Bring the Cloak, and the Books

The winter did not go the way he planned. There is no harbor town in the next letter, and no rented house either. He is chained up like a criminal, and almost everybody has gone. “But the word of God is not chained.”

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, sent out with the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus — to Timothy, a beloved child. Favor, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am thankful to God, whom I serve with a clean conscience the way my forefathers did, and I hold you in my prayers night and day. I remember your tears, and I want to see you, so that I can be filled right up with joy. I remember the honest trust in you — it lived in your grandmother Lois first, then in your mother Eunice, and I am certain it lives in you.”

“So fan into flame the gift of God in you, the one that came when I laid my hands on your head. God did not give us a spirit that runs away; he gave us power, and love, and good sense. Do not be ashamed of speaking up for our Lord, and do not be ashamed of me, his prisoner. Take your share of the rough part, with the strength God gives. He saved us and called us with a holy calling — not for anything we had done, but out of his own purpose and his own kindness, given us in Christ Jesus before there was time to count. And it is out in the open now that our rescuer Christ Jesus has appeared, who put death out of work and brought life, the kind that does not rot away, out into the light. I know the one I have trusted, and I am sure he can keep safe what I handed over to him until that day. Hold to the pattern of healthy words you heard from me. Guard the good thing that was put in your keeping; the Holy Spirit lives in us, and will help you do it.”

“You know that everybody in Asia turned away from me — Phygelus and Hermogenes among them. But God be good to the household of Onesiphorus. He came again and again and put fresh heart in me, and he was never once ashamed of my chain. When he got to Rome he hunted through the city until he found me. And how much he did at Ephesus, you know better than I do.”

“You, then, my child: be strong in the kindness that is in Christ Jesus. And what you heard from me, with plenty of people listening — put it into the hands of people who can be trusted, who will be able to teach others too. Take your share of the hard going, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. A soldier on campaign does not tangle himself up in ordinary business; he wants to please the man who signed him up. A runner gets no wreath unless he runs by the rules. And the farmer who does the work ought to be the first one to eat. Think about what I am saying, and the Lord will make you understand it.”

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, out of the family of David. That is the good news I carry, and it is what I am in irons for, like a criminal. I put up with all of it for the sake of the people God has chosen, so that they can be rescued too, with glory that does not end. Here is a saying you can trust. If we died with him, we will live with him too. If we hold out, we will reign with him too. If we say we never knew him, he will say the same of us. And if we go faithless, he stays faithful — he cannot deny himself.”

“Keep reminding them of this. And in God’s hearing, tell them to stop fighting over words. It does nobody any good, and it knocks over the people listening. Work hard at it, so that you can hand yourself to God as a workman with nothing to be ashamed of, cutting a straight line through the word of truth. Keep clear of the empty talk; it only runs further into irreverence, and it spreads through people the way a wound goes bad. Hymenaeus and Philetus are two of them. They say the rising of the dead has already happened, and they have knocked some people’s faith over. All the same, God’s foundation stands there, firm, with this stamped on it: ‘The Lord knows the ones who belong to him,’ and, ‘Everybody who names the name of the Lord is to stand away from wrong.’”

“In a big house there are not only dishes of gold and silver but of wood and clay as well, some for honor and some for dirty work. If a man cleans himself out from all that, he will be a dish for honor, set apart, useful to the Master, ready for every good job. So run from the things a young man wants, and chase what is right, and trust, and love, and peace, along with everybody who calls on the Lord out of a clean heart. Refuse the silly untaught questions; you know they only breed fights. And the Lord’s servant must not fight. He must be mild with everybody, able to teach, able to put up with being badly used, and gentle when he is putting right the people who set themselves against him — God may give them a change of mind yet, and they may come back to their senses.”

“Know this: in the last days hard seasons will set in. People will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money, boasters, stuck-up, blasphemers, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, with no natural affection, unwilling to make peace, slanderers, with no hold on themselves, wild, no lovers of good, traitors, reckless, swollen up, in love with pleasure instead of in love with God — keeping the shape of honoring God and having denied the power of it. Turn away from these as well. They are the ones who slip into houses and take over women loaded down with wrongs and pulled about by every kind of wanting, always learning and never able to come to the truth. Jannes and Jambres stood against Moses, and these stand against the truth the same way. They will not get much further. Their foolishness will be plain to everybody, the way those two men’s was.”

“But you followed my teaching closely, and the way I live, and what I am after, and my trust, my patience, my love, my staying power — and the hunting down, and the suffering. What happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. I bore all of it, and the Lord got me out of every bit of it. Everybody who wants to live for God in Christ Jesus will be hunted. And bad men and pretenders will go from worse to worse, fooling people and being fooled themselves.” Timothy knew about Lystra. He had grown up in the town where the stones were thrown.

“You, though — stay in what you learned and were made sure of. You know who taught it to you. Since you were a baby you have known the holy writings, and they are able to make you wise. Every Scripture is breathed out by God and useful — for teaching, for showing people where they are wrong, for putting them straight, for training them to live right, so that God’s man is complete, fitted out for every good work.”

“In front of God, and in front of Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead: announce the word. Be ready when it suits and when it does not. Show people what is wrong, tell them off, put heart into them — patiently, and teaching while you do it. Because a season is coming when people will not put up with healthy teaching; they will heap up teachers to suit themselves, because they like the sound of it in their ears, and they will turn away from the truth and off after stories. But you keep your head, whatever happens. Take the rough part. Do the work of a man who brings good news. Fill your service right up to the top.”

“As for me, I am already being poured out, like wine over an offering, and the time for me to cast off has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. There is a crown put away for me now, and the Lord, who judges rightly, will hand it over on that day — and not to me only, but to everybody who has loved his appearing.”

Then the letter turns into the small things a man writes when he is cold and running out of time. “Do your best to come to me quickly. Demas has left me — he loved this present world — and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens went to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you; he is useful to me for the work. Tychicus I sent to Ephesus.” That is the same Mark whose turning back had once split Paul and Barnabas apart.

“Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will give him back what his work deserves. Keep clear of him yourself; he set himself hard against everything we said. At my first hearing nobody stood up beside me. They all left. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood beside me and put the strength in me, so that the announcement could be made in full and all the nations could hear it. And I was pulled out of the lion’s mouth.”

“Erastus stayed at Corinth. Trophimus I left behind at Miletus; he was ill. Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Eubulus sends his greetings, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brothers. Do your best to get here before winter.”

“The cloak I left behind at Troas with Carpus — bring it when you come. And the books. Especially the parchments.” The letter ends with one line, from the old man to the young one he had picked up in a town where he had nearly been killed. “The Lord be with your spirit.”