Meditation and Prayer on 2Timothy 1:13

2Tim 1:13 "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which
is in Christ Jesus."

Dear Heavenly Father, I confess that in Jesus Christ I have found faith and love that I could not have
imagined, for I have nothing that can reach so far into the heavens to lay hold on these immense
treasures. Your love has followed me all the days of my life, even when I was not aware of Your
presence.

This love and faith came to me only because of the words of the Gospel that were told to me by
people in whom your love and faith lived. They told me of Jesus and His love for sinners like me.
The story gripped my heart, dear Lord. I did not know how. Later I learned that it was your Holy
Spirit, but I was just a child and only knew that the story was true. I hungered to know more of this
faith and love.

Thank you for raising up your faithful apostles, including Paul who wrote this epistle to Timothy.
The apostles spoke words that you gave them, not words which human wisdom taught them, but
words which the Holy Ghost gave them. These words have meaning, the meaning that you chose to
place under them, so that when we heard the words we would know of your faith and love, and be
constrained by your Spirit to enter into the fellowship of the Gospel through the words of the
Apostles.

We confess, O Lord, that sound words are important, and we should not constantly trying to invent
new ways of saying these precious things, for they came to us in sound and clear words, words that
carried the meaning that You had revealed to us about the faith and love in Christ Jesus.

May we take the time and labor to teach people the meaning of these precious words so that your
message of faith and love is not confusing to the mind. You, O eternal Word and Wisdom of God,
our Lord Jesus, chose words very carefully and taught us their meaning in the Holy Scriptures. These
words have been carefully translated into our languages and we thank God for faithful men who did
this work so that we might have sound words and understand these things. We thank you for the great
creeds of the church that have carefully defined the words in our languages also, so that we might not
go astray in such an important matter.

Teach us, O Lord, to hold fast the form of sound words. Form means as “a lively picture”: the words
must not blur the meaning, but must be chosen carefully and used consistently until people know
what they mean and can rely on the great message of the gospel.  

We thank you, especially, in our day for the clarity of words that we have in our language that, if we
are diligent, we can know the meanings of them and so not go astray from the Gospel of faith and
love which is in Jesus Christ. May we not be guilty of shifting words so that people are not rendered
confused about the Gospel. 

We desire, O Lord, to communicate the Gospel, the same Gospel, that our fathers in the faith
conveyed to us. We want to be able to talk to one another in familiar, sound words that are not being
redefined again and again, according to the fashion and opinions of shifting public opinion.