For which reason I remind thee to fan into flame the grace-gift of God which is in thee through the layong-on of my hands.... (2 Tim. 1:6; HCGM)
"St. Paul is writing to a man of the gentlest and most sensitive spirit, one to whom at the best of times difficult duty was a formidable load, and who was now about to suffer a deep bereavement, to face a hostile world alone, and to try to do his pastoral duty still. Timothy would be tremendously tempted to yield to the 'cowardice' which fails and sinks in prospect of the evil hour....
"What should he do? where in his bewilderment should he turn for courage, and for the power to labour on? The Apostle takes a method perfectly practical; he directs him to a concrete fact, an event not only of his inner but of his outward life; he reminds him of the laying of his hands on Timothy's head and of the spiritual import and issue of that act. We cannot reasonably doubt the exact reference here; it is to Timothy's Ordination to the ministerial office. Turning to the First Epistle (I Tim. iv. 14) we find a manifestly illustrative passage.... And we gater that the compelte account of that memorable hour was that the Apostle, perhaps at Lystra, perhaps at Ephesus, had called around him a circle of presbyters; that their hands with his had been laid on the young designated pastor, and that a 'prophet' of the Church, perhaps the Apostle himself in his prophesying character, conveyed the eternal Master's message of power to the ordained man's soul, and, it may be, foretold to him 'what great things he should suffer for the Name's sake' and what victories, in the strength of the Spirit, he would win.
"If I read that scene at all aright it meant no mechanical or as it were magical injection. Rather it was what Richard Hooker says that the holy Sacraments are, a 'moral instrument of salvation'; it demanded for its efficacy the yielded will, the living faith, the receiving action of Timothy himself. But on the other hand it was no merely emblematical or pictorial performance; it carried with it a real efficacy to the man who really in his soul received what God, through just that 'laying on of hands,' then offered him. Such was that deed to Timothy that for ever afterwards he might say to himself that, in and through that Ordination, he held a perfectly definite guarantee that special spiritual power for special spiritual work was his; his to claim to draw upon, to use. He possessed the warrant; let daily faith turn it into the current gold of ministerial power.
"May Ordination to the ministry of Christ in His Church to-day be, by the man who bears it, ever viewed, and ever used, as St. Paul bade his son in the faith view and use his Ordination then. So the ministry will be a ministry of power indeed. It will be no mere discharge of a round of duties, however laborious, however important; it will be the conveyance of a divine influence to men through consecrated man, in whom the Spirit's fire is 'fanned into flame' by faith. 'Power, love, discipline' of self, and a wonderful faculty for disciplining the lives of others for God and holiness, will work in and from such a ministry...."
Bishop H. C. G. Moule, Studies in II Timothy
It is fascinating to reflect upon how the Lord commands us to do things only he can do. He commanded the Israelites to circumcise their hearts and he tells Nicodemus he must be born again (which to things are the same). Here, Paul tells Timothy to stir up the gift of God in him, which is nothing but divine grace present through and because of the indwelling of the divine Spirit himself, who alone can effectually bring divine grace into life in us and through us. We know these expressions do not allow us to believe the divine will is subservient to our own will or exertions thereof. But they do tell us that, in the divine economy, we are, in some measure, responsible for our spiritual health. At least we can understand that we are to take ourselves in hand (as David would speak to himself in the Psalms - "why art thou cast down within, me, O my soul," et in alia loca), and 1) apply ourselves to the means of grace: mainly, the Word, prayer, the sacraments, and 2) with all humility and prayer, DECIDE that we will lay hold of God's promises concerning our lives and BELIEVE them, act upon them, rejoice in them, hope in them.
As I said in my sermon last Sunday, we are surrounded with the song of the Lamb. We are redeemed to join that song. Get singing. Stir up the gift that is in you - the regenerate heart that is truly yours, by God's great Gift. Employ the imagination mixed with Scripture - take your place in Hebrews 11, see the assembly in Hebrews 12, hear the song of Revelation 5, and hope still in God, for He has promised He will never leave us or forsake us, so that we may boldly say, the LORD is my helper, and I will not be afraid, especially of men (Isaiah li, 12, 13). Let us also boldly take our stand with Habbakkuk (iii. 17-19), and refuse to follow American idolatry. Let us rejoice and give ourselves to the duties before us: the Lord is King!
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