Tragic news filled my feed last week as I followed the story of the doomed submersible exploring the wreck of the Titanic. I’ve also followed the stories of overloaded boats floundering in the Mediterranean as desperate migrants seek a new start in Europe. Shipwrecks seem as real now as they’ve ever been.

Paul wrote to Timothy to fight well and avoid the fate of certain men who shipwrecked their faith:

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.

A shipwreck brings to mind catastrophic scenes. Not simple veering off course, but full on disaster. Paul shared a startling insight into his relationship with these men who crashed their faith and pulled others down with them:

Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.

Paul’s excommunicated these men from the church, hoping to shock them back to rightful thought and living. The scourging of Satan expressed the level of punishment Paul felt necessary to understand their status—shipwrecked yet unaware.

I know people who’ve suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith, and if you’ve followed the Lord very long you do as well. Perhaps the best we can do is to follow Paul’s model, and pray for the lash to return them humbled and chastened back to the Lord.

1 Timothy 1 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Humberto Chávez