final way to cultivate appreciation, the benefits of singing are numerous but one is that it can bring joy in hard times. All of these take practice and I encourage you all to do just that!

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Coming back to the text we discover in verses 3 through 5 Paul’s themes, first is a heritage of ancestry, and the second is the personal relationship between Paul and Timothy. Paul is going to weave these two themes throughout his entire letter as the basis for the encouragement and guidance that Paul is giving him.

Paul claims to come in a long line of ancestors who serve God, namely his Jewish, Benjamite family. Paul also points to the heritage of ancestry of Timothy by mentioning his Mom and Grandmother. While God doesn’t have any grandchildren, we all must come to our own conclusions, there are things that we as parents can and should do in order to form our children. The main reason is because our faith is not a matter of information transfer, but the way the information shapes our lives.

Lifeway Research conducted a study on the habits of families and developed an indicator of spiritual health for children after leaving the house. They discovered that the parental actions and model were a large indicator of a child’s continuation in the faith after leaving the house: adult children had higher spiritual health scores if they grew up with parents who spent time:

Reading the Bible several times a week.

Taking part in a service project or church mission trip as a family.

Sharing their faith with unbelievers.

Encouraging teenagers to serve in church.

Asking forgiveness when they messed up as parents.

Encouraging their children’s unique talents and interests.

Taking annual family vacations.

Attending churches with teaching that emphasized what the Bible says.

Teaching their children to tithe.

They conclude: All these little things can pay off by showing kids what practicing your faith looks like. How we live our lives at home matters. Spiritual heritage of those who come before us matters.

The second theme that Paul is going to lean on is the Heritage of personal relationship between him and Timothy. They have been through a lot together, Timothy has been his right-hand man at many points throughout his ministry beginning in his second missionary journey. The relationship that the two men had was father to son and brother to brother.

These themes in the thanksgiving set the stage for what is to come in the following verses.

What does sincere faith look like? (vv.6-14)

Explanation

In verses 6-14, Paul directs or even commands Timothy to do five things: fan into flame the gift he had been given by God, don’t be ashamed of the gospel, share in suffering for the gospel, follow the example of sound teaching or doctrine, and guard the good deposit.

Fan into flame the gift (v.6-7)

Because Paul knew Timothy so well, he knew the type of faith that he had. Paul had also seen others’ faith begin to wane, particularly as Paul experienced a second major arrest and was looking at execution.

Paul told Timothy to fan into flame, or in some translations “rekindle” the gift that God had given him. There is a lot of scholarly debate on whether Paul saw Timothy’s faith as waning or if it was a general encouragement. Both sides have their reasons, but I tend to think that this is an exhortation to fan the flame to ensure that the flame continues to burn.

Illustration of feeding a fire with kindling

With fires, there are three building blocks: tinder, kindling, and fuel. The tinder is what will light quickly from a spark, but unfortunately will die quickly because its volume is used up quickly. Kindling is a slightly thicker or more dense wood what catches fire relatively quickly but has enough volume to burn for a couple minutes. The fuel usually is the log, the large piece of wood that burns for a long time. The fuel, however takes a good bit of burning around it to light. While all three are important, kindling takes perhaps a primary role. Kindling is used to ensure that the fuel for a fire gets to the right temperature so that it will catch fire and stay lit. Its main job is to burn wood logs and keep the fire going after it is started.

The Greek word anazopyreo means to rekindle or stir up. The sense is to stir up a flame that hasn’t yet been roaring, something more akin to feeding the fire into a roaring flame with no care about the reason for it’s previous state. I think this is what Paul is conveying here. The idea is that Paul is encouraging Timothy, not because of any perceived failure on his part, but because there are pressures on him there in Ephesus and ministry is hard.

What I think what Paul is saying is that the flame has started in Timothy, but there is danger when Paul dies that the flame will go out. He’s telling Timothy to keep fanning the flame and adding kindling so that when the tinder (of Paul’s life) runs out, the flame of his own faith will be self-sufficient, he won’t need the encouragement and constant example of Paul to continue to fulfill his ministry.

I think this is why Paul mentions both laying his hands on Timothy and the Spirit’s work in his gift. Timothy’s service is not reliant on Paul’s affirmation of him either in the past, nor in the future, but it is based on the gift that had been given by God through his Spirit. Paul laid his hands on Timothy at some point as a symbolic act of commission and authority, not as an impartation. Paul did not bestow a certain gift upon him, but he recognized the gift that had been given and affirmed it through the laying on of hands. And to clarify, Paul goes on to what we see in verse 7.

Paul is reminding Timothy that his power comes from the Holy Spirit, not from anything that Paul had mystically given him. The Holy Spirit is the provider of gifts and what he provides isn’t fear, timidity, or cowardice, rather it’s power, love, and self-control.

Another way of translation of verse 7 is:

The Letters to Timothy and Titus 2 Timothy 1:6–14

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

The last word of that verse is subject to several different renderings: (ESV) Self-discipline; (CSB) sound judgment; (NKJV) sound mind

The word is used only here in the New Testament, which is why there is so much differentiation, but it refers to a “wise head” which provides wise guidance for the use of power and love. Timothy needed power to complete the hard task, love to treat all with gentleness, and a wise head to correct and warn those who were wayward or careless.

