It is shallow criticism unworthy of refutation that calls a believer a "Paulite" because

he seeks to honour this testimony of the ascended Christ. That testimony was not given

to all the apostles or to some of the apostles. It was given to one, Paul the apostle, and

now the "prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles". Any withdrawal therefore from fear,

or a sense of shame, now that Paul was standing his trial for the truth's sake, would be

tantamount to being ashamed of the testimony of the Lord. And, although uttered in the

period of the presentation of the Kingdom, in principle, the solemn words of our Lord in

Luke 9: 26 were still true: "For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words, of

him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come."

While the phase of the second coming may change from that of the Parousia (used in

the Gospels, early Epistles, James and Peter) to that of the Epiphaneia (translated

"appearing" and used in the prison epistles) the believer's attitude to the Lord and His

word is influenced by the way in which that glorious coming holds his affection and

constitutes his hope. If shame is to be suffered by those who have denied the Lord, a

crown awaits those who have "loved His appearing" (II Tim. 4: 8). Demas, who forsook

the Apostle, is said to have "loved" this present world (II Tim. 4: 10), and the

interrelation of these passages must not be missed.

In II Tim. 1: 8 the Apostle addresses Timothy on the subject of shame or otherwise,

negatively and positively:

An essential part of the testimony delivered to the Apostle was the gospel. Over and

over again a misguided, though perhaps earnest, believer will say "We don't want Paul's

doctrine; all we want is the simple gospel". Yet, if we take the words euaggellion,

"gospel", and euaggelizomai, "preach the gospel", what do we find? The four Gospels

and the first half of the Acts (Acts 1:-12:) contain twelve references to the "gospel", and

nineteen references to "preach the gospel", whereas Paul's epistles and Acts 13:-28:

contain sixty-one references to the "gospel" and thirty-two references to "preaching

the gospel". To this we might add the word "Evangelist" (Acts 21: 8; Eph. 4: 11;

II Tim. 4: 5).  If we take the other word, kerugma, "preaching as a herald", kerux,

"preacher as a herald", and kerusso, to "preach as a herald", we find kerugma occurs but

twice in the Gospels and early Acts and six times in Paul's epistles and Acts 13:-28:

Kerux occurs only in I Tim. 2: 7 and II Tim. 1: 11.  (The only other reference is

II Pet. 2: 5), and kerusso occurs thirty-five times in the Gospels and early Acts, and

twenty-four times in Acts 13:-28: and Paul's epistles.

If the number of occurrences of a word has any bearing upon the place that the subject

occupies in the mind of a writer, then the fact that these words, relating to the gospel,

occur nearly twice as many times in the writings of Paul as in the rest of the N.T. put

together, must surely give the lie to that report that a study of Paul's epistles slackens

interest in the gospel and its preaching. Here, in his last letter, and in view of his death

for the truth's sake, the Apostle couples the gospel with that special testimony of the Lord

that was associated with himself as the Lord's prisoner. In this last testimony he is not