Stay Faithful
You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:10-17
Last week we looked at Ephesians 6 and the Armour that God gives us to battle our sinful desires and the devil in the spiritual war that we are in. The Bible teaches that we will encounter different kinds of trouble. Yet, at the same time, the Bible teaches that we can overcome them.
Carrying on from last week in that same line of thought we come to todays passage that gives us a clear challenge: To stay faithful to the things that you know to be true! Why, because you know the people who taught Scripture to you, and you have known the Scriptures. If we are using the sword of truth being Scripture, we will be in it regularly studying it and knowing it.
The result, we will believe! We are encouraged to continue in God’s Word because of the confidence we can have in it and in those who taught it to us. We should continue in God’s Word because it is able to make us wise to salvation. The Bible is our source of truth; our weapon of faith; the tool to build our relationship with God.
We should also continue keeping in God’s Word because it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. We should continue in God’s Word because it completes God’s work in us. It makes you complete and thoroughly equipped for life.
Paul reminds Timothy of his personal experience in the faith. He reminds Timothy to follow him, as Paul follows Jesus Christ. He reminds Timothy not only of the teaching, but the conduct and the qualities that he wants Timothy to emulate and share with others. These Christian qualities: purpose, faith, patience, love and endurance are five qualities which every Christian can share with others.
Paul touches on persecution also here. Most of us have not experienced nor will not experience persecution like many others in our world. But if we are really going to live for Jesus Christ, we need to embrace any persecution that comes our way. When it comes, and it will. We will need to persevere through it.
In this passage we have Paul in a sense passing on the torch to young Timothy. But it is also Paul passing on the torch to us today. We have Gods word that we can hold in our hands, that we can read. That we can be strengthened from. The question is will we take up this torch.
Will we read, study, and share it with others. Will we use this tool of Truth that has been passed on to us, to build our relationship with God, to help us live life, to help us press on in the face of persecution and struggles in Life?
You have access to the most valuable, most influential, most fought over resource of History in your hands. Will you open it up and study it or will you leave it to collect dust on a shelf, and be forgotten.
Grab hold of the torch that Paul hands us and carry on knowing God through His Word and pass the Good News to others.