2 Timothy 1:13-18
He Searched Until He Found Me
13Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching you have heard from me, with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
14Guard the treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
15You know that everyone in the Province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.
16May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he has often refreshed me and was unashamed of my chains.
17Indeed, when he arrived in Rome, he searched diligently until he found me.
18May the Lord grant Onesiphorus His mercy on that day. You know very well how much he ministered to me in Ephesus.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul asks Timothy to keep the teaching he learned from him, and the word he uses for it is a pattern. A pattern is the kind of thing a person can lose without ever deciding to. He is not asked to keep it coldly, or by himself. Faith and love come attached to the job, as the company the teaching has to be kept in.
Guard the treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
A few lines earlier Paul had said God was able to guard what Paul entrusted to him. Now the same job comes back the other way round, and it is Timothy holding something that was put into his hands. Neither man is told to manage it alone. Paul has the Lord he handed his life to, and Timothy has the Spirit who lives in him.
Then, with no warning and no transition, Paul says this.
You know that everyone in the Province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.
He writes it down flatly, in a letter he knows will be read out to other people, and he names two of the men who did it. Paul puts it in, in the same paragraph where he is telling a young man to be brave, which means Timothy is being asked to stand firm by somebody who has just admitted how few people did.
From the desertion he goes straight to the one man who did not. Onesiphorus often refreshed him, Paul says, and was unashamed of his chains. Shame has been the word running under this whole letter, and here at last is somebody in whom there is no trace of it.
Indeed, when he arrived in Rome, he searched diligently until he found me.
Paul was in prison in Rome, and Onesiphorus had to go looking for him. Finding him took searching, and verse 17 says he searched diligently until he found him.
What Paul does next is all he can do. He asks the Lord for mercy on this man and on his household, and he does it twice, and he mentions the help he was given back in Ephesus so that nobody misses that this was not a one-off. There is no money in a cell and no freedom to return a favor. So Paul prays for his friend in writing, in a letter Onesiphorus and his household will hear about.
How We Know
This passage keeps two things in it that flatter nobody, including the writer, and their small weight falls on the letter's character rather than on anything it claims.
Verse 15 says everyone in the Province of Asia has deserted him, and then gives two names. That is an admission of his own abandonment, in writing, in a letter he expects to be read aloud.
Verse 17 has Onesiphorus searching Rome to find him. The detail is small, specific and unnecessary to any argument Paul is making, and it sets a friend's courage beside his own abandonment without a word about the contrast.
The household turns up again at 4:19, where Paul sends greetings to it rather than to the man. The letter never explains why.
Questions
1 Paul hands Timothy something to look after. What is it, and who helps him hold it?
AnswerThe sound teaching he learned from Paul, which Paul calls a treasure entrusted to him. He is not left to manage it by himself. The Holy Spirit who lives in him is named as the help, in the same sentence as the job.
2 Paul admits that everyone in the Province of Asia deserted him, and he names two of them. Why would a man put that in a letter he knew would be read out?
AnswerBecause it happened. He is not building a case for how well things are going. He is telling the truth to a young man he is about to ask for courage, and the truth includes how few people stayed.
3 Think of a time you needed help and one person actually turned up. What did that person do that the others did not?
AnswerUsually they came looking instead of waiting to be asked. That is what Onesiphorus did. He arrived in Rome and searched diligently until he found him, which is what verse 17 says and all it says.
4 Paul has no way to repay Onesiphorus. What does he do instead?
AnswerHe prays for him and for his household, out loud, in the letter, asking God for mercy on him twice. From a cell with no money and no freedom it is what he has left to give, and he gives it where his friend will hear it.
What This Means for Us
Paul cannot repay Onesiphorus, and he does not try. Twice he asks the Lord to grant him mercy, and that is the whole of what he can do from a cell.
The same passage tells Timothy to guard the treasure with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Both men are handed something they cannot manage on their own strength, and in both cases the passage names who does the managing.
So think of the person who is hard to reach at the moment, the one it would be inconvenient to chase. Go and look. And where you cannot repay or fix what you find, do what Paul did with the little he had left and ask God for mercy on them by name.
Prayer
Father, we send messages when we should go, and we call it staying in touch. Thank you for a man who searched a dangerous city for a prisoner. Make us people who keep asking until we find, and who are not ashamed of anybody's chains. Amen.