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o reach for souls is to reach for the diately responded to His great grace and
eternal. And as soul winners, more lordship. Timothy’s rendezvous with the
Tthan just reaching out to a soul, we Lord, while no less significant, seems less
all endeavor to seek, reach and bring souls sensational. Instead of the blinding light
to Christ. While one human being with a and voice from heaven, he found salvation
soul is naturally suited to speak to another through the light of the Scriptures read in
soul, thankfully there are Persons and the home. The one who saw the physical
powers beyond a mere human connection light and risen Lord did not expect this
adept in things eternal and engaged in to be the conversion experience for all,
this endeavor. but understood that the Scriptures could
We read in 1 Timothy 2:3-4 of “God produce the same fruit unto salvation
our Savior, who desires all people to be and relationship. Paul said to Timothy,
saved and to come to the knowledge of “From a child thou hast known the holy
the truth.” Beyond our sincerest interest scriptures, which are able to make thee
1
in souls, all Persons of the Godhead are wise unto salvation” (2Ti 3:15 KJV). The
actively and intently seeking to save that Scriptures were Timothy’s path to Christ
which is lost. The Apostle Paul further and path for a life that reproduced the
reveals the divine operation in his sec- same faith evidenced in his mother and
ond letter to Timothy when he writes in grandmother. Paul, Timothy and everyone
chapter 1, “[He] saved us and called us to involved knew the power of God’s deliv-
a holy calling, not because of our works erance and the power of the Scriptures to
but because of his own purpose and grace, reach heart and soul, young and old.
which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the John closes his Gospel with the cer-
ages began” (v9). tainty that readers could come to know
This knowledge of divine rescue wasn’t Christ and salvation through his letter. He
just by spiritual revelation but by personal writes, “But these are written so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
experience. Through vastly differing tra- Son of God, and that believing you may
jectories, Paul and Timothy individually have life in his name” (Joh 20:31). Could
could look back with gratitude, not just to John imagine the multitudes around the
a moment but to the moment when God, globe who would find the gracious Savior
through Christ, saved them. Dramatically, through his words?
Paul saw the gloriously risen Lord, heard
His kind yet powerful voice, and imme- Paul and Timothy would both recognize
the effective power of the Word of God to
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the do the work of God. The one true God who
ESV unless otherwise noted. will have all men to be saved and come to
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