Fan into flame the gift of God, because you have received power, love, and a wise head from the same God.

Don’t be ashamed of the gospel (v.8)

For Paul there was a direct correlation between his imprisonment and the gospel. To be ashamed of his chains would have been to be ashamed of the gospel. So he tells Timothy, don’t be ashamed of the gospel.

Paul knows that the message of the gospel is foolish to those who don’t accept it: a failed prophet was rejected by his people and executed by the world power, and the stories were spread by fishermen and the rejects of Jewish society. There is much to be ashamed of from the human perspective, but there was more to be gained in being unashamed because true life is the result. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. It was what united Paul and Timothy, it’s what unites you and I, and it is what unites all of us to Christ.

The same is true for us. There are still many reasons to be ashamed of the gospel. In a world of tolerance and living your truth, there’s no room for the truth of the gospel that says that we are hopelessly separated from God and that separation is death. There’s no room for sin, judgment, or death because we have to let people live their truths. Unfortunately, It is in “their truths” which are lies that they have believed that they will find that death awaits them with open arms. But it is the power of the gospel that can save them.

Share in Suffering (v.8)

Paul continues by encouraging Timothy to share in suffering for the gospel. Suffering is a theme that unites all of the New Testament writings and any teaching that seeks to avoid suffering is in direct opposition to Paul’s understanding of the gospel. For Paul, suffering is a necessary part of the Christian experience. As Jesus suffered, so will we. For Paul, as he suffers, so will Timothy. Paul’s advice is not to find ways out of suffering, but rather to share in the suffering, as the NRSV puts it, by relying on the power of God.

Gordon Fee says this about Paul’s model of suffering.

1 and 2 Timothy, Titus 2 Timothy 1:8

Paul does not want Timothy to avoid the humiliation generated by his association with Christ (to testify about our Lord, or perhaps to be understood more objectively, “of the witness [gospel] about our Lord”) or by his association with me, his prisoner (when imprisoned for Christ, Paul was not in his own thinking a prisoner of the empire, but of Christ himself).

Basis of Exhortation (vv.8b-11)

Paul bases sharing in the suffering for the gospel in the power of God then we read

2 Timothy 1:9–11 (ESV)

who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

What we get in these verses is a lot of what God has done and an invitation. Paul reminds Timothy, and we are reminded today that it is the Power of God that allows us to do any of the things Paul has commanded Timothy. It is God who has saved us. It is God who has called us to a holy calling. God has done the work and he has done it for his own purposes! God’s grace had been extended to us before time began and is made clear in the person of Jesus. Jesus abolished death and brought life, abundant and immortal, through the gospel. God’s kingdom was now available for us to participate in. And it comes with an invitation.

The invitation we have been given is to respond to God as a partner. In Paul’s writing, as we’ll continue to see throughout our time in 2 Timothy, there is a particular type of life that we are to live. Here it’s described as a holy calling. This holy life isn’t something that we can conjure under our own power, but it is a response to the invitation of God’s empowerment. God calls us and then empowers us to partner with him to live out the holy life that he has called us to. God wants us to not just believe in him, but for our lives to increasingly look like him. That we would increasingly become holy as we increase in our union with Christ, increasingly taking on the character and likeness of Jesus so that we can represent him well to the world around us.

We do not personally have the resources to accomplish all that God has for us to do, but the resources we need are accessed in Jesus’s death-destroying and light disseminating ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. As Paul sits in prison pondering his coming execution, I can picture him meditating on Psalm 56:13 as the basis of his confidence.

Psalm 56:13 “For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”

Paul Guarding the deposit or God (v.12)

Paul goes on to explain in verse 12 to claim that it is because of the gospel that he is in chains.

2 Timothy 1:12 NIV

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

There are some translation differences for this verse, but the one that makes most sense to me is this one from the NIV. Paul is not ashamed of his work for the gospel because he has an experiential knowledge of God and knows that God will protect him. God will guard what Paul has entrusted to him, his life, until Christ returns. That is his whole reason for not being ashamed of his suffering.

Paul tells Timothy, fan into flame your gift, don’t be ashamed of the gospel, and share in suffering because God is able to protect you.

Follow the example of sound doctrine(v.13)

2 Timothy 1:13 “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

NLT says it this way: Hold on to the PATTERN of wholesome teaching you learned from me-- a PATTERN shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus.

The idea of the pattern of sound words is the same idea as an example or model. Paul had given a model of how to proclaim the kingdom of God and teach about Jesus. Paul points to his model in other letters to churches, and reminds Timothy to stick with the model.

What this probably entails is the oral traditions about Jesus that Paul had memorized and passed on, but also the way of life. Paul is encouraging Timothy to hold fast to the oral traditions and the living models that Paul gave him.

Illustrate Examples and how they work

You might have heard the concept that Jim Rhon teaches: “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with,” or maybe the proverb from 1 Corinthians 15, “bad company ruins good morals.”

