2 Timothy

1. SALUTATION (1:1–2)

The apostle discerns that Timothy needs fortification beyond the words of 1 Timothy. The distinctive terms of this second greeting provide further strengthening for Paul’s protégé. Paul’s own call is by “God’s will,” and his call, like Timothy’s, serves the “promise of life in Christ Jesus” (1:1).

In addition, here Paul calls Timothy “my dearly loved son” (1:2). Timothy is thus reminded, first, that he ministers under an authority that he ought not to ignore; second, that he ministers for the sake of a goal (the promotion of God’s life-giving promises) that is worth living and dying for; and third, that he does not do so alone—he is much loved.

2. THANKSGIVING AND APPEAL (1:3–7)

A. Thanksgiving (1:3–5). In his first letter, Paul wrote without the normal prayer of thanks and seemed simply to want to get down to business. Now, perhaps sensing that Timothy’s resolve is less solid than he originally thought, Paul prays. Paul thus describes Timothy’s ministry in the context of gratitude for the grand story line of covenant faithfulness (1:3). This includes Paul and Paul’s own family (now including Timothy) and Timothy’s own family (1:5). Timothy does not minister alone and in isolation. He stands in a long line of saints.

Moreover, Paul wants to encourage Timothy with what he finds touching about Timothy’s rich inward life: the tears he has shed in Paul’s presence and the knowledge that their reunion will bring Paul great joy (1:4). Paul has seen evidence of great faith at work in Timothy. He now appeals for more.

B. First appeal: Rekindle the gift and be courageous (1:6–7). 1:6. Timothy’s ministry in Ephesus is challenging. He is a young man (1 Tm 4:12) charged with the oversight of one of the largest and best-established churches in Paul’s mission. Paul has warned that strong, erring would-be leaders could emerge (Ac 20:30). Though Paul has written off by name two false teachers as being shipwrecked in faith (1 Tm 1:19–20), at least one is still in Ephesus teaching that the resurrection has already taken place (2 Tm 2:17). Because Timothy is cowering at this challenge, Paul encourages him to draw on the resource that is already within. Thus, Paul reminds Timothy of the gift of the Spirit that came to him from God when he was set aside for ministry.

1:7. God’s Spirit is not marked by timidity. Thus, Paul tells Timothy not to play the coward. Paul explains cowardice’s opposite—courage—in several terms: (1) power (God’s rule that will be manifest on the last day [4:1] and is on display now when God converts sinners; see 1:8 and 2:25); (2) love (the goal of ministry; see 1 Tm 1:5; 2 Tm 1:13); and (3) sound judgment (exercising the kind of self-restraint that gives God room to grant repentance; see 2:22–26).

3. EXAMPLES TO EMULATE AND TO TEACH OTHERS (1:8–2:13)

A. Christ’s victory: A gospel worth suffering for (1:8–10). Courage will enable Timothy to join Paul and Jesus in standing for the truth. Just as the Lord himself testified before Pilate (cf. 1 Tm 6:13), so must Timothy be ready to testify and suffer (1:8b). Nor should Timothy be ashamed of his own spiritual mentor, despite Paul’s having to minister from a Roman prison (1:8a). The apostle stresses the power of God on display in the gospel (1:8b).

Paul virtually sings of the glory of the story he and Timothy have been given to tell. Paul highlights three things: God’s salvation comes from his own purpose and grace (1:9a); this salvation has been designed according to God’s own timetable (1:9b); and finally, Christ has destroyed death and brought to light life and immortality (1:10).

B. Paul’s life: A life worth emulating (1:11–14). 1:11–12. Paul has been called to serve this gospel as “a herald, apostle, and teacher” (1:11). As a herald, he announces Christ’s lordship of the universe by virtue of his victory over sin and death. As an apostle, Paul establishes the foundation of Christian community. As a teacher, he instructs believers how to live in Christ (see also 1 Tm 2:7). Paul exposes himself to physical suffering and emotional humiliation because he knows God’s resolve to see salvation through to “that day”: the day of Christ’s triumphal return to complete the restoration of all things (1:12; see also Php 1:6).

1:13–14. Paul has delivered a “good deposit” that Timothy is to preserve by his own life of faith and love in Christ (1:14). This deposit is the sum of a “pattern of sound teaching” that Timothy is to teach others (1:13; see chap. 2), with the indwelling Holy Spirit’s help.

C. One other life to emulate, contrasted with counterexamples (1:15–18). 1:15. Sadly, not everyone in Paul’s circle is staying true to the apostle. Though there is surely some exaggeration in Paul’s saying that “all those in the province of Asia have deserted me,” it certainly means that Timothy is serving a church with little backing from Paul’s supporters. Paul is offended enough by two of them to name them, Phygelus (who is otherwise unknown) and Hermogenes (who may be the person identified in the noncanonical, late-second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla as a coppersmith and Paul’s opponent).

Paul once put followers of Jesus in prison (Ac 8:3; 9:4–5; 22:4, 19; 26:10). Ironically, as a believer in Christ he himself has been put in prison on several occasions (2 Tm 1:16; 2:9; cf. 2 Co 6:5; 11:23; Ac 16:23–40; Php 1:13–14; Phm 10, 13).

1:16–18. Paul is keen to present to Timothy the faithfulness of Ephesus’s own Onesiphorus. Paul prays God’s mercy for Onesiphorus, who has recently found the apostle in his Roman jail and ministered to him there (1:17). Paul reminds Timothy of the way Onesiphorus has served them in Ephesus (1:18). Onesiphorus’s lack of shame at Paul’s chains (the Greek phrase is a clever understatement) becomes yet another example for Timothy to follow (1:16).

D. Second appeal: Teach others (2:1–7). 2:1–2. Paul solidifies his appeal to Timothy with an emphatic, “You, therefore, my son” (2:1a). The positive, flip side of Paul’s earlier negative warning against timidity (1:7) lies here in his “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2:1b). In these verses Paul comes to the point: Paul has taught Timothy so that Timothy can teach others, who in their turn can teach still others (2:2). Timothy must fortify himself to fortify the church in Ephesus so that it can be a self-sustaining community, particularly if he is to leave there so that he can come to Paul in Rome to comfort him.

Paul’s second Roman imprisonment seems to have been under harsher conditions than his first imprisonment under house arrest. The Mamertine Prison is the traditional location for this second imprisonment. The prison was located just off the Roman Forum and held those awaiting trial before the emperor.

2:3–7. Paul appeals to three familiar Hellenistic metaphors (cf. 1 Co 9:7, 24): soldier (2:3–4), athlete (2:5), and farmer (2:6). Soldiers are loyal, athletes know their game, and farmers work hard. Crisply, Paul exhorts Timothy to apply these truths to his situation (2:7): Listen to me! Care about those who need you! Get to it!

E. Remember Christ Jesus (2:8–13). 2:8–10. First and last, the church’s message is “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead” as the initiator of a new age, and “descended from David” as the sum of all God’s promises in the past (2:8). God reclaims the whole universe through Christ and does so by way of Israel’s story.

In the Greek, verses 8–10 make up a single sentence, beginning with Jesus’s resurrection and climaxing in believers’ final salvation in glory. To combat the false notion that the only resurrection to take place has already occurred (2:18), Paul reminds Timothy that Jesus’s resurrection (2:8) brings the promise of his people’s resurrection (cf. 2:11). Between the beginning and end of this three-verse sentence, however, is language of suffering (2:9–10). Paul describes his chains, his ignoble status as a criminal (no longer under mere house arrest), but also his willingness to “endure all things.”

The reality of Christ’s resurrection in the past and the certainty of believers’ resurrection in the future create in Paul a confidence that though his body may be “bound . . . the word of God is not bound” (2:9). Because God’s word is unstoppable, Paul’s imprisonment provides another opportunity for God’s power to bring salvation to his people.

While the other three Greek virtues (godliness, temperance, and justice) are stressed elsewhere in the Pastoral Epistles, the military virtue of courage dominates in 2 Timothy. Paul challenges Timothy to be a “good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:3), recalling a theme he introduced at 1 Tm 1:18 (cf. 1 Tm 6:12; 2 Tm 4:7).

