I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of you in my prayers night and day;
All Commentaries on 2 Timothy 1:3 Go To 2 Timothy 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
'I thank God,' he says, 'that I remember you,' so much do I love you. This is a mark of excessive love, when a man glories in his affection from loving so much. I thank God, he says, Whom I serve: and how? With a pure conscience, for he had not violated his conscience. And here he speaks of his blameless life, for he everywhere calls his life his conscience. Or because I never gave up any good that I purposed, for any human cause, not even when I was a persecutor. Wherefore he says, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief 1 Timothy 1:13; all but saying, Do not suspect that it was done of wickedness. He properly commends his own disposition, that his love may appear sincere. For what he says is in fact, I am not false, I do not think one thing and profess another. So in the book of Acts we read he was compelled to praise himself. For when they slandered him as a seditious man and an innovator, he said in his own defense, Ananias said to me, The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of His mouth. For you shall be His witness unto all men of what you have seen and heard. Acts 22:14-15 In the same manner here, that he may not, as if he had been forgetful, have the character of one void of friendship and conscience, he justly praises himself, saying, that without ceasing I have remembrance of you, and not simply that, but in my prayers. That is, it is the business of my prayers, that which I constantly continue to perform. For this he shows by saying, For this I besought God day and night, desiring to see you. Mark his fervent desire, the intensity of his love. And again, his humility, how he apologizes to his disciples, and then he shows that it was not on light or vain grounds; and this he had shown us before, but again gives proof of it. Being mindful of your tears. It was natural for Timothy, when parting from him, to mourn and weep, more than a child torn away from the milk and from the breast of its mother. That I may be filled with joy; greatly desiring to see you. I would not willingly have deprived myself of so great a pleasure, though I had been of an unfeeling and brutal nature, for those tears coming to my remembrance would have been enough to soften me. But such is not my character. I am one of those who serve God purely; so that many strong motives urged me to come to you. So then he wept. And he mentions another cause, and that of a consolatory kind.
