Honor and shame. 2 Timothy 1.

Paul uses the word ashamed (Greek epaischunomai) three times in this first chapter of his final letter to Timothy. That sounds like a clue to something important. Looking quickly at the usage in question ...

For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, a prisoner for his sake, but by God’s power accept your share of suffering for the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:7,8 NET)

Because of this, in fact, I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom my faith is set ... (2 Timothy 1:12 NET)

May the Lord grant mercy to the family of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my imprisonment. (2 Timothy 1:16 NET)

... it seems pretty obvious that the shame Paul didn't have was attached to suffering and imprisonment.

In some ways this is a familiar concept, but in some ways not so much. For example, we attach a certain amount of shame to the idea of imprisonment, although it's probably attached more to the reason for the imprisonment than the imprisonment itself. For Martin Luther King Jr. to be arrested for non-violent (even illegal) protests to discriminatory law is not the same as the arrest of Mel Gibson for drunk driving and resisting arrest while hurling anti-Semitic epithets. Likewise, we're aware that for some people suffering (say poverty), and illness feel shameful. We hear that sentiment expressed in phrases like, "I'd be too ashamed to ask for help."

But this seems to go deeper in Paul's case than in that of our own culture. As Paul is encouraging Timothy to not be ashamed, he ties that shame to Timothy's testimony about Paul (in prison) and the Lord (). What goes in those parentheses? Crucified. Timothy's testimony is the gospel of a crucified Messiah as given to him by Paul, the guy in jail about to be executed. And Timothy can expect to suffer as well!

Well, that's just ugly. The words of the old hymn, The Old Rugged Cross, come to mind.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame.

Crucifixion was horrific in every possible way. Painful beyond measure. Lengthy. Public. Defenselessly naked. Death coming when the balance between enduring the pain required to keep breathing shifted in favor of the fear that came with asphyxiation. The shame of criminality.

The Three Crosses, etching by Rembrandt, 1653, State III of IV

The gospel is about a Messiah who was crucified. For Jews, in general, and for Paul specifically, until he met the risen Lord, this is an incomprehensible thought. It was just as true for the rest of the cultures in Paul's world. Criminal death, even as a martyr, was only shameful. Paul had to wrap his head around this unthinkable thought. And he did. In fact, he saw incomprehensible beauty and love and power in the justness and mercy of this act -- "To me – less than the least of all the saints – this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ ..." (Eph. 3:8 NET)

No doubt it took continual reminders that Christ's death and the suffering of the saints were not shameful events, but necessary ones, to counteract the influence of the culture's thinking. It's on that note, that I want to flesh out something beyond what we gain straight from the Bible (although given enough time, I bet the information is there for as much as we need to know. See, for example, the numerous references to shame in the Psalms, and David's prefiguring of Paul's sentiment when he says in Psalm 69:7 "For I suffer humiliation for your sake and am thoroughly disgraced.")

While I try to get the sense of what I'm reading each day in our NT Read Through directly from the text, I knew that I wasn't fully comprehending this idea of shame. So I spent a little time looking into it using other resources. We live in a culture where honor and shame as motivators for behavior are codified into law. In Paul's day, honor and shame were more directly connected to behavior and status. Apparently there is a great deal of cultural anthropological thought related to "honor-shame" cultures. We don't need to get into that to get the essential message of Paul's words to Timothy, and God's words to us, but I'll leave you with a short quote, not from a cultural anthropology source, but from Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible.

Honor, Shame
Among North Americans, honor and shame often refer to a psychological state -- a person's internal moral character or the actions that reflect that character. In the world of the Bible and in traditional Mediterranean societies, however, honor and shame are social values determinative of a person's identity and social status. Honor is a person's claim to self-worth and the social acknowledgment of that claim -- i.e., honor is a person's public reputation which constitutes his or her identity. Shame is a person's concern for reputation. It is a positive value by which one seeks to protect his or her honor. If one is unable to maintain his honor, or if his peers do not acknowledge his claim to self-worth, then the person is shamed, i.e., dishonored and disgraced. A person with no concern for his honor or reputation is shameless.¹

Even in this, Jesus turns the world order upside down -- suffering that was shameful becomes when done for others, honor.

¹Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible