Lectionary Commentaries for October 19, 2025
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Parables work because the comparisons they make stop the hearer short. The comparisons might, at first hearing, ring dissonantly. The parables so often are shocking to Jesus’ first hearers. “Can it be?” the parables make us wonder. “Is that really what the kingdom is like?” And in the midst of wonder and confusion lies the power of these storied comparisons.

The context of this week’s parable is the immediately preceding teaching on eschatology and the dawning of the reign of God. Prompted by a question from certain Pharisees about the timing of the kingdom’s advent (17:20), Jesus reimagines the query. The kingdom is not about time. It cannot be pointed out. It is not even something to be seen. The kingdom is to be felt and experienced. Jesus concludes, “The kingdom of God is among you” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). The kingdom can be discerned where the faithful gather.

Another translation is that Jesus promises that the kingdom will be “within you,” that the kingdom reigns in the hearts of believers who, in their sojourn through this tattered world, bring God’s life in their wake.

This encouraging conclusion leads to a long and potentially troubling eschatological reflection (17:22–37). Like the days before the flood, the world will seem to be continuing as it ever has until the kingdom intercedes. Persecution and travail will come, but so will life persist after we have lost everything (17:33). The urgency of the kingdom’s transformation is stark as chapter 17 closes.

“Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and never lose heart” (18:1).

This is a parable many of us need these days! In a world teeming with disappointment and hopelessness, I turn to the beginning of chapter 18, yearning for a refreshing word. Instead, Jesus narrates a parable about the kind of everyday corruption that marginalizes those who can least afford it. It is a surprising parable to tell if Jesus’ aim is to encourage prayer and persistence.

Perhaps those parables most familiar to us and our congregations have lost some of their persuasive power as their endings and aims seemingly become evident to us. Less so when we are confronted by this strange and unrelenting parable about a judge who mocks God’s justice and disdains those who come seeking justice before him.

There are two characters in Jesus’ parable. The first is an unjust judge, the mirror image of justice we hope for when someone wields so much power over his neighbors. The second is a widow. While widows in the ancient world could wield power and wealth,¹ the unnamed widow here likely represents someone without the political and economic clout the judge can wield. Her power instead is her persistence. She troubles the judge in her insistence that she receive justice in a case the parable does not describe. Indeed, as readers, we side with her not because we know the details of her case but because of the character of the judge who neglects his obligations to justice. Because the widow will not relent, the judge does.

An alternative translational option in verse 5 creates yet another possibility of the power she might yield over the judge. The judge may fear not just further annoyance but a slap in the face! Left without another resort, the widow may resort to personal violence, the judge fears. He may also fear losing face, so to speak.

The primary interpretive and homiletical obstacle here is an error we preachers frequently make in the interpretation of parables. We tend to allegorize parables so that our assumptions about God are mapped in problematic ways. That is, we too often tend to search out the most powerful figure in the parable, the richest person, and associate their behavior and ideas with God. The mistake here would be to link the judge’s corruption and God’s character. The comparison here cannot and must not highlight the judge.

Two other options are before us. The first is suggested by Jesus in his interpretation of the parable starting in verse 6. Listen to the judge, he exhorts, but take one further step. If even this corrupt judge can be made to listen to the appeals of the aggrieved, how much more will a God who reigns with justice, who loves with grace, listen “to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night” (verse 7). God is not like this judge at all, and neither does God answer our prayers as a concession. God receives our supplications with love, answers them with care.

The second possibility is for us to focus not on the faithless judge but on the faithful widow. Her persistence in a broken system is a model for us to follow, knowing as we do that God’s economy of grace is not ruled by the whims of a judge. Her persistence is an emblem of faithfulness. Her boldness is rewarded. Her courage to draw upon the seemingly meager “weapons of the weak”² in a system that would sideline her and deny her justice is a path to follow as we await our deliverance. Perhaps this is precisely the kind of faith Jesus wonders if he will find on his return (verse 8)—a faith that demands justice in a world coursing with injustice, a faith that persists in seeking life even in systems seemingly ruled by the forces of death, a faith that looks to God’s promises and lives as if they will be fulfilled today.

Notes

1. See Susan Hylen, Women in the New Testament World (Oxford University Press, 2019), 65–92.
2. A vivid phrase coined by James C. Scott in Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press, 1987).

