In which context is given its day in the sun.

“What’s your favorite Bible verse?”

I get asked this question surprisingly often. People want quotable quotes, a cool cell phone background, a choice phrase to use as the title of their new novel (A Scanner Darkly, I’m looking at you).

I was reading 2 Timothy on the subway the other day, trying my best not to morph from passive to passive-aggressive at the rampant manspreaders/entitled gawps, when I came across a verse that has always been an encouragement to me.

2 Timothy 2:13

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

I always took that to mean that even if we leave the Lord in our faithlessness, He remains faithful to uphold all His promises to us and draw us back to Himself.

Let’s put this in context.

2 Tim 2:11–13

Faithful is the word: for if we died with Him, we also will live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

The word of God is unwavering, and what it says is that our actions matter. If we claim ownership of the divine fact that we have died with Christ (Rom 6), then we will also live with Him (Rom 6). If we contradict, disown, or disregard the Lord (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon), He will do the same to us. Not by desire, as I believe Jesus loves us beyond measure, but because the word of God must stand firm. Therefore, the next verse confirms that if we are faithless (and therefore deny Him), He must remain faithful. He cannot, by not renouncing a person who renounces Him, become unfaithful to the staunch truth of the word of God. That veracity is an aspect of His very existence; to accept one who renounces Him is to renounce Himself. How can He deny Himself?

Without context (and sometimes even with context), it is very easy to read with polarized lenses. God is all truth, all love, and all light. Of course He is! But at the same time, He is all righteousness, all truth, and all right. So when reading the Bible, I take care to check myself against the context. A good principle is set by “The Twofoldness of Divine Truth” by Robert Govett. It goes to show that humans, whose consummate invention in his own image is arguably the computer, like dichotomies. 0 or 1. God is showing me one by one that human logic is false dichotomies, all the way down. We think, “God is loving and kind. His mercy endureth forever and ever [cue guitar solo]. He must not have been the orchestrator of catastrophic violence.” False. Proof: the entire Old Testament. So does that mean God is not loving or kind? Also false. Proof: the entire Bible. The divine truth must be held at both ends, and not giving an unequal weight to one end in such a way that the other is ignored. This is what it means to cut straight the word of the truth (2 Tim 2:15).

Back to this verse. Amen, God is faithful! Even if we are faithless, He is faithful! This is still an incredibly encouraging and uplifting word, but now that I have the context, it’s even more rich. Its encouragement lies not in the fact that God will pick us up when we fall, but in that He is inexorably moving towards accomplishing His goal: the restoration of the universe, and His return. We can either be with Him in this or not. Let’s choose to be with Him.

I also don’t mean to imply that there is no place in the Bible where it says God will be faithful to take care of us even when we’re too weak to follow Him. It’s just in another book.

1 Thes 5:24

Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.

In context, it means God has called us to be fully sanctified—that is, fully saturated with God as our divine essence in spirit, soul, and body—and He will do it. What a promise!

For those of you who want an update on my earthbound lubbing, I’m plopping along. My app is working! Praise the Lord. I’m but a worm, but my friends, family, school, and the good ol’ Internet have somehow pulled me through. One last feature to program. Final slog awaits.