Welcome back to another Tabernacle Tidbit. We've got an interesting one today in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse number 15.
This is the last letter that the Apostle Paul would write, and because of that, we get some kind of behind-the-scenes glances in the Book of 2 Timothy in a way that we don't necessarily see in all of Paul's letters.
This one is one that is very tender to his heart.
You can almost read the pain that Paul is expressing here as he's talking to one of the people that he loves most in the world and that loves him the most in the world, and he says this in 2 Timothy 1 in verse 15.
You know that all those in the province of Asia have deserted me, including Phagellus and Hermogenes. Now, when you read that, when I read that, if we come to Scripture first with, okay, what do I do as a result of this?
We're gonna be really disappointed. When we read the verse, but I think it shows us some really important things, both about Paul's life and his ministry, and it can influence how we think of our lives.
So first, he says, you know, that all those in the province of Asia have deserted me. Now, this would predominantly be Asia Minor. This would be where a lot of Paul's letters went, places like Ephesus and Galatia and Colossi, Laodicea.
A lot of those ones where Paul, on the very beginning of many of his missionary journeys and the very end of most of his missionary journeys, would be passing through this area on his way over to Macedonia and Greece, places like that.
And Paul here, even as we look at the end of the book, it wasn't a literal thing that, okay, every church that I've been a part of, every person that I have discipled, they have all rejected me.
But even as we'd see at the end, Paul is saying, I'm alone. And right now, there is basically no one with me. There is no one here in this jail cell who is ministering to me.
And instead, I am just all alone. He says, they've deserted me. And he names two individuals in particular that seem to have been with Paul and then genuinely did abandon him.
That they said, we're not going to be around you anymore. We're not going to care for you anymore. And he says, this was Phagellus and Hermogenes.
And I want to say on the first side of things, number one, I'm glad that when we are deserted and abandoned, that we are in safe, traveled waters.
If even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, if even he was abandoned by his disciples there, if one of his closest friends in Simon Peter denied even knowing him three times, then we can know when we feel abandoned, all right, my Lord knows what this
is like. This is normal human behavior. It doesn't mean it's good human behavior, but it is normal. And so when I go through abandonment, I can take joy in the fact that, as we hear in Hebrews 13, that our God will never leave us or forsake us.
He will never abandon us. And I'm grateful for God's presence that is always with us.
But number two, I think that this reminds us of the fact that other people genuinely do care about our presence and our words and our love and our care that we give to them. They might not always express that.
We might not always hear that from people. And so we might think, okay, well, I could reach out to this person, but I don't want to bother them. I don't know that it will even matter.
And I want to encourage you here. Paul knew individual people, multiple people that were no longer, if you will, in fellowship with him, that weren't talking to him, that weren't helping him out anymore.
And so let's be people that care for and love and take care of others. And it might be something small. It might not be that you are just waiting hand and foot on a person, but it might just be one simple text.
It might just be a five-minute phone call. It might be just dropping by with some cookies. It might be just a Facebook message, just letting someone else know that you love them, you care about them, and you are praying for them.
So whether it's us being a friend that doesn't abandon, that doesn't desert, or we remember in our feelings of abandonment that God is always with us and that much like Paul is doing here, he could have just held that in, but he chose to send that
word to Timothy to say, hey, here's what I'm feeling right now. I am experiencing these emotions and I want you to know about it. And he'll say all of this, even as he'll close the letter out in Chapter four to say, would you please come?
Sometimes when we do feel abandoned and deserted, we do need to reach out to some people. And there will be those that don't help out. Maybe they're not able to or maybe they choose not to.
But we should at least take that moment to reach out to our brothers and sisters in Christ to say, hey, here's how I'm feeling. Would you be willing to help encourage me a little bit?
And when we do that, we can experience encouragement in building up from the body. But we can also know above all else, that God is there for us and He loves us.
