The Last Letter of Paul

The church has misread 2 Timothy for centuries - filing it under "Pastoral Epistle" beside letters about elders and church order. It is none of those things.

Second Timothy is a death-row letter. It was written from a cold Roman dungeon by a dying apostle to the son of his soul, with one question burning under every verse: Timothy, will you hold this when I cannot?

This is the theology of that question. Paul is chained. His friends have scattered. The winter is coming and he will not see spring. And into Timothy's trembling hands he presses the burning torch of the gospel - not a job, not an office, but a fire that must not go out.

Moving through all four chapters of the letter, Rev. Dr. Billy J. Hill traces the great handoff: the deposit and the son, the torch and the icons, the perilous times inside the church, and the finish line where a man with nothing left to lose writes, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

The torch does not go dark when Paul dies. It passes.

Written for the pastor who dreads the pulpit, the leader who cannot care anymore, the preacher hunted from inside his own house - and for every servant of God who has ever wondered whether the fire would survive them. He passed the torch. Timothy gripped it. The gospel did not go out.

Part of the Servants of God Series from Faithful Witness Press.