2 Tim. Introduction

 

2Tim is the last letter that Paul wrote that we know of. This second letter was written under different circumstances than the first one. If you will remember in our study of first Timothy we took about four months to learn more about the author Paul. We covered his life and missionary journeys in great detail which spanned from Acts 9,13 to Acts 28. At the end of Acts we find Paul a prisoner a Rome in his own rented home. Even though he was a prisoner he was allowed to have as many visitors as he liked. The gospel was not hindered because of his chains instead it helped the gospel message grow. Philip 1:13-14

 

The main thing I want you to understand is this first imprisonment wasn’t that bad. In fact Paul felt confident that he would be released from it. Philp 2:19-24, Phm. 1:22. It is believed that he was released from prison around 63 AD. We know that when he wrote 1Timothy and Titus Paul was a free man once again. However Paul’s freedom didn’t last very long as he was arrested again. While he is in this second imprisonment he writes this the 2nd letter to Timothy. Latter on when we get into the text of this letter we will learn that this imprisonment was a harsher one and Paul knew that his life would soon end  (2Tim 1:16, 2:9, 4:7-8). In his first imprisonment he was confident he would be released but in this one he knew that he would not and he writes this letter to Timothy around 67AD. Paul once again instructs Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel and be sure and teach the truth and nothing but the truth. Paul ends his letter wanting Timothy to come to him so that he could see him one last time before he was killed. It is believed from history that Paul was soon killed after this letter under the reign of Nero and we are not for certain if Timothy made to him in time or not. This being the last letter to Timothy I am sure it meant a great deal to him. This would be just a precious to him as the things that we cherish from our loved ones. Perhaps your grandma gave you something just before she died. Most of us would hold this type of thing close to our hearts. We as Christians should take this last message from Paul dear to our hearts as well. I find it interesting that a man on death role was more concerned about the truth being taught and obeyed more than worrying about his own life.

 

I think that the key verse for the purpose of this book is 2Tim. 4:5. Paul wants to make sure that his beloved son in the faith finish his ministry and stand true to Gods word. A second purpose for this letter was so that Timothy might come quickly so Paul could see him one last time before his death.

 

1-2 You notice that Paul shows his authority by stating that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. This greeting is almost identical to the one in 1Timothy. One difference I want to point out is that in this letter you see in verse 1 that it says by the will of God well in 1Tim he says by the commandment of God. So, we can quickly learn that these two terms are synonymous with each other. Verse 2 tells us who the letter is written to and how Paul loves Timothy as a son. (Philp. 2:20 no like minded).

 

3-4 Paul had always strived to serve God with a pure conscience even when he was trying to destroy Christianity he did so with clear conscience. Acts 23:1, 24:14-16. This teaches us that we cannot always rely upon our conscience when it comes to doing right or wrong. We must train our conscience to work for us and we do that by spending much time with the word of God. The more will fill our thoughts with Gods way the more our conscience will warn us when we are about to do something wrong. Now that Paul had let the word of God become his guide and he taught it and lived it he truly was serving God with a pure conscience. We also learn that Paul was a very prayerful person and we learn from his other letters as well that he prayed for a lot people (Rom. 1:8, 1Cor. 1:4, Phi 1:3, Col 1:3, 1Thes. 1:2). This is an example that we should follow today as well. We should all harness  the power of prayer and give thanks to God for all those in our lives and the blessing that we receive for him. I like how Paul summarizes this for us in 1Thess. 5:16-18.

 

Now in verse 4 we see again the great love that Paul and Timothy have for one another. Paul desperately wants to see Timothy again and he says that it will give he great joy if does indeed get to see him. We are not for sure when Timothy shed his tears but no doubt it was as some point when Paul and Timothy had to part ways. This shows how much love Timothy had for Paul. It also teaches us that it is not unmanly to shed tears. Share my experiences with crying. We have many examples of Godly men crying in the Bible. Ps 119:136 because some not keeping the law, Jn. 11:35 Jesus wept out of compassion for others. Acts 20:37-38, 21:13 Ephesian elders  and the people of Caesarea cried at Pauls departure because of what awaited him at Jerusalem.

