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Happy Tuesday, {{first_name| everyone}}!
In case you missed yesterday's email, we met our verse of the week and covered how Paul wrote it from a Roman prison cell to a young disciple who needed encouragement.
Today we back up to see what led up to verse 7, and the charge Paul gave Timothy one verse earlier.
In today’s email…
👵 Two women handed Timothy his faith
🕯️ The phrase Paul uses about Timothy’s fire
📊 A trivia question to see how you're tracking
MEMORIZE 🧠
for God gave us a spirit not of ____ but of _____ and ____ and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
Want to memorize in your favorite translation? Try our new iPhone app here.
CONTEXT 📕
Before Paul gets to verse 7, he spends six verses laying the ground work.
He tells Timothy that he prays for him constantly. He remembers Timothy’s tears (we don’t know exactly when Timothy cried in front of Paul, but it mattered enough to mention).
He also brings up Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, through whom God had evidently nurtured a sincere faith in him from childhood.
Then Paul gets specific:
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Paul’s exhortation implies that Timothy did not need a new gift from God, but renewed boldness in using the gift he had already received.
“Fan into flame” does not necessarily mean the fire had gone out, but it does suggest that Timothy needed to stir up and actively exercise what God had entrusted to him.
And Verse 7 gives the reason for that exhortation.
Timothy must not give way to fear, because fear is not what God gives His servants. God gives power, love, and self-control (or in some other translations, “a sound mind”).
The sense of the passage is this: whatever is causing you to shrink back from obedience to God is not from Him.
God does not form His people for cowardice, but for faithful endurance, loving service, and disciplined steadfastness.
for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
APPLY AND RESPOND 🏃♂
📖 Read all of 2 Timothy 1:1-14, the passage surrounding our verse.
❓Ask: What’s one gift, skill, or calling I know is real in me, but I’ve let go quiet? What put it out?
📣 Finally, tell one person today: Send the below link with a message saying something like, Hey! I’m memorizing 2 Timothy 1:7 this week, want to do it with me?
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🙏 Pray
Lord, thank you for the people who played a role in my faith. I don’t want to keep the gift you gave me on a low simmer. Show me exactly what’s gone quiet in me and how I can use my gifts to serve your kingdom. Fan my gifts back into flame this week. Amen.
TRIVIA 📊
Click one of the answers below. Let’s see how you do…
Paul reminds Timothy his faith first lived in which two people?
ANSWER KEY ✅
for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
Best,
The Malachi Daily team 🙏
Today’s Contributors
Payton is a husband, dad, and Director of Messaging at Faith Driven Entrepreneur. He writes Christian Story Lab, a free weekly newsletter that helps Christians become the most dangerously creative people in any room.
Kieran is a husband and father living in NJ. In addition to Malachi Daily, he writes a personal newsletter about the intersection of faith, fatherhood and entrepreneurship.
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