So, why am I telling you all this? Because we encounter such statements in Paul’s letter to Timothy, the second Timothy, that we’re going through today. And we remember that this is a personal letter, a personal letter from Paul to Timothy, who is a son in the faith and is also the pastor at Ephesus. And essentially, Paul is encouraging Timothy to be strong, be true, be faithful, be loyal and to not get distracted by you know, every nuanced argument out there. So, he’s referring to the fact that people are saying different things, maybe even writing down different things and that it’s not a good use of his time to try to argue out every new thought. And in addressing that, he’s like this is a statement that can be trusted. Right, so this is one of these early statements the people have been memorizing and reciting. If we have died with Him, we will live with Him. If we endure, we will rule with Him. If we disown Him, He will disown us. If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful because He cannot be untrue to Himself. So, Paul is reminding Timothy of this declaration and he’s also reminding Timothy, to remind others to continue to teach this forward. So, Paul is saying remember these things that you were taught, remember these things that you have memorized. Don’t let anyone else in the church forget these are the core essentials, these declarations, this is essential. And he’s saying and reminding Timothy to do that because of all this other thought swirling around, because Paul’s discussion here with Timothy is to not get distracted in every kind of argument that can be thought up. I mean, Paul even names Hymenaeus and Philetus, like people who are doing this. So like, people who are in and around the church who are, you know, having these esoteric conversations because they heard somebody, who heard somebody say something, who heard somebody say something. And it, it’s a distraction, Paul’s saying. And he’s going back and saying you have these core statements, right, because Timothy couldn’t get up and say let’s turn to the book of first Timothy. He can certainly say I got a letter from our father in the faith, Paul, who’s in prison and this is what he has to say, this is kind of what he told me, but the framework of the way that we interact with the New Testament, they didn’t have that framework. So, these statements that we find in Paul’s letters or in letters from other apostles or from gospel writers, things that kind of look like poems in the middle of a story, which is kind of how the statement that we’re talking about today in second Timothy looks. This is where we get clues to what was going on in the formation of the church before there was a New Testament that sought to solidify the theological understanding of the good news. These statements are some of the earliest statements, earliest understandings of what God was doing in the world that we have. And we should recognize and treasure them because they’re probably some of the oldest statements of faith in Jesus that we have. So, there’s a couple more statements like this in today’s reading that we have.
Daily Readings and Commentary from the Daily Audio Bible