 

5 This was another thing  that brought great joy to Paul knowing that Timothy had a genuine faith that is un-hypocritical faith. In other words he not only taught the truth he lived it as well. Another very important thing we can learn from this verse is how important it is for parents and grandparents to teach their children or grand children about God. 2Tim 3:15 tells us that Timothy had known the scriptures from childhood and this was very important foundation which led him to becoming the powerful evangelist that he was. Paul talks about the role of the child and the parent in Eph. 6:1-4. This is not a new concept as it was also taught in the OT as well. Deut 6:5-7. Prov. 22:6. Being a parent is not easy and I am not going to stand up here and tell you some perfect way that in raising your children because each child is different and while one method works great with  one child the same method will not work  with another. I know that it does take a great amount of love, patients and discipline to bring a child up in the Lord. The Bible does give us a couple examples of how not to raise a child up. The first one is found in  2Chron. 22:3. The second Eli even though they were raised up in the house of the Lord. 1Sam. 2:12 22-36.

 

6 –7 Some think that the gift here is simply Timothy appointment as evangelist. However, I personally think this is talking about a miraculous gift that was giving to Timothy through the laying on of hands by Paul. We only read of the apostles having this ability and if you want to see a good example of this just read the first part of Acts 8. It seems to me that Paul was encouraging Timothy here to continue to use his gift no matter what he may face. When we read things like this and some of the other encouragements Paul has written to Timothy we can see that Timothy was a little bit timid or unsure of himself. Part of this might of come from the fact that he was a young man and he had been giving great responsibility in restoring churches to the truth and combating false teachers. Paul gives the reasons why timothy and why we should not be afraid to speak the truth. God has not given us a spirit of fear. This word fear does not mean being scared instead it means being a coward and it never used is good way. In fact John teaches us in Rev. 21:8 that if we have the type of fear mentioned hear that we will have our place in the lake which burns fire and brimstone. This type of fear or this type of cowardness come from a lack of true faith in God. Notice these 3 things that God does give us. The first one is power. This is associated with the word of God. Notice what Paul tells us in Rom. 1:16, James 1:21. We must be bold when it comes to preaching the word of God to others in fact we should pray for such boldness Paul did Eph. 6:19.  The second one is love. Love indeed is a very powerful thing. Paul talks a great deal about love in 1Cor 13 and the key point that he makes is that love does not fail. When we learn about how much love God had for us we can share that same love with those around us. In  fact it is the power of love that should motivates us to share the good news of the gospel with those who are around us. The 3rd thing god has given us is sound mind. This has the idea of learning the word of God and living our life by it. We have been given the ability to think and understand what the Bible says and we must take this to heart and use our sound mind to be pleasing to God by obeying his word.  ? 1Cor. 9:27. 2Cor. 10:5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.  Paul is telling Timothy since God has given you a spirit of power, love and sound mind do not be ashamed of the Lords testimony or me. I don’t believe that Paul is accusing Timothy of being ashamed here but he wants to encourage him not to be ashamed after all he had seen some Christians in his life fall away from the faith. We can all relate to this and I would be willing to bet that just about everyone in some point in their Christian life has compromised their belief because they were to afraid to stand up for the truth. This is more dominant in the younger folks. When they are around their friends who start talking about how cool it is to drink and all other kind of sinful things they began to put the pressure on the Christian teen to engage in these same activities or to talk about them. In instances like this it becomes much easier to join in the conversation and pretend that you think those things are cool to instead of standing up for the truth. This same thing can happen to us at work when we around a bunch of non-Christians at work and they began to talk about things that are not fitting for a Christian to talk about but we sometimes might join in the conversation because we don’t want to be different or let people know that we don’t want to talk about such things. We know that even the apostle Peter fell into this trap as he would not eat with the gentiles when the Jews were around and even Barnabas another great Christian was sucked in to this same trap. Gal 2:11-14. With all this in mind we can see how easy it would be for Timothy to be tempted to compromise the truth especially under the conditions he was under.

 

 Paul goes on to tell Timothy instead of being ashamed share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God. Those who would boldly preach the gospel as Paul did in the 1st century would suffer as Paul did. Notice what Paul says in 2Tim. 3:12. The amount of persecution a person goes through will depend on what time in history they live in and where they live. The 1st century Christian faced being fed to the lions we today might loose a friend or a loved one or perhaps called a few names yet we seem to have more difficulty enduring our persecution which doesn’t even lead to death. We as Christians should be honored to suffer for the cause of Christ notice what Luke records for us in Acts 5:41. There are positive things that happen when we have to go through difficult times because of belief notice what James tells us in James 1:2-4. Paul Rom 5:3-5 Peter rejoice in suffering 1Pet. 4:12-13.

