You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.
2 Timothy 1:15 (NIV)
I have a stack of letters from my college and young adult years. My friend Dave and I became pen pals during those years. It wasn’t something we consciously intended to do. He was still a senior in high school and I was a freshman in college. I told Dave to write me sometime. This was 1984. There was no internet or email. Cell phones were over a decade away from becoming a thing. Long distance phone calls were expensive. Snail mail was the go-to channel of communication for poor students like me.
When I got a letter from Dave, I immediately wrote him back. Then he wrote me back, and we never stopped. Dave went on to study and teach in France. The stack of letters and postcards I have from him in those years number into the hundreds.
Without the immediacy of digital communication, there was a lot that could happen in life between letters. I remember times in which I poured my heart onto the page knowing that Dave would not read it for a week or more and it would be another week or more before I got his response. It was a very different reality.
That reality is evident between Paul’s first letter to Timothy that we finished yesterday and his second letter we begin today. So much has happened between the two letters that it’s impossible to understand the full context of Paul’s words and emotions without knowing the events.
Paul had been a prisoner in Rome previous to the writing of 1 Timothy. He was arrested for creating a public disturbance in Jerusalem. He appealed his case to Caesar as was his right as a Roman Citizen. He sailed to Rome and lived under house arrest while awaiting trial. Eventually, he was released.
Whether his case was dismissed or he was released on furlough, we’ll never know. Paul began traveling and visiting the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers he’s established in various cities. That was the context of 1 Timothy as Paul instructed his young protégé and urged him to pray for all rulers and authorities, which included Roman Emperor Nero “that we may live quiet and peaceful lives.”
Sometimes our prayers don’t yield the results we desire, even for Paul.
Rome burned and the populace blamed Nero. Nero needed a political scapegoat to redirect the blame. He chose a pesky Jewish sect that had been on the rise and creating conversation across the empire. They were called Christians and they were an easy target. Nero blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians. He ordered the rounding up Christians that they might be tortured and executed in the most heinous of ways, and Rome had sadistically created many heinous forms of torture and execution.
Paul, the firebrand preacher who stirred things up wherever he went, was arrested. No house arrest this time. Paul was thrown into a deep, dark dungeon. He was chained to a wall in the dark. With the Romans arresting, torturing, and executing Christians, many followers decided that maybe they didn’t believe after all. Others distanced themselves from Paul, not wanting to get swept up in his wake and find themselves chained next to him in the dungeon.
Paul was alone in the dark in his chains. He felt abandoned. He knew that his time was short. There would be no dismissing of the charges this time. There would be no furlough. His execution is imminent. His second letter to Timothy is Paul’s final letter. It’s his swan song and his last will and testament.
In today’s opening chapter, Paul is torn in two directions. With his impending death, he knows that Timothy is going to find himself leading the gathering of believers in Ephesus without Paul’s tutelage. He wants to encourage Timothy and provide some final instructions before he dies. At the same time, Paul is desperate for Timothy’s company and wants Timothy to visit him.
Stay and lead well, or leave to be with Paul in Rome?
Yes. The opening of the letter expresses the inner conflict and emotions with which Paul was struggling in his dire circumstances.
There was no postal service in the Roman Empire. You had to find people to carry and deliver letters for you. As Timothy cracks open the letter to read it, there is the added emotion of knowing that Paul might have even been executed in the time it took for the letter to reach him. If he does leave Ephesus to visit Paul in Rome, will he even find Paul alive? Will he be thrown into prison and executed with Paul. Colleagues like Phygelus and Hermogenes had clearly decided that they’d rather not risk their own necks to be associated with Paul. Timothy was faced with the same dilemma.
Meditating on the depressing realities that Paul and all believers were facing under Nero’s persecution, I am once again reminded that life in this fallen world does not always turn out the way we’d hoped. Sometimes prayers for lives of peace and safety are answered with the violence of the kingdoms of this world. Not just for Paul in Rome, but for believers around the world today.
Believers in China and North Korea regularly find themselves at risk for persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Christins in Nigeria are being rounded up and slaughtered. It is estimated that 52,000 Christians have been killed by Muslim militants since 2009. Five million people have been displaced because of persecution against Christians.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself grateful for the peace, the quiet, and the safety with which I can currently pursue my faith and my life. I’m whispering a prayer for those who, like Paul, lie in darkness and chains. Those who feel alone and abandoned in their persecution. Those who face the possibility of being tortured or executed this day because of their faith in Jesus.
Lord, have mercy.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
