In 2 Timothy, Onesiphorus provided Paul a friendship that reached down into the fabric of everyday life. But friendship is not simply love in everyday action. Friendship is loyalty in the time of trouble.

Proverbs 17:17 begins: "A friend loves at...

Some people in Paul's time supported a view of the flesh that ultimately rejected the biblical doctrine of the bodily resurrection of the dead. Salvation for them meant escape from the physical body; life after death would be only a spiritual existence, not a...

Even Christians struggle with loneliness. In the conclusion of his final letter, it is an aged, imprisoned, ill, and lonely apostle who is writing. But he fought the loneliness in very specific ways. Paul:

• kept his mind active by studying the Word...

Because no sacrifice was too great for his Lord and Savior, Paul was imprisoned several times for preaching the gospel (2 Cor. 6:5). In the city of Philippi, he was thrown in jail and then released when it was discovered that he and Silas were Roman...