2:11–13. Paul hopes that Timothy will let his life take the same shape as Jesus’s and Paul’s. To that end, he invokes one of the Pastoral Epistles’ five “trustworthy” sayings (2:11; cf. 1 Tm 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; Ti 3:8). Verses 11–13 are matchless in their poetic or hymnlike quality. Union with Christ in his death will bring life with him in resurrection (2:11; see also Rm 6:8): now a cross, later a crown (2:12a; cf. Mt 19:28). However, if on the last day we deny Christ, he will deny us (2:12b; see also Mt 10:33). Paul likely is remembering those who have abandoned him in prison (2 Tm 1:15; 4:10). Others have abandoned Paul’s teaching (2:17–18). Paul fears the sum of their careers will amount to a fatal denial of Christ himself.

Paul’s deepest hope is that Timothy will choose a different path from those faithless ones. He is most confident, though, that regardless of anyone else’s faithfulness or faithlessness, God himself will remain faithful (2:13). Those whose ongoing faithlessness leads to final denial of the Savior will discover that it will be impossible for the Lord to acknowledge them. Those who repent, however, can take solace in knowing that God faithfully forgives his people’s failings.

4. FALSE TEACHING (2:14–3:9)

A. Why to resist false teachers: Their influence is corrupting (2:14–21). 2:14–17. Paul continues his discussion from 2:2 about how to train leaders. It is they especially who must learn that “fight[ing] about words” will only bring ruin to “those who listen.” The warning against quarrelsomeness is important. Paul does not want his militant call (cf. 1 Tm 1:18 and 2:4) to be taken the wrong way.

By contrast, Timothy is to show competence as one “correctly teaching the word of truth” (2:15). He is to focus on forthrightness of speech and correctness of meaning. His own approval before God is at stake, and so is the health of his hearers. Paul compares the ungodliness that the false teachers promote (2:16) with flesh-decaying and foul-smelling gangrene (2:17)—an image that fits the theme of “sound [i.e., healthy] doctrine” in the Pastorals (1 Tm 1:10; 6:3; 2 Tm 1:13; 4:3; Ti 1:9, 13; 2:1–2).

2:18–21. Paul believes it is critical to handle the word of truth correctly when it comes to the timeline of redemption (see also 1 Corinthians). It is folly of the worst sort to believe that you have arrived at your final goal when you are still merely on the way. Thus, it is a fatal error to teach—as Hymenaeus and Philetus do (2:17)—that the only resurrection that is to take place has already happened (2:18).

With his “nevertheless” at 2:19, Paul assures Timothy that the danger in the church is more than matched by God’s provision, as illustrated by Israel’s history (Nm 16:5; Is 26:13; 28:16; 52:11). Likewise now, God is invested in his “large house” (2:20; cf. the image at 1 Tm 3:15). All those in the house—but Paul is especially thinking of those who would teach—must cleanse themselves of that which is impure so that what they have to offer is noble, holy, and useful to the house’s master (2:21).

B. How to resist false teachers: With mature gentleness (2:22–26). 2:22–23. The command to flee “youthful passions” is probably aimed, in the first place, at sexual temptations (2:22). (The Greek term translated “passions” Paul elsewhere associates with sexual sin; see Col 3:5; 1 Th 4:5.) Intriguingly, Paul notes that individual purity of heart (see Mt 5:8) is experienced in the fellowship of “those who call on the Lord.” However, 2:23 suggests Paul’s greater concern is that Timothy might overcompensate for his youthful timidity by responding to his opponents with an immature harshness.

2:24–26. Given the severity of Paul’s words about the peril in which the false teaching places the church, it is worth noting that Timothy is to conduct his campaign for the truth with a gentleness that keeps the door open for his opponents to repent. Secure in his ability to teach, Timothy is to show kindness to all, friend and foe alike (2:24). He is to resist the temptation to be quarrelsome with or resentful of his opponents. The effect of a mature and measured response will be to give God room to grant repentance (2:25). Timothy needs to lead with what Paul calls elsewhere “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Co 10:1) and leave the convicting to God himself.

C. The false teachers put in their last-days context (3:1–5). 3:1. Paul has just given Timothy one reason why he need not take opposition personally: God is in control of all things and all hearts (see also Ac 13:48; 16:14; Rm 8:28–30). Now he offers a second reason: opposition has a place in God’s timetable. Paul thus reintroduces the Satan-prompted opposition to Christ’s redemption he referred to at 1 Tm 4:1–5.

