"I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
The notes below are my notes for 2 Timothy 1:8-12. I did not get to some of the things that are on the sheets below, as time and the Lord's leading did not allow. This study was definitely on the deeper (or deepest) end of knowing who God is. For those who attended, thanks for trudging through some of this deep and hard stuff with me. I pray that it was beneficial to you and that God will give us the eyes to see how it applies to our lives and the confidence that we can have in God. I have yet to figure out to format the notes below so that they look how they would in a word document. At the bottom of my notes is the handout that I gave to you all about the foreknowledge of God (God's knowing the future) and free will.
Teaching through books without skipping any parts is a tough job to do and keeps us honest and dependent on God. Teaching all parts of a book is not always the most entertaining way to teach, but I do know that God will bless us for being committed to seeking to understand who He has revealed Himself to be in the Scriptures and learning how to work through the Bible in a way that shows how real people in real situations interacted with God and how He spoke to their (and our) real and specific needs. There is such a diversity in Scripture in how certain principles are applied in different situations that a "one-size fits all" answer often doesn't help; we need to know the heart of God by seeing His Word dealing with specific needs and then use that to see how our living God will likely speak to us in our needs. I was very grateful to hear the prayer requests last night and hope that God will allow us to be open and honest with each other more and more as we meet together. God has gifted each of you uniquely and the body of Christ cannot function properly without you using your gifts and insights to help equip us to serve the world. God desires you to use your gifts not only for this Bible study, but in every area and place that you go to with believers to have fellowship.
If anyone has any thoughts or questions on any of this, feel free to contact me or leave a message on the comments section on this post.
Verse 8
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,
1. “Therefore”
a. What’s it “there for”?
i. Connect this thought to the previous verse (or verses)
b. What is Paul connecting the thought in verse 8 to?
i. The family of faith, who we are because of Christ, and the weapons/tools God has given us to overcome fear and be a witness for Him.
2. Paul views himself as the Lord’s prisoner and NOT as a prisoner of the empire.
3. Why would Paul view himself as the Lord’s prisoner instead of viewing himself as a prisoner of the empire?
4. “share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God”
a. God has ordained that the Gospel would come to pass primarily through suffering. The suffering may not necessarily be persecution. Suffering for the gospel may simply be living to make Christ known. Making Christ known always comes at the expense of the person doing it.
5. Colossians 1:24
a. In this verse Paul does not mean that he is adding to the atoning work of Christ. Paul does NOT mean that the work Christ did on the cross was not enough; in fact, Christ’s work is more than enough. What Paul is saying is that Christ propagates the gospel to the nations through people. Christ is not here on earth as a human being to give Himself over in love by serving others so that people will know Him. Because Christ is not physically here on earth to serve others so that they will know Him, He gives us the task of acting on His behalf. We act on behalf of Christ by living through the power of the Holy Spirit so that people see Him living and moving through flesh and blood. When people see that we can hope and joy in any type of situation and that we have the ability to love even our enemies, they will see that something is different about us. When a person who knows God responds to life situations much differently than how the majority of people would respond to the same situation, people who see the believer’s response will think it is strange. When people who do not know God see believers living the way that they are, they will respond in one of two ways. They will turn to God, repent and receive Him, or they will hate us because how we live reveals them for what they truly are.
b. John 15:18-25
6. Suffering for the sake of the Gospel is a gift from God. Suffering is a gift from God that He calls us to participate in.
a. Acts 5:40-42
i. Background: God was at work among the early church so much that it was creating quite a stir in Jerusalem. Because of the jealousy of the Jewish officials, the Apostles were arrested and commanded not to speak in the Name of Jesus ever again. After the Apostles respond by telling the officials that they will not obey them, a council member stood up and convinced the other Jewish leaders that if what the Apostles were teaching were not of God it would eventually go away. The council member also told the Jewish officials that if the teaching was of God, no one would be able to stop the Apostles no matter what anyone did to them.
b. Philippians 1:29
c. Matthew 5:20
d. Philippians 3:8-11 (especially verses 10 & 11)
7. For what reasons would a person willingly suffer for the sake of the gospel?
8. Why would God use suffering as the primary means for how the Gospel would be most fully displayed?
Verse 9“who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,”
1. God “saved us and called us” not because of what we have done, could do, or would do but “because of His own purpose and grace”.
2. What was God’s purpose or motivation for creating all that He created?
3. How does God’s grace relate to His purpose in creating all that He has created?
4. God’s plan for Christ to come was not an afterthought. God knew what Adam would do before He created him. In Romans 5:14, Paul writes that Adam “was a type of the one who was to come”. The verse does NOT say that Christ was a type of Adam; the verse states that Adam was a type of Christ. The purpose of having Christ come into the world came BEFORE Adam.
5. Colossians 1:15-17
6. In some sense, God has allowed or ordained all that has or will ever take place in history from beginning to end. However, this DOES NOT mean that people do not have free will or are not responsible for their actions.
7. See Handout.
8. People are responsible for their actions because they are the ones who actually do the action. God does not force anyone to act sinfully nor does He cause people to act against their will. God knows all things before they happen and although He allows or ordains all that ever will actually come to pass, people are still responsible for their actions because they are freely doing whatever it is that they are choosing to do. God is also not the author of sin. God is not the author of sin in that He never does nor can do anything that is sin. God can allow sinful events to occur and even in doing this He never is or does evil in ANY way at all.
a. Acts 2:22-23, 36-41
i. God ordered that Christ die in the way that He did and God still holds the people who actually did it responsible.
Verses 10-12“and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me”
1. Although God had planned and determined that Christ would come, the plan of Christ to come to earth and die would, in some sense, not actually be accomplished until Christ actually stepped into time and did it. Christ’s stepping into time to live as a human being and then dying on the cross for the sins of the world brought the original purpose of God to light.
2. From eternity, God had planned to undo all that His creation would do to try to thwart His plan. God has shown that even when what He creates acts against His will, He still is accomplishing His purposes through it. “God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil” (John Piper, Spectacular Sins, p.12).
3. Paul is convinced not only that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass and that Christ coming to die was God’s original plan but Paul was also convinced that God had appointed him to be one of the people to proclaim God’s message about Christ to the world.
4. What type of impact would knowing how well God has orchestrated history have on how we deal with difficulties that may arise in our life?
5. How would knowing that God is able to accomplish His purpose without anyone ever being able to thwart that purpose prepare us to face hardship or persecution?
6. In verse 12, Paul says that he knows whom he has believed. He does not say he knows what he has believed, but whom he has believed.
7. What is the difference between believing God and believing in God?
8. How does believing God help us?
9. This verse shows us “most excellently the power of faith by teaching us that in the most desperate plight we should glorify God by not doubting that He will be true and faithful and that we should accept the Word with the same assurance as if God Himself had appeared to us from heaven…Faith always connects God’s power with His word, which it does not think of as something remote and distant but rather something inward which it has in its possession. Thus it is said of Abraham in Romans 4:20,” “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Calvin’s Commentary on 2 Timothy).
10. If we were to summarize what verses 8 through 12 mean, what would these verses tell us?
11. What practical application do these verses have for our lives?
The Foreknowledge of God and Free Will
“God, from all eternity, did—by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will—freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills; neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
3.1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Modern English Study Version.
“Although—in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause—all things come to pass unchangeably and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, he orders them to occur according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.”
5.2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Modern English Study Version.
“But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.”
Augustine, City of God, 5.9.
It's Over.
14 years ago
