2 Timothy 1:8

Do not be ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God,’

The command not to be ashamed includes, of course, the need to be bold. Jesus Himself had differentiated between those who confessed Him and His words, and those Who were ashamed because they were not His (Matthew 10:32-33). Now Paul applies those words to Timothy. He is not to be ashamed, but is to stand boldly for the truth, and for its defence. The ‘testimony of our Lord’ refers to the proclamation of Christ Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Compare ‘the Testimony of Jesus’ (Revelation 1:2; Revelation 1:9) where, in parallel with ‘the word of God’ (the message of the Old Testament, see Mark 7:13) it may well suggest a written body of teaching. He then immediately equates it with ‘the Gospel, the Good News’. Paul elsewhere tells us that he was ‘not ashamed of the Gospel’ because of what he knew it to be. He was not ashamed of it because it is ‘the power of God unto salvation to all those who believe’ (Romans 1:16). For the Gospel presents us with the reason for our willingness to let the world know Whose we are and Whom we serve, and what He offers to mankind.

Nor is Timothy to be ashamed of him, Paul, for he is to recognise that he is not Rome’s prisoner, he is the Lord’s prisoner. It was so easy for the uncommitted to withdraw from Paul now that he was in prison. But Paul saw himself, not as being in the power of Rome, but as being captive to the will of God (2 Timothy 1:1). He knew that the divine purpose was being fulfilled in his life, yes, and in his death also. And that was why he was there in prison. It was because the Lord had so appointed it. And that realisation had turned his imprisonment into a thing of pride and joy. On one side of him was a continual supply of Roman soldiers to whom he was manacled, and to whom he no doubt testified (men who would never have heard the Gospel otherwise). And on the other was ‘the Lord’ to Whom he was equally ‘manacled’. And in his mind it was the presence of the Lord that was pre-eminent. He was the Lord’s prisoner, and the soldiers were the Lord’s prisoners too, taking it in turns to sit there and hear what Paul had to say. So he knew that continually with him was the One Who before him had Himself walked the pathway of suffering, saying to him, ‘Paul. You do but follow in My steps’ (1 Peter 2:21). What else counted in the light of that? And Paul will shortly give to Timothy an example of another who was not ashamed of his chains (see 2 Timothy 1:16).

‘But suffer hardship (‘take your share of ill treatment along with all His people’ - sun-kako-patheo - ‘together ills suffer’) with the gospel according to the power of God.’ Rather than being ashamed, therefore, Timothy is to endure. He must be willing to suffer hardship, and share the ill-treatment of God’s people, as he goes forward with the Gospel, and for the Gospel. For ‘all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution’ (2 Timothy 3:12; compare Acts 14:22; Romans 5:3; etc). God’s purposes advance through suffering, and we must therefore ‘fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ’ (Colossians 1:24). For the world does not like being reminded of its unrighteousness. But his endurance is not to be in his own strength, it is to be in the power of God (compare Romans 5:5). It is God’s power through His Holy Spirit that is there at work in all who boldly ‘confess Christ’ both in words and in life, sustaining, strengthening, uplifting and guiding, a power received when we receive first the Holy Spirit at our conversion (Romans 8:9), but which needs to be constantly stirred up by prayer (2 Timothy 2:22), by the reading of the word (2 Timothy 3:14-17), by unashamed testimony (2 Timothy 4:2), and by good works done for Him and in His Name (2 Timothy 2:22; Matthew 5:16). He works within us so that we may work out what He works within us (Philippians 2:12-13).