3:2–5. In 1 Timothy, legalism and asceticism were Paul’s target. In 2 Timothy, Paul aims at a range of ethical failings flowing from an overrealized eschatology (the mistaken notion that the resurrection is “already,” and there is no “not yet”). To deny that sin must die one last death at Jesus’s return is, ironically, to open the floodgates to an unbridled religion of self. It is not accidental that Paul’s list of vices opens with “lovers of self” (3:2) and closes with “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (3:4). Everything in between is about building up oneself and destroying others.

D. The false teachers and the gullible women (3:6–9). Paul indicates that a large part of the problem in Ephesus is that religious charlatans have found an audience among undiscerning women. This passage sheds significant light on gender relationships in 1 Timothy as well (see 1 Tm 2:9–15; 3:11; 4:7; 5:3–16).

3:6–7. Unlike Timothy’s mother and grandmother (1:5), some women in the Ephesian congregation do not have the grounding in the Scriptures to see the implications of the opponents’ teaching. Paul traces these women’s gullibility to their being “overwhelmed by sins” and being “led astray by a variety of passions” (3:6). It is unclear whether he means simply that they have tender consciences making them vulnerable to wrong solutions (e.g., the asceticism of 1 Timothy) or, more sinisterly, that they are involved in illicit relations with the false teachers (the latter may explain Paul’s concern with sexual purity in these two letters; see 1 Tm 2:9–10; 3:2; 5:2, 11–15). Regardless, these women have an insatiable religious hunger, and this hunger perfectly complements the false teachers and their manipulative speculations (3:7).

3:8–9. Paul likens the false teachers to the magicians who opposed Moses and produced lying miracles before Pharaoh (3:8; see Ex 7:11–12, 22; 8:7—Paul uses names supplied by Jewish tradition). Further, Paul refers to them in verse 13 with a term that often means “magicians,” but here is translated “imposters”—Paul likely means “charlatans.” It is not so much that the false teachers perform miracles but that their spurious ideas about the resurrection and their empty promises of godliness cast a spell over undiscerning listeners. Paul is confident that their falsehoods will eventually be found out (3:9).

5. PAUL’S TEACHING (3:10–4:8)

A. Third appeal, part one: Stay with what you know . . . (3:10–17). 3:10–14. The false teaching being circulated among the Ephesians is that the resurrection is entirely “now.” In his controversy with the Corinthians over whether there was still a resurrection to come, Paul pointed to his own sufferings as proof that “you have begun to reign as kings without us” (1 Co 4:8–13). Here in 2 Timothy, Paul reminds Timothy of the normalcy of suffering by taking him back to the events of Ac 13–14, when Paul ministered in Lystra, Timothy’s hometown (3:11). After being stoned and left for dead, Paul insisted on returning in order to teach (Ac 14:22). Timothy must courageously recommit himself to living and to teaching the same pattern, regardless of an increasingly fierce opposition (3:14).

3:15–17. Timothy can trust the lives of the people whose experiences have been shaped by Scripture. Of greater benefit, however, are the Scriptures themselves (by which Paul means our OT). The Scriptures are entirely trustworthy. They are the very breath of God (3:16a), and they find their coherence in Christ Jesus (3:15). [Inspiration]

Paul characterizes the OT’s benefit using four terms, best understood as a Jewish Christian’s use of the traditional categories of Scripture (3:16b): (1) “Teaching”: the Law told the story of God’s redemption of his people and spelled out implications for life in covenant with him. (2) “Rebuking”: the Prophets brought God’s covenantal lawsuit against his rebellious people and convicted an erring people of their waywardness, pointing them to one in whose sufferings and glory their hope lay. (3) “Correcting”: in the Writings (the Psalms and the wisdom literature), God has provided songs and sayings designed to realign his people’s hearts with his own heart, teaching them to lament and rejoice and live in accordance with his wisdom. (4) “Training in righteousness”: this is an all-encompassing term for education and spiritual formation in Paul’s world. With this last phrase, Paul indicates that the world’s highest aspirations for wisdom are more than met in the account of redemption in Christ anticipated and embedded in Israel’s Scriptures.

