2 Timothy 1:15-18

All right, friends, welcome back.
That feels dark to me.
I’m gonna see if I can switch cameras, there we go.
Yeah,
welcome back to our Bible study Monday
as we kick off the week.
Michael is on the way,
may not be with us,
may jump in here at the end, we’ll see.
But we continue today through 2 Timothy.
We’re at the end of the first chapter.
It’ll be short today,
just a few verses.
And again, probably not devotional verses,
but interesting verses.
We’re in the 15th verse of chapter one.
Let me read through the end of the chapter.
Then we’ll have some discussion.
This is Paul writing to Timothy.
You are aware that all who are in Asia
have turned away from me,
including Phygellus
and homogenes.
May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphus,
Onesphorus,
because he often refreshed me
and was not ashamed of my chains.
When he arrived in Rome,
he eagerly searched for me and found me.
May the Lord grant that he will find mercy
from the Lord on that day.
And you know very well how much service
he rendered in Ephesus.
So an interesting section here in that
often we think of the scripture as positive.
We think of Paul’s writings as positive.
And generally they are,
but there are these moments that show
that conflict in the church is nothing new.
There has been from the beginning of the church
a temptation and an occasion for people to argue,
for people to have falling out,
for people to struggle with one another.
And here Paul names two people who he says have deserted him,
literally turned away from him.
We don’t know about these men, Phygellus and homogenes.
We don’t know much about them.
We know that they were coworkers.
It’s insinuated that at one point they were helpful
or they were on team Paul,
but now they’re not.
And Paul is relaying this to Timothy.
You were aware,
you know that there’s been an argument.
There’s been a conflict of some sort.
Paul also has a moment in the book of Acts
where he gets kind of sideways with Barnabas.
There are others that are named.
In fact, in the first letter of Timothy,
he named some people who he says have gone astray
and that he has essentially turned out of the church,
hoping that they would repent.
And then he gives praise to Onesiphorus,
who he says refreshed him.
And, you know, again, it’s very interesting to think
that in this early evolution of the church,
that even the apostle Paul is subject
to the sort of frailties of human relationships.
You know, this is not uncommon in the church
that we live in,
in the modern church.
People get sideways with one another.
Sometimes pastors and parishioners disagree or argue.
Sometimes parishioners argue.
Sometimes if there are more than one pastor,
the pastors argue and the pastors have difficulty.
We don’t know what’s behind this.
Paul talks about it in terms of turning away from him.
We don’t know if that means they disagreed
or if when Paul gets imprisoned,
they abandon him, they try to take advantage of that position.
Without a lot of information,
it’s very hard to fill in the gaps.
But it does speak to the kind of difficulty
that we can have to stay connected to one another.
And for Paul,
we’ve seen in the book of Timothy
that that is by and large a doctrinal issue.
It is often a matter of what is believed.
Paul appeals to Timothy and others
to believe the right things.
But it is relationships are deeper than that.
There’s also a sense in which there is personal conflict,
there is jealousy,
there is ego, there is pride,
there is anger, there are these things that get up,
get in the way when they flare up.
And here,
we have an instance of it.
I think this is very interesting.
It’s not a particularly positive insight
into the early church,
but it is at some level
perhaps good to know that it has always been difficult
for people of faith to stay connected,
to stay supportive, to stay in good relationship with one another.
We are to relate to one another in Jesus Christ,
but that doesn’t make it easy.
There are people I suspect in our own experience
who are difficult for us to love,
who are difficult for us to forgive, to encourage.
And here we get a snapshot of how consistently
that has been a part of the picture of the Christian church.
And so I think maybe if we were trying
to read this devotionally,
if we were trying
to take something from this that is useful,
maybe it points us in two directions to pray from those,
pray for those we feel have turned away from us,
those that we don’t feel supported by,
those that we don’t feel connected to,
to remember them in prayer,
to advocate on their behalf
in our own thoughts and prayers.
And then like Onesiferus,
to rejoice in those we believe
have supported us, those who have encouraged us,
those who have gone the extra mile for us
and to whom we owe debt of gratitude and are grateful.
For them, we should continue to be thankful.
We should pray for both those that are difficult to love
and those who are easy to love.
And we commend them to God,
hoping in both cases
to restore relationship and to be connected.
And that’s not exactly what this passage teaches,
but I think if we’re looking for a takeaway,
that’s probably the one that I see in it.
Other than that, it is a good insight into the early church.
It’s a good insight into Paul’s relationship,
Paul’s situation.
He feels at some level abandoned.
He feels at some level alone, though he’s imprisoned,
and he’s communicating to Timothy
how deeply he appreciates those who have stood by him
and shown him support that have continued
to reach out to him and support him and encourage him.
And what that has meant,
even as he
sort of mourns or grieves those who have not done so.
So an interesting snapshot into the early church.
Tomorrow we’ll get into chapter two,
which I think is a much more devotional passage
as I have highlighted in my book of Timothy.
I have a whole lot outlined in chapter two,
not so much in chapter one.
Three and four also have a lot of stuff in them
that I think is challenging
and is maybe more directly applicable.
So I hope you can be with us tomorrow
as we continue through second Timothy
moving into the second chapter.
Thanks for being here today.
Sorry, things are always a little rocky
when I have the controls,
but hopefully we’ve made it through
and hope you can join us tomorrow.
Thanks and take care.
Bye.