And that mothers of children as well as fathers (as they have frequently the best opportunities) would take particular care to instruct them in the knowledge of religion and the Holy Scriptures; because it hath been found, by experience, that good impressions, made early on the tender minds of children, have proved lasting means of preserving them in a religious life and conversation. This practice was enjoined strongly upon the people of Israel by Moses and Joshua, the servants of the Lord, who required them to read or repeat the law to their children. —Joseph John Gurney

Questions: It can be tempting to feel fear and to take a posture of defensiveness when we see people falling away from the faith, but Paul reminds us the Spirit fills us with courage, love, and confidence rather than fear and timidity. In what ways is this difficult for you? What do you learn from the way Paul approaches this situation, and how might it apply to you? Are there ways in which you are attempting to live out the faith of a previous generation rather than your own, or attempting to get younger generations to take on such a trust with your expression of the gospel rather than building that trust with God?

[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

(2 Timothy 1:9–10)

For me, as for many early Quakers, the crowning jewel of the second epistle to Timothy is this reference to the amazing grace by which we may know death abolished and eternal life revealed. Isaac Penington wrote a tract from Reading Gaol in 1671 titled: “Life and Immortality Brought to Light through the Gospel.” In 1688, George Fox reported the establishment of Friends meetings “in the order of the Gospel, which had brought life and immortality to light in them;” I can’t believe he’d have written this unless he was sure they had experienced it.

There are, of course, degrees of light, from faint starlight to the blaze of noon. One believer may say merely that faith in Jesus gives them hope of an immortal life after death, while another (like my Quaker friend who died on the operating table and came back to life) remembers going to heaven, receiving Christ’s blessing, and then being sent back. He knows it. And then there are the contemplatives who awaken to eternity and ever afterward, returning to walk with the rest of us in ordinary time and space, know experientially that “this is eternal life, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom God has sent” (John 17:3).

And I? The “natural man” in me hasn’t yet experienced it, but the living Christ in me surely knows it from everlasting. Some twenty years ago, in silent worship, I heard the Lord’s voice say in my mind: “I awaken whom I will, when I think best; and comfort thou the ones who are still asleep.” I continue to be one of the sleepers myself, but I’d now truthfully say that I know life and immortality brought to light in me, because I know that Christ dwelling in me knows it.

The fruit of this knowledge is that we cease to fear death. Oh, I still have my phobias about heights and live electricity, but that’s the voice of the flesh in me, trying to keep me safe. But when my call to abandon the flesh comes, I trust my Savior to give me the courage to leave it without hesitation.

–John Jeremiah Edminster in “Friendly Perspective” from 1, 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; 1, 2, 3 John: The Jesus Movement