Matthew 10:33 and 2 Timothy 2:12 sound like the same threat to a trembling believer, but rightly divided they stand worlds apart. The Lord's warning belongs to Israel under the kingdom program; Paul's word to the Body touches the believer's reward, the reigning with Christ, never his salvation, which rests on One who cannot deny Himself.

Why would God create man, knowing he would fall — and would it not have been kinder never to create at all? Answered on the only ground where it can be answered, the revelation given to Paul: God made the world to display the exceeding riches of His grace, and grace must have something to redeem. The fall was man's, not God's; the cross is God ente…

Paul did not stumble into suffering by ignoring the Holy Spirit's warnings at Tyre and Caesarea. Those were prophetic predictions of what would happen, not prohibitions against going. Acts 23:11 records the Lord's own commendation of Paul's Jerusalem testimony, settling the question of obedience.