Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel … - 2 Timothy 2:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 16, 2012): 2 Timothy 2

One of the truths that I think I am just coming to terms with is that I am what I remember. I am sure that someone will tell me that it is possible to be shaped by the traumatic events that we block out of our memory, and I can accept that. But we can’t overestimate the effect of the stuff that we do remember. And sometimes ... we don’t remember what it was that really happened.

Recently this has been really impressed on me. And the phenomenon seems to be that, not only do we not really remember what happened, but we actually have the ability to get others involved in our delusion. And in the last week I have actually watched that process happen around me. It was amazing ... and all that I could say was – “but it didn’t happen.”

There is a reason why experts tell us that eyewitnesses are not the best witnesses. We can convince ourselves of a lot of things. So Paul gives the young Timothy some advice. Be careful about what it is that you remember. With all of the people around me that want me to see truth in a certain way, this is what I know and what I remember – that Jesus Christ was dead  but now is alive and that he was descended from King David. And both are very important for me, and therefore you, Timothy, to remember.

He was raised from the dead. This pointed to the supernatural nature of God. Only God could defeat death. It is the reason why sometimes we struggle with the point. Even in the day of Timothy, people were trying to come up with other reason for what had happened in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. And Paul, had it not been for that experience on the road to Damascus, would have been one of them. But the events on the Damascus road had changed everything. When the light and the voice broke into what it was that Paul wanted to believe had happened just outside Jerusalem on that day, Paul had been thrust into the world of the supernatural. He had no other choice than to recognize that Jesus was really of God.

But he was also human. He was descended of David. When we hear the story of Jesus birth as told in Matthew and Luke, we see the divine. But Paul saw something different. Jesus was born of a woman, he was a descendant of David – and all of this marked his humanity. Yes, Jesus was divine, but he was also human.

One of our core values is that Jesus was fully human and fully God. And for Paul, that was the heart of the gospel. And it was the Jesus that Paul wanted Timothy to remember. And us too. Remember Jesus – of God and yet of man as well. This is the good news of the Bible.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Timothy 3