…I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. II Timothy 1:12
It is a privilege to be allowed to share a personal letter that someone has received. When we put our thoughts down on paper, we often lay bare our real selves, our innermost feelings.
God has allowed us to share some of the apostle Paul’s most intimate experiences by including in the Bible the letters he wrote to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. It is rather interesting that Paul wrote letters to exactly seven congregations, the figure that the Bible usually associates with the Church. But beside these we have letters like those which we write to our family or friends. In these letters Paul talks about Timothy’s mother and grandmother; about the books and coat he wants Timothy to take with him when he comes.
These are the Bible books that you can curl up with and read at one sitting, for fundamentally God has written them to you, personally. They deal with conditions that exist nowadays, for when you read our Scripture passage for today (II Timothy 3:1-7) you see that it is talking about such modern matters as juvenile delinquency, crooked politics, money-madness, pleasure-loving, religious formalism, slander magazines, and sex perversion.
Another feature of these books is that in them we get a great deal of material for our church order, the good government of our congregations. Paul wrote these letters to coach the your pastors, Timothy and Titus, in the operation of their new churches, and so much of these three Epistles is quoted in the forms for installing elders, deacons, and ministers. The Bible has something for every conceivable situation, to supply every need. “All Scripture is inspired of God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for discipline, for instruction in righteousness.” (II Timothy 3:16)
know who you are 