SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 8/16/2025 9:35 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
“Alexander, The Faithless Enemy”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy 4:14-15
Message of the verses: “14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord
will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Be on guard against him yourself, for
he vigorously opposed our teaching.”
I
don’t know about any of you who have read these two verses, but the name Alexander the coppersmith just seems
evil to me. I don’t know why but it
does, and the truth is that he was an evil man.
Now as we look at these words that
Paul wrote in these two verses we can see that he has devoted as many words to Alexander the coppersmith as he does to
all the other men combined whom he has mentioned in the previous four verses,
and he does this for good reason.
Now I want to look at Acts 19:33 to
look at what surely is another Alexander “Some
of the crowd concluded it was Alexander, since the Jews had put him
forward; and having motioned with his hand, Alexander was intending to make a
defense to the assembly.” John
MacArthur writes that “He may have been the man whom, along with Hymenaeus, the
apostle had ‘delivered over to Satan, so
that they may be taught not to blaspheme’ (1 Tim. 1:20).”
Now as we look at how Paul describes
this Alexander we see that he adds the coppersmith,
and so by adding that it makes me think that this is a different man than the
other men with names Alexander, as this was a common name then and now we more
often see just Alex today. Let us look
at another man in Acts 19:24 “For a man
named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was
bringing no little business to the craftsmen.”
We can see that people were named with the trades that they were
working in. I don’t think that is too
popular in today’s world as communication is much better today than at the time
Acts was written. MacArthur adds “this Alexander may have been an idolmaker
who fiercely resented the apostle and did
him much harm. For that, as well as
for his false teaching, the Lord will
repay him according to his deeds, Paul said. Faithful to God’s Word (Deut. 23:35),
including his own teaching of it (Rom. 12:19), he left vengeance in the hands
of God.”
MacArthur goes on to write, “Because
the apostle tells Timothy to be on guard
against him yourself, this enemy may have lived in Rome and cause Paul
trouble during one or both of his imprisonments. In that case, he was warning Timothy to be on
the lookout for him when he arrived there to see Paul.
“Even worse than the harm Alexander
caused Paul personally was the harm he had done to the cause of Christ by being
vigorously opposed to Paul’s teaching. More than an enemy of Paul,
he was the enemy of God.”
Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today: It is because of the Lord saving me on
January 26, 1974 that I am no longer an enemy of God, and for that I will be
eternally thankful to the Lord, and it is my desire to serve Him in the way He
desires me to serve Him each day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give me the peace that
passes all understanding as I go through this difficult time dealing with my
wife’s cancer.
8/16/2025 10:05 AM
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