In answer to the barren Hannah’s prayer, God gives her a son, Samuel. Hannah promised the Lord to give the child back to the Lord “to appear in the Lord’s presence, and to stay there permanently.” When Samuel was about three years old, Hannah presented him to Eli at the Tabernacle in Shiloh where Samuel began his service to the Lord.

God’s unique call to Samuel came deep in the night while he was asleep in the Tabernacle. At first, Samuel did not understand it was God calling him. He mistook the voice of God for the voice of Eli. When Eli instructed Samuel in how to reply to the Lord, Samuel responded to the Lord’s call with the words: “Speak, your servant is listening.”

Through Samuel, God confirmed his prior prophecy to judge the wicked sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas.

Summary statement of Samuel’s growth to maturity, his prophetic standing before all Israel, and the Lord’s regular revelations of his word to Samuel to be delivered to the people.

• date/place: 66-67 from Rome
• author: Paul in his second imprisonment and near the end of his life
• recipient: Timothy the young pastor in Ephesus
• overview: hold on to it (1), teach it (2), abide in it (3) and preach it (4)

• identification
• greeting
• affection
• affirmation

• gift of God
• laying on of hands

• given by God
• not fear
• power, love and self-control

• therefore…
• don’t be ashamed
• saved and called…
• death abolished and life brought…

• Paul’s settled conviction
• supernatural security

• follow “healthy” words
• Spirit-driven stewardship

• Assess your source of security
• Evaluate the stewardship of your gift
• Adjust your perspective on suffering
• Treasure the truth

• godliness: reverence, opportunistic piety
• not what you think…

• If I just had…
• the curse of covetousness

• nourishment and covering
• the key to contentment
• no one and no thing…

²³Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. ²⁴And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, ²⁵correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, ²⁶and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

3. V11 Command and teach
4. V12 Set Example
5. V13 Devotion to Scripture
6. V14 Rest Assured
7. V16 Consistency

“In former centuries, the period between the Reformation and our fathers’ time, the tendency of the Protestant Church was very largely to let the conception of religion as a body of truths overshadow everything else. And nowadays, amongst a great many people, the temptation is to take the second story for the main one, and to think that if a man loves, and has the glow at his heart of the conscious reception of God’s love, and has longings and yearnings, and Christian hopes and desires, and passes into the sweetnesses of communion with God, in his solitary moments, and plunges deep into the truths of God’s Word, that is godliness. But the true exhortation to us is—Do not stop with putting in the foundations of a correct creed, nor at the second stage of an emotional religion. Both are needful.”

• implied pre-existence
• unfathomable condescension
• acknowledged deity

• presence of angels
• proclamation to peoples
• near and far

• trusted in the world below
• taken into glory above

A. Priority of prayer (v.1a)
B. Variety of prayer (v.1b)
C. Objects of prayer (v.1c-2)
D. Reasons for prayer (v.3-4)
E. Basis for prayer (v.5-7)
F. Prayer is good and pleases God.

A. Men are to pray. (v.8)
B. Women are to dress modestly and serve others. (v.9-10)
C. Women are to be humble. (v.11-15)
D. Our attitudes and actions matter to God.

• previously: sound doctrine and surrendered life (1:1-11)
• personal reflection building off of 1:11

• the Lord’s enablement
• the Lord’s assessment
• the Lord’s appointment
• awareness of amazing grace
• affirmation of Christ’s objective
• a testimony that glories in Christ rather than glories in sin

• display of long-suffering
• pattern of grace
• explosion of doxology

• commissioning of Timothy
• a war to wage
• a warning to observe
• the soldier/sailor combination

• praise to offer: “Immortal invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.” (W. C. Smith)
• charge to keep: “A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify. A never-dying soul to save, and fit it for the sky.” (C. Wesley)

• ground of hope
• grace, mercy and peace

• instruct “certain persons”
• don’t teach different doctrine
• don’t devote yourself to wrong thinking
• remember the goal
• the danger of spiritual arrogance

• using the law lawfully
• understand the identity of its target-audience
• 14 examples rooted in the 10 Commandments
• the standard of “hygienic” doctrine
• according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God

• “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your rest in His excellent word. What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?” (R. Keene)
• “Jesus, priceless treasure, source of purest pleasure, truest friend to me…Thine I am, O spotless Lamb, I will suffer naught to hide Thee, ask for naught beside Thee.” (J. Franck)
• Avoid “Jiminy Cricket” theology.
• Get your spiritual meals from divine revelation rather than human speculation.
• Text-driven truth promotes spiritual health!

• Passover preparation precedes
• forecast of denial and prayer in Gethsemane follows
• key text on the Lord’s Supper: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
• Lord’s Supper: ordained and instituted by Christ

• unleavened bread and its significance
• Christ’s body as a sacrificial offering
• purity of the offering
• take/eat

• shared cup
• new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34)
• apostles: appointed leadership of the “remnant”
• expression of “communion”
• shedding of blood

• when I drink it new…
• resurrection: implicit in the Lord’s Supper
• until then: remember and proclaim

• Because the Lord’s Supper portrays the supreme purity and substitutionary power of Jesus, pursue the nourishment and sustenance it provides.
• “Jesus’ sacrifice is the means by which God binds sinners to Himself and brings them deliverance from bondage in sin.” (S. Ferguson)
• “His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay…” (E. Mote)

• intent to kill
• aiming to avoid a commotion

• a contrasting pause
• action: a woman pours
• reaction: indignant about “waste”
• commendation: a beautiful thing (2 Cor. 8:9)

• bargaining with religious leaders
• intolerance of complete devotion to Jesus

• Because Jesus poured Himself out for you, pour yourself out in love to Him.
• “It’s beautiful when the worth of Jesus and the love of His followers match…when the value of His perfections and the intensity of our affections correspond.” (J. Piper)
• no turning back or holding back