 

9-We have all been called with a holy calling to become children of God. It is a holy calling because God is holy and he wants to call us to be a holy people. See 1Pet. 1:15-16. Paul also (2Cor. 6:17-7:1). How are we called? 2Thes. 2:14. There is no work that we can do to justify or to earn our salvation. Salvation is a free gift that was given to us and purposed before time began. The only reason that we can have salvation today is because of God sent his only begotten son to this earth to die for our sins. Now we know that God demands obedience to his will and we have to obey his will in order to accept the free gift he has given us. This is where so many people out in the religious world get confused because they don’t understand the difference between works of merit and works of obedience. Simply put works of merit is when you earn or deserve something for what you have done. Works of obedience are simply obeying the word of God because you love him for what he has done for you. I think the best definition for works of obedience is found in Luke 17:7-10.  

 

10 This free gift of grace has been revealed by the appearing of Jesus on this earth and especially his appearing after his death. Christ bodily resurrection is proof that he had abolished death. The only thing that the Jews or the Romans had to do to prove that Jesus was just a man would be to find Jesus dead body. Don’t you know the Jews searched under every rock trying to find his body but they could not because he had conquered death. What death has Jesus abolished, physical death or spiritual death? Physical death will not be abolished until he comes again.1Cor. 15:25-26. When this happens the Christian will also be victorious over death. 1Cor. 15:54-57. Finally in latter part of verse 10 you see that life and immortality are revealed through the gospel. These concepts are fully revealed in the good news that we have in our Bibles today about Jesus death burial and resurrection. By reading and understanding the scriptures we can learn all we need to know about life and obtaining immortality in heaven.

 

11-12 Because Paul had served the lord in these 3 ways he had suffered in many ways. Do you remember back prior to Paul conversion when Jesus had to convince Ananias to go to Paul. In Acts 9:16 Jesus told him  "For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." Paul gives us a glimpse into what he had to suffer through as a Christian in 2Cor. 11:23-33. Through all of these tribulations Paul remained strong and he put his trust in  the Lord. Paul is a great example for Timothy to follow and for us to follow as well. Paul put it best when he said he could do all things through Christ which strengthens me Philp 4:13 and he had learned to be content no mater what circumstance he might be in Philp. 4:11. Paul had committed is very soul to God and he was very confident that he was in good hands. We should have that same confidence. Look at what Peter  says about this in 1Peter 4:19. Finally Jesus tells us that no one can snatch us from the fathers hand John 10:28-29.

 

13 If there was one thing that Paul was always emphatic about it was teaching others to hold fast to sound doctrine. Paul stressed this over and over again throughout the letters to Timothy because he knew that humans would corrupt the word of God to fit their own desires instead of Gods. In fact lets look at just a few scriptures of how serious Paul was at wanting Christians to follow after the word of God and nothing else. Rom. 16:17, 1Cor. 4:6, Gal. 1:6-9, 2Thes. 2:15, 3:6. There are a lot of people out there even in the church who no longer look to the word of God as there authority. Instead they want to base their decision and their style of worship on how they feel or by what is sociably acceptable. I hope that we at the lone grove church of Christ never fall in to this dangerous type of thinking. I hope that we will take the words of Paul and hold fast to what the words says and not the majority.

 

14. The good thing here is the word of God. We also see this in 1Tim. 6:20. He encourages Timothy to keep by the Holy Spirit. Now I think this goes hand and hand with the gift that Paul wanted Timothy to stir up in verse 6. You may agree or disagree with me here but to me I see Paul encouraging Timothy to use the power of the Holy Sprit in miraculous way to keep our guard  the word of God.

 

15. Here we have some Christians in Asia who had turned away from Paul who had turned away from the truth and then Paul names the specific two. This is the only place that we read of these two people but what a way to be remembered. We can only guess at why they were named specifically. Perhaps they were the leaders of those turning away from Paul and the truth. Paul didn’t have any problems naming them by name. He named several men that were either teaching things false or opposing the truth. 1Tim. 1:20, 2Tim 2:17, 4:14, 3Jn. 9. Paul tells us to expose them Eph. 5:11. One must be careful at labeling a person a false teacher or a troublemaker make sure you have the facts and that it not just a rumor. Once you have the facts there is nothing wrong with exposing or naming a brother who is causing harm to the church and to sound doctrine. One example Max Lucaddo.

 

16-18 We don’t know much about Onesiphorus but is name means bringing profit. He name goes well with his actions as he served Paul in Ephesus and now he was not ashamed of Paul’s chains as some had become. Because of this man service of out love for his brother, Paul wants the Lord to give mercy to him and his household on the day of judgment. Gal. 5:13 love and serve. James 2:13 mercy and judgment. Mat. 25:31-46 will be judged on we treat others. Acts 9:4 to mistreat a brother is to mistreat the Lord.