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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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