2 Timothy 1:7: The Verse After the Tears

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)

The Verse After the Tears

I have seen this verse quoted as a line about courage, and it was written to a man who had been crying. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. On its own it sounds like an order to be braver than you are.

Timothy’s tears are Paul’s own detail. Paul writes that night and day he remembers Timothy in his prayers, that he recalls those tears, and that he longs to see him so he may be filled with joy. He is reminded of a sincere faith that lived first in Timothy’s grandmother Lois and then in his mother Eunice, and he is persuaded it lives in Timothy now. For that reason, he writes, fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

Then he asks Timothy to carry no shame about the testimony of our Lord, or about himself, a prisoner, and to join him in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Power, love and self-discipline are named on the way to that. A man who has been crying is asked to stand beside a prisoner and be seen doing it.

A woman at a pharmacy counter has a list on the back of an envelope and she is not through it. If I take it with food. If I miss one. The other one, can she take them together. She apologizes for asking so much and then asks one more, and on the way out she thanks the man twice. Nothing about that looks like power.

Self-discipline is the least impressive word in the verse. It keeps a person in a room past the point where leaving would be easier, and it keeps asking after the first answer has already made everyone uncomfortable. Paul remembers the crying and asks him to fan the gift into flame anyway.

The gift was already in him before anybody asked him to be brave.