Wrestling is the most honest, most profound metaphor for the life of faith. Wrestling is how we are invited to encounter scripture. And it is how we are invited to encounter God.

The storyline build

Genesis 32 is one of the most enigmatic scenes in all of scripture.¹ The reader’s eyes see as dimly in the night as do Jacob’s. Even as the sun rises and Jacob limps away, the questions linger. Who was Jacob’s opponent? What did this nocturnal wrestling match accomplish? What is significant about Jacob’s renaming as Israel? And who emerges victorious?

As our text begins, we find Jacob bound for home after 20 years in Paddan-aram, where he had fled after exploiting Esau’s overzealous hunger, convincing him to trade the cherished right of the firstborn for a bowl of lentil soup (Genesis 25:29–34). Additionally, aided by his mother Rebekah, Jacob had deceived his aged, blind father Isaac out of the blessing intended for Esau (27:1–40).

During Jacob’s two-decade sojourn in Haran, he has become exceedingly rich and the father of 12 sons who will become the namesakes for the 12 tribes of Israel. God has proven to be with Jacob at every turn, working continually for his good and ensuring Jacob’s success in every endeavor.² Now, only one final tension remains for Jacob to confront: his besmirched twin brother Esau, whom we last saw in the narrative plotting to kill Jacob out of revenge (27:41–45).

When Jacob learns Esau has come to meet him, accompanied by 400 men, Jacob is understandably afraid. He strategically separates his family into two camps so one can escape should Esau attack, sends gifts ahead to attempt to appease his brother (32:3–8, 13–21), and prays (32:9–12). As a result, “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak” (32:24).

In this corner, from parts unknown

The narrative is initially ambiguous about the identity of Jacob’s assailant, first identified simply as “a man” (ish, verses 24, 25). The reader, thus, has been conditioned to wonder whether this is Esau getting his revenge by blindsiding Jacob in the night. But we quickly realize this is more than a mere man, for the struggle endures throughout the night, a simple “touch” (naga) dislocates Jacob’s hip, and there is a fascination with the blessing this figure can give.

Some have proposed this is Jacob’s own internal wrestling with his troubled past, but as Gunkel observed over a century ago, “one’s hip does not become disjointed in a prayer struggle.”³ This is a real, bodily encounter.

Jacob comes to recognize his opponent as God in human form. After successfully wrestling a blessing from his opponent, Jacob renames the place Peniel, meaning “face of God.” His opponent had earlier hinted at this divine identity when offering an explanation for Jacob’s new name “Israel” (verse 28), and in the following chapter Jacob says that seeing Esau’s face is like seeing “the face of God” (33:10). In the received form of the text, the intention appears to regard Jacob’s opponent as God (see also Hosea 12:3).

What is your name?

The name “Jacob” literally means “heel,” a reference to his heel-grabbing from the womb in a quest to be born first (25:26). This, along with Jacob’s subsequent trickery and deceptions, has led many to view Jacob negatively. (Interestingly, in professional wrestling parlance still today, the “heel” is the “bad guy.”) The larger phenomenon of the trickster, both biblically and in folklore, however, provides a different perspective.⁴ Jacob the trickster is never condemned or punished by God. In fact, God ratifies the “stolen” promise just one chapter later (28:13–15), and even when Jacob is the recipient of trickery himself, it ends up advancing the promise (29:15–30:24).

In the midst of the wrestling, Jacob receives a new name: “Israel.” There is a delightful Hebrew wordplay: at Jabbok (yabok) a “man” wrestled (yabeq) Jacob (y’qob). Wenham cleverly paraphrases verse 25 as “he Jacobed him!”⁵ This subtly connects Jacob’s original name with the activity of wrestling. While there is also some debate on the etymology of “Israel,” the narrative offers its own interpretation: “You have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” “Israel” means “to wrestle with God” (or perhaps “God wrestles”).

This is not a redemptive moment for Jacob where the new name symbolizes a change in character or a new way of being in the world; it is not a coming-of-age, reaching greater maturity, or a giving-up of his deceptive ways to make him deserving of the promise that he had already received and that had been ratified by God 20 years prior.⁶ He will again deceive Esau by promising to meet him in Seir but instead settling in Succoth (33:14–17), and he will cross his hands when blessing his sons at the end of his life (48:13–14). The new name Israel joins the original name Jacob in the narrative that follows. He remains ever the trickster (Jacob) and is commended as one who has wrestled (Israel) throughout his life—even as early as the womb (25:22–23)—with humans and with God, and prevailed. Perhaps the biggest surprise in the story is that even by God’s own assessment, Jacob … wins!

