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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 2 Timothy 1:7 - 1:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
For, etc. - implying that Timothy needed the exhortation “to stir up the gift of God in him,” being constitutionally “timid”: “For God did not give us (so the Greek, namely, at our ordination or consecration) the spirit of fear.” The spirit which He gave us, was not the spirit of timidity (literally, “cowardice,” which is weakness), but of “power” (exhibited in a fearless “testimony” for Christ, 2Ti 1:8). “Power is the invariable accompaniment of the gift of the Holy Ghost. Luk 24:49; Act 1:8; compare Act 6:6, “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,” with 2Ti 1:8, “full of faith and power.” Fear is the result of “the spirit of bondage” (Rom 8:15). Fear within exaggerates the causes of fear without. “The spirit of power” is the spirit of man dwelt in by the Spirit of God imparting power; this power “casteth out fear” from ourselves, and stimulates us to try to cast it out of others (1Jo 4:18).
love - which moves the believer while “speaking the truth” with power, when giving his testimony for Christ (2Ti 1:8), at the same time to do so “in love” (Eph 4:15).
a sound mind - The Greek, is rather, “the bringing of men to a sound mind” [Wahl]. Bengel supports English Version, “a sound mind,” or “sober-mindedness”; a duty to which a young man like Timothy especially needed to be exhorted (2Ti 2:22; 1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:4, Tit 2:6). So Paul urges him, in 2Ti 2:4, to give up worldly entanglements, which as thorns (Luk 8:14) choke the word. These three gifts are preferable to any miraculous powers whatever.