“Paul’s First Letter to Timothy — Laying Hold On Eternal Life — Part 2”

In today’s study we reach the last two verses of Paul’s first letter to Timothy.  These are not his last words before his martyrdom, but they are his last words for a while with Timothy and must have struck a powerful note for him and should also for us today.  Here, he writes of the sacred trust committed to his son in the faith, and that is as the last verse says, the faith itself.  As we have already shared here, “the faith” signifies the body of truth itself committed to Paul and now passed also on to Timothy.  It is the pure doctrine of grace as Ephesians chapter 3 explains.  To “keep” it until the end is Timothy’s charge.  Some had turned aside, he again reminds Timothy, to their own spiritual destruction.  Those that turn aside engage in worldly chatter, such a demeaning way to describe their oppositions to Pauline doctrine, and also promote “false knowledge”, or a knowledge not based on the truth.  But the truth must be protected and honored always, he writes, no matter what.  I can only imagine how often Timothy thought on Paul’s words here as he lived through the challenges of his short life, with his own martyrdom, it seems, not far ahead after his mentor’s.