Don’t let go!

Jacob has proven to be a more than formidable opponent, even for God! Jacob holds his own all night! And notice, it is God who must ask to be let go before daybreak, even after injuring Jacob with a cheap shot (32:25–26). Jacob/Israel’s refusal to let go of God is what raw, honest faith looks like. Faith is not just passively submitting to God; it is grappling, contending, tenacious, and persistent. It is wrestling: grabbing hold of God and refusing to let go, despite the struggle, the time, the risks, the injury. Because the blessing is worth it. “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (32:26b).

This is the story of Jacob. Of God’s people Israel, who will grow from his 12 sons. And it is our story too. The preacher knows this well; every sermon is a wrestling match. We grab hold of a text in pursuit of a blessing for our people. Sometimes the blessing comes easily; other times it comes at great struggle and cost. The preacher may wish to ask the congregation what their “Peniel” moment is: When have they wrestled with God, seen God’s face, and what are the battle scars that have been imprinted on their life and faith?

Because sometimes faith feels like wrestling. Yes, we can choose to let go, but at what cost? Or we can hold on. Like Hulk Hogan dropping the big leg or John Cena’s five-knuckle shuffle, we can learn some new moves and holds to strengthen us for those wrestling matches to come. Because there is more than a title belt on the line. There is a blessing!⁷

The blessing on offer to us from Genesis 32 is that even in the midst of real struggle in the darkest of nights, if we refuse to let go, yes, we may come away injured, marked, limping—as did Jacob. But if we just hold on, we might also come away with a blessing … and having caught a glimpse of the very face of God.

Notes

1. For my full appraisal of this scene, see John E. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster: A Theology of Deception and YHWH’s Fidelity to the Ancestral Promise in the Jacob Cycle, Siphrut 5 (Eisenbrauns, 2011), 130–71.
2. I argue that God is intimately connected to, and at times directly implicated in, Jacob’s many deceptions, all with the intent of moving toward fulfillment of the promise of land, descendants, and blessing originally given to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3.
3. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, trans. Mark E. Biddle, Mercer Library of Biblical Studies (Mercer University Press, 1997), 349.
4. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster, 22–40, 44–47.
5. Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, WBC 2 (Word, 1994), 295.
6. Anderson, Jacob and the Divine Trickster, 130–132, 160–169.
7. Can you tell I am an avid professional wrestling fan yet?

The promise of a “new covenant” in this passage may evoke the Christian scriptures, stories, and promises for many readers.¹

Yet in their original context, these words signified the promise of a faithful God to a devastated people for restoration, perhaps even in their lifetimes.

Jeremiah lived through the demise of his civilization when the Babylonians invaded Judah, assaulted Jerusalem, and reduced the temple to rubble, exiling or killing the royal family, priests, prophets, and the majority of the population. The resulting chaos may be unimaginable to readers who have not lived through war and its aftermath in their own land. Here in the United States, those who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor or the attacks on the World Trade Center will have experienced some of what the citizens of Judah saw and felt. However, in neither case did the US government—or even those of Hawaii or New York—fall. In fact, in both cases governmental, religious, and social organizations responded immediately, demonstrating the preservation of American institutional life.

In Judah in 586 BCE, broken families would have been ravaged by grief and loss; those left behind would have had to scramble to find surviving relatives and a place to sleep if their homes had been destroyed. Produce and food animals were either destroyed or taken. Every object of value was plundered. Anyone with any authority or skill to help rebuild the society was dead or gone.

And for those who asked “Why?” there were the words of Jeremiah (26:18), and Micah (3:12), whom he quoted, predicting the conflagration: God would destroy Judah and Jerusalem for their sin, specifically the injustices of their officials. Now the day of Zion’s destruction had come upon them. They had only to look to the north to see the remnants of the fallen Northern Monarchy that had never risen from its defeat and destruction at the hands of the Assyrians. Surely all hope was lost.

Yet God had not abandoned the people. God spoke to and through Jeremiah. The same God who planted the garden of Eden and crafted humanity from its soil will replant Judah. God will replant, tend, and nurture human and animal life amid the ashes of Judah, Jerusalem, and the temple.

