We’ve come a little further in our study of 2 Timothy this week, 2 Timothy 2:22-3:9.
2 Timothy 2:22 - 3:9
1) Truth is declared
2) Truth comes through repentance
3) Truth comes in power
1) Truth is declared
Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Not quarrelsome. Again, a person with and experience of the truth will have a calm confidence. The teacher (verse 25) does not argue, but instructs.
The is a place for wondering, for speculation, and discussion. But there is also a place for declaring, proclamation.
2) Truth comes through repentance
“In the hope that God will grant them repentance” verse 25.
The huge significance of this comment is easy to miss when the reader is following the flow of this part of the letter.
If it is God who grants repentance this gives us a clue to how we can pray for someone, either for an unbeliever or a backslider. We may wonder about the tension between a person’s free will and the call of God on a person’s life, but this at least seems to be clear. I can pray for someone that God will grant them repentance. That gift is God’s to give.
What of the person who wants to wait until the end of their life before turning to Jesus, those who think that they can plan a deathbed repentance? I tell them they can not presume that the ability to repent will be there for them then. The capacity to turn in faith might not be theirs then. That is why the Bible stresses the ‘now’ when it comes to repentance and turning to God.
3) Truth comes in power
Speaking of the last days, Paul must have meant that age in which he was living, which began with the crucifixion of Jesus. That he believed he was living in the last days is evident from his phrase “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” This is an instruction about how to behave in the present, not is some future time.
What sort of Christianity had Paul encountered when he visited Ephesus earlier? A powerless one!
See Acts 19:1-7
While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They answered, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. So Paul asked, Then what baptism did you receive? John’s baptism, they replied. Paul said, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.
When Paul was at Ephesus and wrote to the believers in Corinth he began his first letter to them by stressing the importance of the power of the Holy Spirit. I wonder if the near missing of this truth and experience had made Paul more aware of the need to stress these things.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
The power of the Holy Spirit had been important to the early church in Jerusalem.
See Acts 6:3-5
Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism.
Some people in out day deny that the power of the Holy Spirit is for out time.
See 1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
These gifts for the church will cease when the perfect comes. The perfect has not yet come.
We live in great days, the days of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit throughout the nations.
Acts 2: 16,17 “this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people …”
Partnership with other churches and other Christians is good, but not at the expense of truth.
“They are the kind…” (3:6)
What kind? Is it the whole list or just the last point about denying the power of the Holy Spirit?
See the awful description of those who reject the Holy Spirit.
