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Be not ashamed: He said this, because the confession of the gospel was accounted infamous; and therefore he forbids that either ambition or the fear of disgrace shall prevent or retard him from the liberty of preaching the gospel. And he infers this from what has been already said; for he who is armed with the power of God will not tremble at the noise raised by the world, but will reckon it honourable that wicked men mark them with disgrace.

An appeal to the well-recognized fact that it was thus and thus only that Timothy received his call from God, is nothing other, then, than to cast him back on the Almighty arms and to make him poignantly realize that it is God and not he who is conceived as carrying through the work so begun. ‘O Timothy,’ says Paul, in effect, ‘Faint not! It is not your own strength—or rather weakness—that is here in question; it is the power of Almighty God. Do not you remember how you were brought into relations with this God? Was it of yourself that you were called with this holy calling? Nay, no works of your own entered in. It was of His own purpose that He called you; the grace that has come to you was given you from all eternity. What has come to you in time is only the manifestation of what was eternally done. It is this Almighty God who is using you as His instrument and organ. Nothing depends on your weakness; all hangs on His strength. Take courage and go onward.’ Thus Paul strengthens Timothy for the conflict before him.