2 Timothy 1:3

Paul writes this letter from prison in Rome, most likely during a second imprisonment under the emperor Nero, and he knows that his death is near. The letter carries the weight of a dying man’s last words to the young man he loves as a son, and it is a charge to Timothy to stand firm, guard the truth and endure hardship. After the greeting of 2 Timothy 1:1–2, the first thing Paul says is “I thank God”. Thanksgiving opens most of his letters, and here it rises from a prison cell, which shows how deeply gratitude ran through his life with God.

The verb for “serve”, latreúō, means to minister to God or to render him religious homage. It is service offered as worship, so Paul is describing his whole ministry as an act of devotion to God.

“From my forefathers” ties that service to Paul’s Jewish heritage. He serves the same God his ancestors served, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his faith in Christ is the fulfilment of the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants. Paul spoke the same way when he defended himself before the governor Felix, answering the charges against him by speaking of the God of his fathers and of his own conscience (Acts 24:14–16). The phrase also answered anyone who accused him of abandoning the faith of his people, and it shows God’s faithfulness across the generations, a thread that runs through this whole passage.

Paul’s thanks are bound up with his prayers for Timothy. “Without ceasing” translates adiáleiptos, which means unbroken or constant. In the Greek it describes Paul’s remembrance itself, so it speaks of a settled habit: whenever Paul prays, Timothy is in his prayers. “Night and day” names the two halves of the day to mean the whole of it, and his prayer for Timothy runs through all his days and nights in prison.

Paul is living what he taught the churches. He told the Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), he told the Romans to continue instant in prayer (Romans 12:12), and he taught the Philippians to bring their requests to God with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6), just as he joins thanks and prayer here. Behind all such prayer stands Christ himself, who is at the right hand of God and “maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:34).

“Greatly desiring” is epipothéō, an intense longing, an earnest yearning for someone’s presence. Paul uses the same longing of the believers in Philippi (Philippians 1:8), and near the end of this letter it comes out as a plain request: “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” (2 Timothy 4:9).

People ask why this letter is so personal and full of feeling. Timothy was Paul’s beloved son in the faith, whom he had taught and travelled with for many years, so their bond was close and fatherly. This was also very likely Paul’s last letter before his execution. He was handing on the work to Timothy, and his concern for Timothy’s faithfulness, together with his wish to see him one last time, gives the whole letter its warmth and urgency. The Lord Jesus knew the same longing for those he loved, when he told his disciples how greatly he had desired to eat the Passover with them before he suffered (Luke 22:15).

“Unfeigned” is anypókritos, which means without hypocrisy. It is formed from a prefix meaning “without” and the word behind our “hypocrite”. A hypokritḗs was an actor on the Greek stage, who wore a mask to play a part. Unfeigned faith wears no mask. It is sincere faith that comes from the heart, and the life it produces matches what it professes. Paul uses the same word, anypókritos, when he says that the goal of his teaching is “charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:5).

The word for faith, pístis, means persuasion, credence or conviction. In Scripture it is belief that God is true, reliance on Christ for salvation, and constancy in holding to him. Timothy’s faith is a living trust in God that shapes his character and his conduct.

Paul says he “calls to remembrance” this faith. The noun behind the phrase is hypómnēsis, a remembering or reminding, and Paul is deliberately bringing Timothy’s faith to mind as he writes. The faith is “in thee”, en, a faith that lives within Timothy himself.

The relative word “which”, hóstis, ties Timothy’s faith to the faith of his grandmother and mother. That faith “dwelt” in them. The verb enoikéō is formed from en, “in”, and a verb meaning to inhabit, and it means to dwell in or make one’s home in. Faith had settled in Lois and Eunice and filled their lives, and from there it was passed on. Paul uses the same verb a few verses later of “the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us” (2 Timothy 1:14). The word “first”, prōton, is first in time: the faith lived in Lois, then in Eunice, and now in Timothy.

Scripture tells us a little more of this family. Timothy’s mother “was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek” (Acts 16:1), and Paul reminds Timothy that “from a child” he had known “the holy scriptures” (2 Timothy 3:15). So Timothy’s faith was first taught and lived in his home, through the example and instruction of these two women. This is what the law asked of God’s people from the beginning, when it told them to keep God’s words in their hearts and teach them diligently to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). The psalmist resolves to tell the coming generation the praises of the LORD so that they might set their hope in God (Psalm 78:4–7), and Proverbs tells parents to train up a child in the way he should go (Proverbs 22:6).

The faith that lived in these three was still God’s gift. It was faith in Christ, made possible by his saving work, and it came through the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). God called Timothy himself, and he was pleased to use a faithful grandmother and mother to nurture that faith in their home.

“I am persuaded” is peíthō, to persuade or convince, and in this form it means to be convinced. Paul is speaking from a settled certainty, formed by what he has seen in Timothy over many years. The small word “also”, kaí, sets Timothy beside Lois and Eunice: the same sincere faith that lived in them lives in him.

This assurance prepares for what Paul asks next. Because Timothy’s faith is real, Paul can urge him to stir up the gift of God that is in him (2 Timothy 1:6), to refuse to be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord (2 Timothy 1:8), and to “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3). For a young leader who may have been tempted to timidity, these words would have given him strong confidence. His faith had deep roots, and the apostle who knew him best was sure of it.

These verses show a God who is faithful from one generation to the next. Paul served the God of his forefathers, Timothy received his faith from a grandmother and a mother who believed before him, and the same God was at work in every one of them. He gives faith through Christ, and he is pleased to hand it on through ordinary homes, through a mother’s teaching and a grandmother’s example.

They also show the life of Christ’s body at work among his people: thanks to God for one another, steady prayer night and day, tears that are remembered, and joy at the thought of being together again. Christ is the head from whom the whole body is joined together and grows up in love (Ephesians 4:15–16), and Paul’s love for Timothy is that life in action, flowing even from a prison cell.

And they show that faith can be wholly real. The faith Paul thanked God for in Timothy was faith without a mask, living in the heart and visible in the life, and it is the faith God gives to all who believe in his Son.