When you think of the possibilities of every life, and of the certainties of every life, of what may come. One sometimes feels as if nothing but clearsightedness were needed to drive men into insanity. So I venture to say that any man who lives in the realisation of the truths which the gospel reveals, and in the use of the gifts which the gospel communicates, will be stiffened into a fearless man and be no longer a reed shaken with the wind, but a brazen pillar, and an iron wall, amidst all dangers and enemies. So whilst we have to admit that religion is not meant to obliterate natural distinctions in character, we must also remember that we insufficiently grasp the intention of the gospel which we say we believe unless we realise that it is meant to deal with the most deeply rooted defects in character, to make the crooked things straight, and the rough places plain. But then, you know, the very purpose of the gospel is to mend temperaments, to restrain, and to stimulate, so as that natural defects may become excellences, andĮxcellences may never run to seed and become defects. ‘God hath not given us the spirit of cowardice.’ Now, of course, courage or timidity are very largely matters of temperament.
The first thing, then, that he would have us understand is that Christ makes fearless men. I think I shall best, in the few remarks that I offer you, bring out the meaning of the words before us if I simply follow the Apostle’s rough and ready enumeration, and try to learn what he says about each of these points. And so it dwells predominantly on the stronger, ‘manly virtues,’ as men complacently call them.’ ‘God hath not given us the spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,’ which last word does not stand precisely upon a level with the other three, hut rather expresses the notion of self-control. It is meant to embrace, mainly, the points which Timothy wanted most. The enumeration is by no means intended to be either complete or scientific. Whether the word ‘spirit’ in my text be regarded as meaning the Divine Spirit which is given, or the human spirit in which that divine gift is received, the qualities enumerated in the text are those which that Divine Giver creates in that human recipient by His indwelling presence or to put it into shorter words, my text tells us what sort of people Christianity has a tendency to make, and it tells us, too, how it sets about making them.
In it the Apostle would have his down-hearted young companion and helper remember what God has given him by the laying on of Paul’s hands. My text is the first of the ‘soul-animating strains’ which he blows. But Timothy seems to have been of a somewhat weak and timid nature, and this letter of the dying man is one long trumpet-blast to stir his courage. ‘Paul the aged,’ a prisoner, and soon to be a martyr, might have been expected to receive encouragement and consolation. And lastly, the Spirit works in us “self-control”-selbst-beherrschung-that power which, in the man or woman living in and mixing with the world, and exposed to its varied temptations and pleasures, is able to regulate and to keep in a wise subjection, passions, desires, impulses.Ģ Timothy 1:7THE parts which we should naturally have expected Paul and Timothy to fill are reversed in this letter.
The Holy Spirit works, in those to whom it is given, power, or strength, to fight the fight of God, power, not only patiently to endure, but also to strike good blows for Christ-the power, for instance, of steadfastness in resisting temptation, the strong will which guides other weaker ones along the narrow way “of love.” It works, too, in those to whom God gives the blessed gift, that strange, sweet love for others which leads to noble deeds of self-surrender-that love which never shrinks from a sacrifice which may benefit the friend or even the neighbour. It is a grave reminder to Christians of every age and degree that all cowardice, all dread of danger, all shrinking from doing one’s duty for fear of man’s displeasure, proceeds not from the Spirit of God.īut of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.-Instead of rendering the Greek word by “a sound mind,” it were better to substitute the translation, self-control. But the reference is also a far broader one than merely to the Holy Spirit conferred on ministers of the Lord at ordination. The Holy Spirit is no Spirit, be it remembered, which works cowardice in men. John 14:27, and Revelation 21:8.) “Hath not given us,” in this particular case, refers to the time when Timothy and St. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(7) For God hath not given us the spirit of fear.-Or better, perhaps, the spirit of cowardice-that cowardice which manifests itself by a timidity and shrinking in the daily difficulties which the Christian meets with in the warfare for the kingdom of God.
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