<p>1:12 <i>I thank him that enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord</i>- Literally, en-strengthened me, put His <i>dunamis</i> in me. I take this as a reference to the internal strengthening within a believer made possible by the gift of the Lord's Spirit. Such a gift is received after baptism. And Paul is the parade example; after his baptism, he &quot;increased the more in strength&quot; and preached boldly (Acts 9:22 s.w. &quot;enabled&quot;). He refers to this strengthening later: &quot;I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me&quot; (Phil. 4:13). Those &quot;all things&quot; in that context refer to the internal, mental, psychological ability to cope with various life circumstances. He wishes Timothy to make use of the same strengthening: &quot;Be strong in the grace Gk. 'the gift' that is in that comes from being in Christ&quot; (2 Tim. 2:1). And at the end of his days, Paul could reflect that the Lord Jesus stood with him at his final trial and strengthened him (2 Tim. 4:17). The same word is used of how weak believers like us were strengthened out of their weakness to be strong in faith- again a reference to psychological strengthening (Heb. 11:34), just as Abraham's weak faith was strengthened (Rom. 4:20 s.w.). The same power strengthens believers s.w.&nbsp; unto internal characteristics such as endurance, patience and joy (Col. 1:11), the &quot;power&quot; in view being the spirit of Christ. This same power / <i>dunamis </i>is referred to in Rom. 15:13 as the source of these same internal, mental attributes: God fills us with &quot;all joy and peace... that you may abound in hope, through the power / <i>dunamis</i> of the Holy Spirit&quot;. To deny the operation of this power is not simply a matter of missing out on so much; it is a denial of the essence of the transforming Gospel. A related word is found in Eph. 3:16- we are &quot;strengthened with might <i>dunamis</i> by His spirit in the inner man&quot;. This is where the gift of the Spirit operates; the reference is to &quot;the inner man&quot; and not the public display of the Spirit in special miracles etc. Paul's whole ministry, like ours, is a result of &quot;the operation of His power / <i>dunamis</i>&quot; (Eph. 1:19,21; 3:7). On this basis, Paul urges timid Timothy to allow the spirit / <i>dunamis </i>of love and a sound mind to work in him again, internal attributes, not referring to any ability to perform miracles; and this would drive out his &quot;spirit of fear&quot; (2 Tim. 1:7). It was this <i>dunamis</i> which would enable Timothy to endure &quot;the afflictions of the Gospel&quot; which were clearly making Timothy balk (2 Tim. 1:8). Paul notes that the opposition to Timothy within the church had a &quot;form of Godliness possibly referring to their upholding some kind of statement of faith but were denying the power <i>dunamis</i>&quot; of that form of Godliness, i.e. the doctrines of the Gospel (2 Tim. 3:5). Paul has spoken of the &quot;form of sound words&quot; as referring to some kind of corpus of Gospel teaching in 2 Tim. 1:13. This has unpleasant similarities with those of our day who loudly profess their Biblicism, their holding of some &quot;form of Godliness&quot; in the Gospel; but who deny the operation of the power / <i>dunamis</i> which is associated with it, in that those who accept the Gospel shall be given the Spirit. And this element within the church of today deny this, insisting that the Spirit is not given in response to belief of the Gospel, and that the days of Spirit operation ceased in the first century. It is this <i>dunamis</i>, this power from the Lord, which provides us with all things required for spiritual life and Godliness, and keeps us unto salvation (1 Pet. 1:5; 2 Pet. 1:3). See on :14 <i>And the grace...</i></p><p><i>For that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service</i>- Very much the language of Romans, about how we who are sinners are judged and yet found innocent because of our status in Christ. We are counted as faithful; it would be rather arrogant surely to assume we are given a ministry because of our righteousness. But that is surely not what Paul intends to say, especially as he now goes right on to speak of his terrible past. He who was such a sinner, was judged / counted faithful. That is Paul's point. The ministries we are given are therefore given as an outworking of God's undeserved, unmerited grace to us; and not as a function of any human adequacy for the tasks.</p>