to fan a dying ember back into open flame; to revive something that has cooled or grown faint
The picture behind this word is a coal still glowing under the ashes, brought back to a blaze by stirring it and breathing on it. Greek writers used it for both a literal fire and, far more often, for things like courage, love, faith, or morale that had faded and now flare up again. The word carries the sense of bringing back to full strength something that had slipped to a low ebb.
It appears only once in the New Testament, in Paul's charge to Timothy to keep the gift God placed in him burning at full strength (2 Timothy 1:6). Because there is a single occurrence and a single shade of meaning, the word is treated as one sense.
What is genuinely debated is not what the word means but what Paul implies by using it: whether Timothy's gift had actually cooled and needed reviving, or whether Paul simply urges him to keep tending a flame that is still burning. That question is recorded in the dispute below; the core image of reviving a faltering fire is agreed on all sides.
Disputed
Whether Paul's word implies that Timothy's gift had actually cooled and needed reviving, or simply that he should keep an already-burning flame at full strength.
- contestedThe gift had genuinely grown faint. Everywhere else this verb describes something that had lapsed before being revived, and Paul's mention of a spirit of fear in the next verse fits a flagging Timothy who needs stirring up.; Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Anchor Bible); Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Eerdmans Critical Commentary)
- contestedNo cooling is implied. The continuous form of the verb and the warm thanksgiving for Timothy's sincere faith point to encouragement to keep doing what he is already doing, not a rebuke of failure.; William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (Word Biblical Commentary); George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (New International Greek Testament Commentary)
- contestedA middle reading: the word here means to fan fully into flame rather than to rekindle from cold, a pastoral spur to renewed vigor under pressure that neither accuses Timothy of failure nor merely encourages a thriving disciple.; I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (International Critical Commentary); Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (New International Commentary on the New Testament)