2 Timothy 4

Today we begin our work: Medical Team in Lusanja Pastor team working with Nexus students in Kikyusa

Do the work that you were called to do. Preach the message, when it is easy and when it is hard – be patient in teaching 4:1-2 BJ paraphrase). Paul realizes that the end of his journey and his ministry are coming. He refers to himself as a “libation” – a drink offering -- being poured out. How many of us will be able to say at the end of our faith journey: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished, the race, I have kept the faith! (4:7)”? All too often we find ourselves just muddling through, just getting by and just hanging on. Paul was on a great adventure . . .



One of the things I love about the letters is that occasionally there is a little glimpse of life (real life) in the first century. In 4:13 Paul asks that when Timothy comes to Paul at Ephesus he would bring the cloak that the left at Troas and some books and parchments. It seems like such mundane housekeeping details in this significant passage about life and death and the future. And, yet, the mundane housekeeping detail moves us and reminds us that this was not some prefabricated or re-polished human being from legendary lore – it was written by a real man in real time who occasionally left his stuff behind.



He concludes the letter by recounting another of his near death experiences and then some gracious words to his friends – Prisca, Aquila, the family Onesiphorus, Erastus, Trophimus, Eubulus as well as Pudens, Linus and Claudia . . . men and women who are co workers with Paul in ministry.