Perhaps most significantly, in 31:29, God promises to cease holding subsequent generations responsible for the transgressions of previous ones: “In those days they shall no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.'” Instead, according to verse 30, “all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.” The remission of the sin of the past generations gives the survivors and their descendants an opportunity to start their lives over with God as they rebuild their homes and nation. This promise was so important that God also sent it to Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon (Ezekiel 18:2–4).

This new beginning will be at a time not specified—”the days are surely coming”—accompanied by a new covenant. God will make, literally engrave, this new covenant on the hearts of the people, instead of on tablets that can be lost, stolen, or broken. Of course, hearts can be broken, and God alludes to God’s own heartbreak with previous generations of Israelites in verses 32–34.

The language is tender: “I took them by the hand” and “I married them” in verse 32. (The latter phrase is translated “I was their husband” in the New Revised Standard Version.) God is willing to start over with them and make it easier for God’s people to keep the covenant; this time God will engrave the Torah (“revelation,” “teaching,” and “law”) on their hearts (verse 33). They will not have to be told (or taught) to (get to) know the Lord, for the knowledge of the Lord will be implanted within them.

The dominant Christian exegesis of this passage holds that the “new covenant” is both another, different covenant and is either the covenant of the New Testament or its message (or both). However, the passage does not specify that this will be a different covenant in terms of content, but rather in terms of acceptance and fidelity. The references to the exodus in verse 32 suggest the covenant at stake is the Sinai covenant—indeed, the Christian scriptures affirm the Sinai Covenant, including and particularly the Ten Commandments.

Belief in the New Testament as a continuing scriptural revelation does not require an invalidation of previous covenants. What will be new about this covenant is its internalization. God will write it on the hearts of the people because apparently, even with the best teachers, preachers, prophets, and priests, people were failing to learn the lessons of the covenant. Therefore, they failed to keep it. This new covenant will require no work on the part of the people to receive and adopt. It will be engraved upon their hearts.

The passage ends with a commitment from God to forget their sin for all time. These words promised desperately needed hope to the survivors of the invasion. The God of creation would re-create them. The God of exodus would embrace them again. The merciful, tender, loving God would forgive all their sin and absolve them of the sins of their ancestors. The sin that led God to surrender Judah and Jerusalem to the Babylonians would be forgiven.

Jeremiah’s words were recorded and remembered, preserved, and reckoned as scripture. They have come down through time to us as living words of God in part because they nourished famished souls at their most desperate hour. This week’s epistle (2 Timothy 3:14–4:5) affirms the production of scripture—referring to the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts of the “Old Testament,” the only testament at that time—as a sign of God’s faithfulness in and to the world.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for October 17, 2010.

Psalm 121 is a “song of ascent.”¹ It is the second psalm in a collection used by Israelites making pilgrimages to Jerusalem (Psalms 120–134).

In Exodus, Israelite males are commanded to “see the face of the Lord YHWH” three times a year (Exodus 23:17), for the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread in early spring; Pentecost (or First Fruits and Feast of Weeks), which occurred after the wheat harvest in late spring; and Ingathering (the Feast of Booths), celebrated in early fall after the harvest of summer fruits and nuts (Exodus 23:14–17).

Pilgrimage has been understood in a number of different ways, but recent attempts at definition emphasize that it is not merely a religious or spiritual phenomenon (though it is that) but a social, political, and commercial one as well. It is a physical, ritualized journey undertaken through a particular landscape and often at a particular time to a destination that has been ascribed religious power (a place, a person, or an object). Upon arrival, the pilgrim offers prayers and sacrifices that will be particularly powerful and efficacious because of the holiness concentrated in the place. Mark S. Smith writes that pilgrimage to the Jerusalem Temple was “like visiting paradise and temporarily recapturing the primordial peaceful and abundant relationship with God.”²

Perhaps because many modern Christians feel increasingly alienated from the landscape, from the rhythm of the seasons, and from their own bodies, pilgrimage has become a powerful way for Christians to link aspects of their lives that they have tended to hold separate: the spiritual and the material, the body and the soul, the community and the individual. They go on pilgrimage in search of a full and intense experience of the divine. Although reading and preaching Psalm 121 in a church on Sunday morning surely cannot do what a pilgrimage can, it might be interesting for the preacher to use the psalm as a way to imaginatively explore the phenomenon of pilgrimage.

