Stirring the Fire
2 Timothy 1:6
Why I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands.


Stir up the gift that is in thee. Literally, "stir up (ἀναζωπυρεῖν) the fire!" There may be fuel - even of God's Word - but all fires die out unless from time to time they are stirred up.

I. THE FARE WAS THERE. His heart's altar fire had been lighted. It had descended as a Divine flame from on high. But in the best of men there is danger of absence of watchfulness, for, like the light on the Jewish altar, the fire is not to die out night nor day.

II. THERE WERE MANY ENEMIES WHO WOULD QUENCH THE FIRE. The Judaizing teachers would have put out the true gospel light, by turning the gospel into a merely refined Judaism. The world would quench it, as it did the faith of Demas. And there is in us all the danger of spiritual slumber, which leaves the fire to die out by indolence and sloth. Therefore by meditation, by prayer, and by earnest endeavour, by admiration and emulation of heroic lives, we must "stir up the fire" that is in us. - W.M.S.



Parallel Verses
KJV: Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

WEB: For this cause, I remind you that you should stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.




St. Paul's Concern About St. Timothy
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