I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Timothy 1-4.

    Paul encourages us to embrace suffering for the sake of the Gospel. We should seek out suffering which results from faithfully obeying God. When we have questions about whether an action is God’s will, the fact that taking that action might lead others to persecute us should be counted as one piece of evidence that said action is indeed God’s will for us. In the process of speaking of his suffering, Paul writes that he is not embarrassed by because he knows that God is able to keep what he, Paul, has entrusted to Him. Paul is referring to the fact that he has entrusted his soul, his very being and sense of self, to God’s care in the face of persecution for obeying God. This passage is the basis for a song which I love. I love that song because I am a person who is knowledgeable on many subjects. Yet, when it comes down to it, there is only one thing I really need to know: I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able.

    Paul tells Timothy that the last days will be terrible because people will love only themselves and money. The result will be that they will be boastful, proud, and abusive. Paul throws some more negative adjectives in to describe such people…descriptions which describe many in our society today. Paul writes that many such people will have what passes for godliness, but will deny that godliness has any power. They will claim that it is possible to be moral without believing in God (which is nominally true, although Paul tells us that it is not really possible for us to be moral even if we believe in God), while failing to recognize that there is meaning to the word “moral” if there is no God. Francis Schaeffer refers to such people borrowing words and terms from belief in God, but stripping those words and terms of all meaning. They appear to be discussing spiritual concepts because they are using words with spiritual connotations, but the spirituality of those words relies upon their references to God, whom these people say does not exist. As a result, they say things which people think have meaning, but do not.