The movement of the psalm

The psalm begins with a recognition that the world as it is is full of uncertainty, that fear threatens to uproot experiences of security and safety. The mountains (ha¯ri^m) loom large and daunting before the psalmist’s eyes. Thus the psalmist—in this case, the pilgrim—begins in a state of helplessness and wonders out loud how they will be able to make this difficult journey (imagined literally or metaphorically): “From where will help come?”

The answer comes quickly, but the process is important. The doubt and fear are expressed, not squashed. The response channels the voice of tradition: “My help comes from YHWH.” YHWH is the God “who made heaven and earth” and who is powerful enough to help. The place of threat (the mountains) is also the place from which help comes. In the ancient world, divine abodes were associated with mountains. Perhaps the best-known example is Mount Olympus, the mountain home of the gods of Greek mythology. In the midst of fear and uncertainty, the pilgrim chooses to travel into the heart of holiness.

In the shift from “I” (verse 1) to “you” (verses 2–9), some biblical scholars have seen a mode of expression from the temple worship in which the people ask for help and the priest responds with a promise of divine assistance. Others have posited that this change in person reflects an interior dialogue (the psalmist talking to his or her own self or “soul”). Also compelling is the idea that the language captures communications between pilgrims, who exchange testimonies and support. One begins with a call for help, and others respond with reassurance.

Verse 3 addresses the literal, physical need of a pilgrim, whose feet are weary and wobbly; YHWH, who made heaven and earth, will not let the pilgrim falter. The One who watches over the pilgrim can be trusted to stay vigilant against the threats that assail them day and night. This is the same God who watches over Israel; the One who will neither slumber nor sleep.

The verbs here are synonyms, and the repetition (no slumber, no slumber, no sleep) is meant to assure the addressee that YHWH is ever-watchful, unlike human guards or shepherds (literal or metaphorical), who cannot resist sleep in the quiet hours of the night. While other psalms implore YHWH to wake up, this one insists that YHWH does not need to be roused because he will never sleep (Psalm 44:23). The emphasis here is on divine constancy and reliability.

The poem builds through a series of expansions, a “that and so much more” response to the initial question (“From where will my help come?”). YHWH will make sure, in this moment, that your foot will not slip. But YHWH will do so much more than that. YHWH will be “your shade” (verse 5), a comfort in the sun-baked region of Jerusalem. The image draws on the metaphor of God as a raptor who covers his offspring with his wings (Psalm 91:4), as well as on metaphors of God as a fortress that provides shelter and refuge (Psalm 91:1–2). Because of this “YHWH shade,” you do not need to fear the scary things that threaten at night—getting moonstruck (or “lunacy,” from the Latin luna, “moon”) or during the day—getting heatstroke (verse 6).

The assurance of protection by day and by night is extended in verses 7–8 to include “your coming and your going.” It is this affirmation (‘The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore’) that practicing Jews are to recite when they leave their houses and touch the mezuzah, a cylinder mounted on the doorpost that contains a small scroll etched with the words from Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21.

The psalm concludes by looking back on where it began. The word “come” appears at the beginning and the end of the poem, as does the preposition “from” (min), creating an enclosing envelope (inclusio) around the poem. Thus the poem begins with a basic and immediate question: “From where will come my help?” And it ends with a response that radically expands the assumptions inherent in the question: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forever.”

The question “From where?”—with its limited spatial scope—is dramatically widened with the addition of the temporal dimension, “forever.” YHWH will watch out for you not just here and now, but always and in every single thing you do. The impression is of a perfect microcosm of divine protection, reflected in the pilgrims’ reverberating testimonies of perpetual safety under God’s watch day and night, during your coming and your going, now and forever.

The journey metaphor that holds the psalm together works on a number of levels. As the pilgrims affirm that the protective presence of God accompanies them on their journey to Jerusalem, they are invited to make associations between their individual life trajectories and the story of Israel’s relationship with God. In this way, each pilgrim is invited to recall the ways in which God has cared for them, while also seeing their journey as part of Israel’s journey. The psalm also gives each pilgrim a language and a tradition that binds them to the community, past and present. And all this collective and individual remembering is prompted not by a private reading, but through communal singing, which happens as the people walk together, moving through the landscape united by a common purpose and a shared destination.

