BE NOT THOU … ASHAMED OF THE TESTIMONY OF OUR LORD

The strength of character we spoke of in yesterday’s meditation would be needed as Timothy faced suffering for the sake of the gospel. It is a prevailing theme of this epistle: ‘be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel’, v. 8; ‘thou therefore endure hardness’, 2. 3; ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’, 3. 12. It is for this reason that Paul says, ‘don’t start to be ashamed of the gospel and don’t be ashamed of me, the prisoner of the Lord’. ‘Remember’, says Paul, ‘that I am a prisoner, not because of the might of Rome, but because of the purpose of God’. What fortitude! ‘Men might imprison his body, but they could never enslave his spirit’, Donald Guthrie.

There are a number of things that Paul would remind Timothy of as he asks him to face affliction:

1. The gospel is ‘the testimony of our Lord’, v. 8. Think of the dignity and honour conferred upon us in bearing such a message to men.
2. Remember, we do not face the persecutor alone. It is ‘according to the power of God’, v. 8.
3. To preach the gospel is a ‘holy calling’, v. 9. The call has come wholly from God and calls us wholly for God. How could we do despite to such a calling?
4. To preach the gospel is to share in the divine purpose conceived ‘before the world began’, v. 9. The divine purpose and grace was given to us in Christ before we, and this world, ever existed. We cannot understand it but how this truth elevates the activity in which we are engaged for God.
5. The gospel is the gospel of ‘our Saviour Jesus Christ’, v. 10. The person who is its centre and sum is worthy of our allegiance in every circumstance because He is our Saviour and because He has abolished death. What a person to bear witness to and what a message to witness through - ‘bringing life and immortality to light’!

Based upon the grandeur of the message, what a privilege to be commissioned to preach it! How can we fail to tell others?