I Know the One

2 Timothy 1:12 (CEB) · Passing the Flame

“I know the one in whom I’ve placed my trust. I’m convinced that God is powerful enough to protect what he has placed in my trust until that day.” — 2 Timothy 1:12 (CEB)

Paul’s sentence is quieter than we expect from a man in prison. He does not say “I know what I believe.” He does not list doctrines. He names a relationship. The one he trusts.

There is a difference between knowing about a God and knowing a God. Between checking the orthodoxy box and being able to say, out loud, whose voice has guided you when the ground was shaking. Paul has that second kind of knowledge. Chains have not shaken it.

The question Paul’s phrase leaves for us is simple and sharp: whom do you know? When the storm comes, whose presence steadies you?

Tomorrow morning, we gather for worship around a text that names a grandmother and a mother who passed their faith to Timothy. Come and bring a name of your own. Consider who passed faith to you, and come to honor them by receiving again. Online worship is available at youtube.com/@mcphersonfirst.

Whom do you know, well enough to trust, when everything else shifts?

God whose presence does not move, meet us again in worship tomorrow. Remind us whose we are by meeting us with yourself. Amen.