Sunday 7th January
Read 2 Timothy 1:15-18
“You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.
16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.” (NIVUK)
Today we know the gospel well enough that those who would add or take away from it are reasonably easy to spot. There is 2000 years of refinement and clarification and the various heresies have been tested and rejected for the most part. When Paul was writing to Timothy, in fact when Paul was writing most of his letters, the good yet scandalous news about Jesus and salvation was less than 50 years old. Paul frequently had to defend his apostolic authority, his right to declare what the gospel was, his right to exhort Timothy to ‘guard’ the good deposit received from him.
We see that in these few verses here that ‘everyone in the province of Asia has deserted’ him, including those whom he clearly thought understood the gospel, the nature of ministry and who Paul was. Paul is so grateful for Onesiphorus precisely because so many had abandoned him after his second arrest by the Romans. It is difficult to comprehend today how shocking it is that the one who showed forth the glory of Jesus in the gospel throughout Asia should be abandoned so quickly.
Yet how many of us do the same when the blessings we expect, sometimes even demand, don’t eventuate. If illness and catastrophe or lightning strikes and we wonder if this ‘gospel’ is worth it at all. Perhaps some modifications are necessary to make the gospel more amenable to our lifestyle and avoid the harder bits.
Pray that you don’t fall prey to taking the hard bits out…
