Berean Expositor #5 - Be Not Ashamed

    Be not Ashamed (2 Tim.1:8-18)   The opening section of this Epistle deals mainly with the sad fact that Paul and his message had been forsaken. This, however, is introduced rather as a background than for its own sake. In spite of this rejection, says Paul in effect to Timothy, do not be ashamed of the testimony, I myself am not ashamed, even though I suffer these things, and think too of Onesiphorus, who was not ashamed of my chain.
    The section is divided up by the recurrence of the word ‘ashamed’:
      (1) “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner.” (2 Tim 1:8)
      (2) “I am appointed a preacher … For the which cause I suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed (2 Tim 1:12).
      (3) “The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed, and was not ashamed of my chain” (2 Tim 1:16).
    The subject of the section is “Paul and his message forsaken,” and it is interesting to notice in the structure (Vol XXXI, Page 130) 1:8-18 balances 4:9-18. Did Phygellus and Hermogenes turn away because they were “ashamed”? Did Demas forsake the Apostle out of “shame”? If so, and it looks very much like it, what a word for us all!
    Closely linked with this subject of the Apostle’s peculiar ministry is the principle of ‘right division’: 
       “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
    Closely associated with this principle and in the same chapter is the great theme of the epistle --- ‘suffering and reigning.’ While the actual word ‘ashamed’ is not used in 2 Tim. 2:1-13, we find there its synonym, ‘deny’ “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He will also deny us” (2 Tim. 2:12). That ‘denying’ Him is equivalent to ‘being ashamed of’ Him, the following parallel passages will make clear:
    “For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed; when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).
    “He that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Luke 12:9)
    Closely linked with the thought of not being ashamed in 2 Tim. 1 is the “testimony of our Lord, and of Paul His prisoner” (2 Tim. 1:8). This is called “My deposit” (A.V. “that which I have committed”) in 2 Tim. 1:12.

This article is from the Berean Expositor Vol. 31, pg 26                                                                              ....to be continued….