This rule suggests that the five people we spend the most time with, shape who we are. It borrows from the law of averages, which is the theory that “the result of any given situation will be the average of all outcomes.” So even though we connect with many people, its only those few that are closest to use that really influence and have impact on our way of thinking and decisions.

This is because we have a God-given system within our brains that help us learn through what we see. They’re called mirror neurons and they help us imitate what we see, whether it’s emotional or physical. Within our brains, our character is formed by seeing our people act and react in certain ways. The mirror neurons transfer that knowledge to character and that character is acted out. When Paul talks about the example he set, he’s talking about the way of life that he has set before Timothy which includes knowledge, but more importantly the way it is lived out. This corresponds with verse 9 where Paul says we’ve been called to a holy calling or way of life like we talked about a minute ago. For Paul, the content of knowledge must include how it is lived out and that is to be mirrored and passed on.

1, 2 Timothy, Titus 2 Timothy 1:13

How Timothy maintained orthodoxy was as important as the content of orthodoxy itself. Timothy’s faith was to focus on Christ Jesus. The love that flowed from that relationship provided sensible, compassionate direction in his work of teaching and directing others (see Eph 4:15–16). It would enable Timothy to teach the truth in love. Paul realized that Timothy’s faith and love were fruits of his union with Jesus Christ.

How one follows the pattern of sound teaching involves knowledge transfer, but the relationships provide examples of the knowledge in practice. It is the knowledge in practice that lasts. That is what Paul is encouraging Timothy to lean on.

Guard the good deposit (v.14)

Finally, Paul exhorts Timothy to guard the deposit. In this case, the deposit is the gospel itself. Paul had entrusted the gospel, with its right thinking and action to Timothy as he left him in Ephesus. And Paul sees that in the near future, Timothy will have to continue to guard the gospel without Paul’s guidance.

Paul believed that the way to guard the deposit was to rely on the Holy Spirit to do so. Jesus said that the spirit he would leave his followers would lead us into all truth and remind us of the things he said and did. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to Guard the deposit of the gospel within the believers and the community of believers as we devote ourselves to it and to passing it on.

1 and 2 Timothy, Titus 2 Timothy 1:13–14

Thus the appeal has come full circle. It began by urging that Timothy fan into flame his gift of ministry, which was his through the power of the Spirit (vv. 6–7). Then Paul urged loyalty to the gospel and to himself, even though now a prisoner. After detailing the gospel and Paul’s own loyalty to it, with emphasis on God’s sovereignty, he returns to urge once more loyalty to his (Timothy’s) own ministry and to the gospel; and again he is to do so with the help of the Spirit.

Two examples (v.15-18)

Here in the last few verses of chapter one, we see two examples, one negative and one positive.

Phygelus and Hermongenes

We know nothing about these two men apart from what is mentioned here. But what we can see is that in these two we have examples of desertion and faithlessness expressed in their mention. It’s possible that they were ringleaders of trouble in Ephesus along with a couple other men mentioned later in the letter, but the key is that they had turned away from Paul, but probably more specifically turned away from the gospel as a result of his imprisonment in Rome. They had used their leadership to lead people away from the gospel, not guard the gospel.

Onesiphorus

Onesiphorus on the other hand receives commendation as an example for Timothy to emulate. Onesiphorus had a habit of encouraging and refreshing Paul and not shying away when he was in chains. Paul relays that Onesiphorus found him in Rome which suggests that Paul was not in a public prison and so it took a great deal of diligent effort to find Paul. It seems that thought Onesiphorus has a ministry that is different than Timothy’s in scope, there is a hope in Paul that Timothy will be like Onesiphorus in fanning the flame of his gift, not being ashamed of the gospel, sharing in suffering, following the example of sounds words, and guarding the good deposit.

Main Application

Where does that leave us for today? How can we put into action what we’ve heard today?

Most practically we talked about the model that you live out in the home having long-lasting impacts on the faith of your children. It doesn’t guarantee any outcomes, but it does guide them. Also, we talked briefly about cultivating appreciation using the acronym, GAMES: gratitude, anticipation, memories, experiences, and singing. Practice appreciation now so that when you are in a trial the habits are already there. For more on this, I commend a book by Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman called “Building Bounce.”

I want to you to hear the call of the grace of Jesus. He came to earth to make a way for us to come into union with him and he did it in spite of our sin. He lived the life we couldn’t live and gave himself up to the powers of the world in order to buy us back. He rose again conquering death, the grave, and Satan so that we can have life eternal with Him. Turn away from your current way of life and turn to Jesus today giving him everything that you are. As the Spirit makes you alive to this reality only then will you have power to really apply what Paul encourages Timothy to do in our passage. MJN Are you using the gifts that God has given you? Are you ashamed of the gospel? Do you avoid suffering? Do you pay attention to the teachings about Jesus and live them out? Do you stand up for the truth of the gospel in a difficult world? Are you trying to bootstrap your efffort or are you relying on the Spirit within you to cultivate those things in your life?