After reminding Timothy of the need to hold on to faith and a good conscience and so avoid making a shipwreck of his faith, in 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Paul outlined what needed to be done in Ephesus to put the church back ‘on the rails’. First in terms of priority was prayer. This should not […]

After Paul had shared with Timothy something of the nature of the task he had sent him to complete in Ephesus and something of his testimony about the grace of God, in 1 Timothy 1:18-20, Paul sought to reinforce something of the importance of the task that Timothy had before him. To prove faithful, Timothy […]

After the Apostle Paul had given the young pastor, Timothy, a brief summary of his conversion and how it did not come about through law but because of grace, Paul added a brief summary of the gospel message he proclaimed in 1 Timothy 1:15-17. In these verses are the first of 5 ‘trustworthy sayings’ that […]

After the Apostle Paul had urged the young pastor, Timothy, to stay in Ephesus and straighten out the church there that was being led astray by false teaching, in 1 Timothy 1:12-14, Paul referred to himself as ‘Exhibit A’ in relation to those who were using the Law of God the wrong way. Paul had […]

When the Apostle Paul wrote letters he did so for good reasons and his first letter to Timothy is no exception to that rule. Timothy had been sent by Paul to pastor and teach the believers at Ephesus in the first century AD. The church had been torn apart by an influx of false teachers […]

Waiting is hard. You only have  to look at husbands waiting for their wives outside the shops! Some of the believers at Thessalonica were also having trouble waiting for Jesus to return as he promised. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-18 we find that some of them had adopted a passive attitude to the extent that they […]

After Paul had told the believers at Thessalonica to beware of the rise of the Antichrist and the rise in the spread of error in the last days, in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5, he then urged them to continue to believe the gospel that he and the other apostles had taught. In believing this truth, the […]

Though persecution from the enemies of the gospel had come against the Thessalonians with little negative effect apart from causing their faith to grow stronger, a greater danger that faced these believers was some false teaching concerning the second coming of Jesus. In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 we find that this teaching stated that the return […]

In Paul’s second letter to the believers at Thessalonica, the apostle has much to say about the return of Jesus. Not times and dates, which most people are concerned with, but how to live in the light of his return. In 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12, Paul commended the Thessalonians who had endured some bitter persecution from […]

There’s no denying that Jesus born in Bethlehem has had a great impact upon the world. There is no-one like him nor has there ever been. So many things set Jesus apart from ordinary human beings, even aspects surrounding His birth. The gospel writer, Luke, set out to establish these things as fact and tells […]