2 Timothy 1:8-12
I Know Whom I Have Believed
8So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me, His prisoner. Instead, join me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
9He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.
10And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel,
11to which I was appointed as a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher.
12For this reason, even though I suffer as I do, I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul finally names the thing he has been circling. He tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, and then, in the same breath, not to be ashamed of him either: of me, His prisoner. Timothy's teacher is in custody, being known as his friend costs something in public, and Paul understands the size of what he is asking for.
What he asks is stranger than it first looks. He does not offer Timothy a way around the difficulty, or a promise that it will pass. He asks him to come and share it, joining him in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. The thing a frightened young man would most want to avoid is the thing he is invited into, and the invitation arrives with a note about whose strength it will take.
Then Paul explains where all of this came from, and he starts a long way back.
He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.
Every verb in that sentence belongs to God. Nothing in it waits on Timothy being brave, and the grace was granted before there was any time for it to be granted in. A man in a cell is writing about an arrangement made before the world started. He says that grace has now been brought out into the open by the coming of Christ, who has abolished death and lit up the way to life.
The man writing that expects to be executed. He is not claiming he will get out of dying. He is saying the matter was settled somewhere else, by somebody else, and that whatever Rome still does to him is a smaller event than it looks from outside the cell.
He was appointed to preach this and teach it, he says, and for that reason, even though he suffers as he does, he is not ashamed. The word has come back around, and this time it is about himself. Timothy might be ashamed; Paul is not, and he says so without making the younger man feel small about the difference. Then he gives his reason.
I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.
Whom, not what. Paul does not claim that his case is airtight. He says he knows the person he trusted, and that the person is able to keep hold of what was handed over until the day it is asked for. Entrusted is what you say about something you gave somebody else to keep, expecting to see it again.
How We Know
One word ties this chapter together, and the letter never draws attention to it.
Verse 8 tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony or of Paul. Verse 12 has Paul saying that he himself is not ashamed. Verse 16 praises Onesiphorus for being unashamed of Paul's chains. The same idea turns up again at 2:15, in an unashamed workman.
Each use lands on a different person: the young man being asked, the old man asking, the friend who already did it, and the worker Timothy is told to become.
Nothing in the letter points this out. It is what Paul is worried about, showing through in the words he reaches for.
Questions
1 Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed. Of what, and of whom?
AnswerOf the testimony of our Lord, and of Paul, who calls himself His prisoner rather than softening it. Being known as the friend of a man in custody had a cost, and Paul names that cost himself before he asks Timothy to pay it.
2 Have you kept quiet about something lately because of what people would think? You do not have to say what it was.
AnswerMost of us have one of those. Paul does not treat the fear as a flaw in Timothy's character. He treats it as the ordinary weight of being known for something unpopular, and then he asks Timothy to carry it alongside him instead of setting it down.
3 Paul writes that Christ has abolished death, and he is a prisoner who expects to be executed. How can both of those be true at once?
AnswerBecause he is not saying he will get out of dying. He is saying the matter has already been settled by somebody else, so his execution, whenever it comes, is a smaller thing than it looks to the people watching.
4 Paul says he knows whom he has believed. Why would that word matter more than what?
AnswerBecause he is not leaning on having all his reasons in order. He is leaning on a person he knows, and on that person being able to guard what was handed over to him. Somebody who cannot argue at all can still have this.
What This Means for Us
We mostly try to be sure by getting our reasons lined up, and then a hard week arrives and the reasons hold us up rather less than we expected. Paul's confidence was not in the strength of his own case. He knew the person he had handed everything to, and he trusted him to keep it until the day he asked for it back.
A person who cannot argue at all can have that, on a morning when nothing feels certain, in a cell.
So when one of us is wobbling, the useful question is not whether we have our answers straight. It is whether we know who is holding what we gave him.
Prayer
Father, we try to be sure by being clever, and it does not hold. Thank you that Paul's confidence was a person and not an argument. When we cannot see the way through, help us to know whom we have believed. Amen.