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November 26, 2017 | Pastor John Bayles | Prayers of St. Paul: To Fan the Flame of Your Calling - Part 1 | 2 Timothy 1:1-7
This is the last letter that the Apostle Paul will ever write (that has survived). The letters to Titus and Philemon follow the writing of Paul’s first letter to Timothy. Paul is writing to Timothy in Ephesus from a Roman prison. The tone from his first letter has changed dramatically. Paul has been in prison for up to 7 years. He has languished for this long time without any dramatic changes in his status. He has become weary and sick. He recognizes that his time is nearly over on the earth. He is reflective yet determined to finish his life in a firm faith and has tried to affirm, encourage, correct and warn those whom he has left to the work in the churches he established. His last letter is to Timothy shows us the Paul’s – weary, but not broken. This is his last letter to a dear son. What will he say? What will he leave with him? Paul rises to the occasion as he draws not from his current condition, but from his calling. He presses upon Timothy the importance of what resources he already has at his disposal: most critically, his inner calling to the ministry. From here Paul will continue to impress upon his young son in the Lord the foundations of calling to ministry.
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