Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Epistle, 2 Timothy 2:1-13           

2 Timothy 2:1-13

Pressure. Do you feel it, Christian brother and sister? Pressure this time from without, from the world around us. Lately, in my teaching I have been focusing on the Body of Christ with my class. Most recently, I did a teaching on “The Ills of the Body.” It was a wonderful exchange of ideas. I brought to my class once more, thoughts of that evil trinity set against us, namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil. While our enemy is ultimately defeated by Christ’s cross and resurrection, we know from the Bible that God is “allowing” the fall-out of that final battle to linger a bit longer. And Satan’s death gasps find their expression so deftly in the spirit of the age-the world as the Bible sometimes calls it.

As Paul gives instruction to his disciple, he writes, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life …” (v.4). The affairs of this life as dictated by how this world thinks, what this world values, indeed what sustains it. Since the fall of our first parents, the world and its ways are not what God intended. Having said that, we see Christ’s triumph clearly in the struggle and the standing of his people against this pesky opponent. As God supplies what his children need day by day, moment by moment, through his Word, his body and blood, the waters of new birth and his people gathered, the world’s pressure doesn’t disappear. But the power of the Lord is evident. Again and again, he comes alongside his children to sustain, bolster and grant evidence that Christ is indeed King.

While the opposition of the world ramps up, the power and indestructible love of God is enough for us. We hang on to our Lord and he us, not with white knuckles, but with open arms in the full embrace of the One who has said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b). I need to remember that.