While Paul, apostle of Christ, usually wrote to early Christian communities he founded or visited, here is a letter to an individual, Timothy. Paul met Timothy in his travels, and discovering Timothy's good reputation among people, he called Timothy to follow him in his travels. Paul missions Timothy by witnessing to his own life, bearing many hardships and still on fire with the mission of Jesus to bring the Good News. Paul assures Timothy of God's Spirit at work with "power, love and self-control." Do we feel that fervour to carry out Christ's call to us? Will you be bold enough to defend the faith?

From as early as the account of the temptations in the desert, Jesus had to defend Himself and what the Father had revealed to His people. These rebuttals continued right through His life. The Sadducees were the religious aristocrats who held on to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, as authoritative. While rejecting bodily resurrection, they present Jesus with a rather exaggerated example to see what He will say or do. This time, Jesus the Teacher, brings them back to what is said in Exodus 3 that is in the Pentateuch itself, that our God is the God of the living, not of the dead. The Sadducees experience the authority of Jesus. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. We hope to live eternally with Him, the Father, the angels and the saints.