2 Timothy 1:3–7

1:3 Verse 3 tells us to whom Paul directs his thankfulness. Verse 4 tells us what Paul longs for as he thanks God. And verse 5 tells us the reason he thanks God. So in these three verses Paul unfolds the who, the what, and the why of his thanksgiving.

Paul thanks God, which is remarkable in itself given Paul’s condition. In the ancient world, prisoners were not provided with basic necessities. They were often dependent on other people’s kindness and help for the essentials—Paul later asks Timothy to “bring the cloak” (4:13). Yet, in this condition of confinement, deprivation, and abandonment, Paul still thanks God. He is doing what he told the Ephesians to do in Ephesians 5:20, where he said that being filled with the Holy Spirit means “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Col. 3:17).

Paul refers to God as the one “whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience.” Paul’s prison cell does not constrain him from serving God in the most desperate of conditions. His friends may have deserted him, but God has not. Paul continues to serve God “with a clear conscience,” walking faithfully before the Lord. He is not falling away from Christ because of being cast aside in a prison cell.

Paul is serving God “as did my ancestors” (lit., “from [my] ancestors”). He has received from his forefathers a pattern and example of faithfulness. This remarkable statement gives us a glimpse into the way Paul thinks about his Jewish forebears. He serves God just as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David did. Paul rightly believes that the gospel of Christ is the fulfillment of the promises made to his forefathers. What his forefathers trusted in anticipation, Paul now trusts in fulfillment. Christianity and Judaism—rightly understood—are not two different religions. They are two stages of one religion, with an unfolding revelation. The faith of the OT is what the seed is to the flower, what the foundation is to the building, what the boy is to the man.

1:4 The who that Paul thanks is God. The what that he experiences while thanking God is to “long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” Paul’s longing is made even more poignant by the fact that he remembers the last farewell, in which Timothy was so overcome with emotion that he wept for Paul (“as I remember your tears”). Readers can only imagine what the memory of those tears must mean to Paul as he languishes in prison. Demas, Crescens, and Titus have all moved on (4:10). Everyone has either deserted Paul or gone on to do something else (except for Luke; cf. 4:11), and yet Paul remembers one man who was not eager to leave him but who could part from him only in tears. The memory of Timothy’s love and affection shines like a light in the shadows of Paul’s wretched condition. For that reason, Paul wants to see this “beloved child” (1:2) once again.

1:5 Paul next mentions the why of his thanksgiving: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” Paul is thankful because he knows that Timothy’s faith is authentic and real. It is a faith in Christ that has been tested by suffering and has been proved in faithfulness to Paul. But Paul also links the genuineness of Timothy’s faith to the ones who taught it to him—his grandmother, Lois; and his mother, Eunice. It may be that Paul knows these women personally (Acts 16:1). In any case, he knows that they are the genuine article, and their testimony gives Paul confidence that Timothy is too. These women have not handed to Timothy a false gospel but have passed on the true one. They have handed on no hypocritical way of life but a real one. Paul is grateful to God for the integrity of faith that Timothy inherited from his mother and grandmother.

In this way, Paul invites readers to ponder the singularly powerful impact that mothers and grandmothers can have on children. Timothy’s father apparently was not a believer and had no Christian influence over his son (Acts 16:1). These women, however, have made their mark on Timothy. Even though the work of childrearing can be mundane and thankless, the seeds these women of God planted have grown into an oak of righteousness. The boy they raised has become the man that the great apostle Paul relies on in his most desperate hour.

1:6 “For this reason” introduces the command Paul is about to give. Because he is so certain that Timothy’s faith is genuine, he commands him to “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” The “gift of God” refers not merely to the gift of the Spirit received at salvation; it is a gift that Timothy received with the “laying on of . . . hands.” This is the language of Timothy’s ordination, mentioned also in 1 Timothy 4:14. It is no contradiction for Paul to mention “my hands” here while reminding Timothy of the role of all the elders in 1 Timothy 4:14. In 2 Timothy, Paul simply means to emphasize his own role in Timothy’s ordination and launch into ministry.

When elders lay hands on a man, they are not magically investing him with powers. Nor are they mechanically filling him with the Spirit. The laying on of hands is a public recognition of giftedness based on what the Holy Spirit has already done in an individual. In that sense, it is a church’s commissioning of someone to the work of ministry (cf. Acts 6:6; 13:3). The norm for ordination, therefore, is not merely a self-realization concerning gospel ministry but a community-wide realization of a person’s fitness for the work. The church’s affirmation is essential for beginning the work, which is why Paul says that Timothy received the gift “through the laying on of my hands.”

No person can give himself the gift of pastoring God’s people, but he can allow his gifting to languish and atrophy. Timothy must not let this happen. On the contrary, he must “fan into flame the gift of God,” which means that he must do that which he has already been gifted to do but can grow stronger in. The ministry of the Word is a like muscle that can either strengthen through frequent exertion or atrophy through neglect and disuse. Perhaps the potential neglect of Timothy’s ministry has been due to fear and intimidation, which would explain what Paul says in verse 7.

1:7 Paul grounds the command of verse 6: “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” The “spirit” Paul has in view here is the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit does not engender fear. Some translations render the phrase as “spirit of timidity,” but that is misleading. The term translated “fear” indicates cowardice, which is not merely an experience of fear. Many people experience fear who are not cowards. A coward is one who lacks the courage to act against his fears in the face of opposition and danger. God has not given his people a spirit who meets opposition and danger and then slinks away. That certainly is not the kind of Spirit that Timothy has been given. For this reason, he is not to slink away from preaching the gospel when the going gets tough. God has supplied Timothy with ability through the Spirit to do what needs to be done. The Spirit causes love for God and neighbor to be the defining features of a disciple’s character. The same Spirit inspires self-control to overcome whatever must be surmounted in order to join the fight.