Psalm 121 is a traditional expression of faith intended to strengthen—indeed, to surround—the ones who journey toward God, literally and metaphorically.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for October 20, 2019.
2. Mark S. Smith, Psalms: The Divine Journey (New York: Mahwah, 1987), 45.

Sometimes the theological controversies we know so well, the conflicts that provide the bedrock on which our identities as disciples are grounded, demand so much of our attention that we struggle to see anything else. “Justification by faith alone” or “the infallibility of the Petrine Office” or any other confessional-status theological axiom can so bedazzle our imagination that anything else must fit into a schema determined in advance by Augustine or Calvin or Aquinas; only then is it permitted to make sense in its literary context. Our point may be true and vital, but it may also keep us from perceiving any other conceivable way to apprehend what others say or write.

With that in mind: What if—bear with me for a minute—what if we held back from interpreting the verses from this morning’s epistle reading as the keystone to a defense of the authority of Scripture, at least for a minute or two?

Today’s passage follows a long passage we will never read from the lectionary, 2 Timothy 2:16–3:13. From the end of last week’s reading, the letter continues its warnings about speech ethics, including both “profane chatter” (2:16, 23–26) and doctrinal error (2:18; 3:8–9). On the contrary, the letter reaffirms (from 2:11–13) that the congregation can—indeed, must—count on God’s fidelity to those who have trusted him and directed their lives in God’s ways (2:19), and warns of the hostility faithful life will face (3:10–12).

Our reading begins at this point, setting out the basis for the unwavering faith the letter advocates. That unwavering faith rests in the first instance on the embodied testimony of exemplary disciples such as Lois and Eunice, as well as Paul (the presumed author). When beloved and honored figures teach Scripture, in large measure by ordering their lives in a way that displays the influence of the Bible, their teaching sinks in deeper and endures longer than any effect of casual inculcation of facts that another academic generation will supersede.

In this perspective, Scripture’s inspiration manifests itself as the spiritual power for passing on the faith, for calling out departures from the community’s lived-out discernment (and for calling the community to exercise discernment more faithfully!), guiding the disciples’ growth ever closer to the righteousness of God. Scripture—a complex array of law, wisdom, exemplary anecdotes, poetry, and more—both nurtures growth and steers it toward well-rounded holiness.

The last portion of the reading, then, charges Timothy (and the listening congregation) to pursue the evidence of Scripture’s influence on their daily lives. These admonitions aren’t just pulled from a hat; they foreground the public character of Jesus’ effect on us. In the first instance, we and Timothy should speak out the gospel (Greek kēryxon ton logon: “announce the word”). Second, we should gear up¹ for witness, whether the conditions seem favorable or unfavorable. Finally, then, the readers are to “convince, rebuke, and encourage.”

The sequence implies that the whole process of proclamation, preparation, persuasion, reproach, and promotion of the gospel belongs together as a coherent practice of discipleship, in which everyone should participate to the extent of their capacities (as in 1 Peter 3:15, “always ready to make a case to anyone who asks you for an account of the hope that is in you”).

The secure teaching the letter endorses is designed to withstand the unseasonable time when people flock to leaders who tell them what they want to hear, rather than carefully reasoned, time-tested wisdom. In response, Timothy is not instructed to outdo the “teachers [who] suit their desires” in sloganeering for itchy ears; the work of an evangelist sticks to sober, long-suffering fidelity to honest, reliable, tried-and-true teaching. Once again, this theme harks back to the letter’s speech ethic of stating the truth plainly, whether we win acclaim from our audiences or experience the frustration of being passed over in favor of glib superapostles with more followers on social media.

All of this holds true, no matter what definition we ascribe to theopneustos in 3:16. Important as it is that we think carefully concerning the sense of the Greek words of the New Testament, we ought to be all the more diligent in cultivating the organic growth that comes from observing faithful disciples’ daily teaching, their conduct, their aims in life, their patience, their love and steadfastness. That daily witness grows from, reflects, and always directs us back to Scripture, the breath and the Spirit of God.

Notes

1. The word that I here render as “gear up” is a common word being used in an unusual way, which doesn’t seem to bear the sense “be persistent.” Epistēthi appears in the Septuagint of Jeremiah 26:14 (Hebrew, 46:14), where God instructs the prophet to “set up” (New English Translation of the Septuagint) or “take your stations” (New Revised Standard Version), from the Hebrew hiṯyaṣṣēḇ, paired with the straightforward “and make ready.”