Second Timothy is a letter from a prisoner to his most trusted companion — written with the awareness that Paul will not leave Rome alive. The two chapters are saturated with the tension between Paul’s circumstances (imprisonment, abandonment, suffering) and his instructions (teach, endure, handle the…
The final two chapters of II Timothy are the last words of an apostle who has finished his course. They alternate between warning and charge: warning about the times that are coming, warning about the enemies of truth, and the charge to preach anyway, to endure…
The parable of the householder is a parable about where you are and what you are doing there. The kingdom of heaven is the vineyard — the church — and the one who enters it enters to labor, not to observe. There is no reward for…
Paradox is not a deficiency in Jesus’s teaching — it is a deliberate strategy. When truth stands on its head, it demands attention that straightforward assertion does not. The paradoxes of the New Testament are not puzzles for the uncommitted; they are invitations to the kind…
Moses chose poorly by the world’s calculation — forfeiting wealth, honor, pleasure, and safety for suffering with a despised people. The results of that choice, measured from eternity, are the most spectacular biography in human history. The question the sermon presses is not what Moses chose…
Neglect is not the absence of wrong action — it is the presence of a sin. The man who knows his duty and does not do it has sinned; the church that knows its obligations and ignores them is guilty. The hearer who has heard the…
“Born of water and of the Spirit” is not a theological puzzle to be decoded — it is the single answer Jesus gives to the question of how to enter the kingdom. The theories that split it into two separate events either multiply births beyond what…
The first chapter of I Timothy is a charge to a young preacher stationed at a difficult post, anchored in the apostle’s own testimony of grace and framed by the two dangers that threaten any congregation: false doctrine from those who want to be teachers without…
Chapter two of I Timothy governs two aspects of congregational life: prayer and the conduct of women. Both are anchored in theological claims rather than mere convention. Prayer for all men — including kings — is grounded in the universal saving will of God and the…
The third chapter of I Timothy governs the selection of the church’s leaders. The qualifications are not aspirational ideals — they are observable, verifiable criteria that a congregation can apply. A man who does not meet them should not hold office; a man who does is…