B. Third appeal, part two: . . . and preach the gospel (4:1–5). 4:1–2. In an ultimate effort to strengthen his timid protégé’s resolve, Paul brings Timothy before God (4:1; for Christ’s role in future judgment, see Ac 17:31; Rm 2:16; 1 Co 4:5; 2 Co 5:10). He puts Timothy under oath and defines his duty with crisp imperatives, five in 4:2 and four in 4:5. The overarching command comes first: “Preach the word”—Timothy is the herald of God’s restoration of creation and pardon for sinners through Christ. Second, Timothy is to be “ready in season and out of season.” Contemporary teachers wrote about the need to accommodate the disposition of their audience. Accordingly, Paul tells Timothy that in view of the urgency of the moment and the dire need of the church in Ephesus, he is to be ready to “rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching.”

4:3–5. Paul resumes the sober “later times” thoughts of 1 Tm 3:1–5, 12–13. Timothy should expect to encounter people who become discontent with sound doctrine and who seek teachers who merely satisfy spiritual lusts (4:3a). The false teachers specialize in ego-gratifying, speculative storytelling (4:3b–4). “An itch to hear,” it would seem, implies eagerness to hear that resurrection life is all in the “now.” In contrast with all counterfeit gospels and all false approaches to what it is for God to refashion us in his image, Timothy is to offer himself as one who is sober, courageous, godly, and just (4:5).

C. Paul’s final testimony (4:6–8). Chief among the reasons that Timothy must get over his timidity (1:7) is that, to anticipate Paul’s athletic imagery (4:7; cf. 2:5), the baton is being passed. Paul sees his present imprisonment ending in martyrdom (4:6). He offers this final testimony as the reason for the appeal he has just given and as one last summary of the type of life he has lived and urges on Timothy (see 1:11–12; 2:9–10; 3:10–11).

Paul mixes OT sacrificial imagery (the fulfillment of the OT practice of a drink offering poured out in gratitude for God’s gift of redemption [see Nm 15:5, 7, 10; 28:7; Php 2:17]) with contemporary athletic imagery of a race well run (4:6–7; and see Ac 20:24). Because of the successful completion of his ministry, Paul anticipates a victory wreath (4:8; see also 2:5; 1 Co 9:25; Jms 1:12; Rv 2:10; 3:11). Such expectation is consistent with Jesus’s promise of “Well done!” to those who serve him honorably and faithfully (Mt 25:21, 23; Lk 19:17; see also Rm 2:8–10).

A bronze statue of a boxer (third–second century BC). In 2 Tm 4:7 Paul tells Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.”

© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons. Courtesy of the National Museum of Rome—Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.

6. FINAL GREETINGS (4:9–22)

Paul’s situation is dire; he has survived a preliminary hearing before the Roman authorities (4:16–17), but he has dim prospects for acquittal in the upcoming final hearing. He is not under the comfortable house arrest with which the book of Acts concluded and that had permitted the writing of Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians. Paul is familiar enough with imprisonment; but it is only here in 2 Timothy that he refers to his being treated “like a criminal” (2:9). Not only that, but all his companions except Luke have left him (4:11), some for ignoble reasons, some for reasons unknown. In light of this, Paul’s tone of confident faith is remarkable.

4:9–12. The pathos of this letter lies in Paul’s urgent, heartfelt request that Timothy join him (4:9). He appears to have sent Tychicus to relieve Timothy of his duties in Ephesus at least temporarily (4:12) so he can join Paul, awaiting martyrdom in Rome. Along the way—and this is one of the great stories of reconciliation in the NT—Timothy should bring along the once-estranged Mark (4:11; cf. Ac 13:5, 13; 15:36–41; Col 4:10; Phm 24).

4:13–15. Even if he expects his death in the near future, the apostle will not despair and will simply wait for it: he asks for a cloak in case he lasts the winter (4:13a). Paul’s request for manuscripts (4:13b) has prompted much guesswork: he may mean copies of Scriptures he had to leave behind at his arrest; he may mean his own collected writings; he may mean writings he is still preparing. In any event, his request means he is still working.

Paul continues to warn about those who oppose him and will no doubt oppose Timothy as well (4:15). Paul does not specify the “great harm” Alexander the coppersmith did to him (4:14). The likelihood is that Alexander was the cause of Paul’s arrest (thus his mention right after the cloak and parchments Paul had to leave behind in Troas).

4:16–18a. Paul seems to be interpreting his situation through the lens of Ps 22, the song with which Jesus expressed the anguish of sufferings on the cross and by which the writer to the Hebrews speaks of the risen Jesus as the church’s worship leader (see Heb 2:12; 7:25; 8:1–2). As Jesus was abandoned on the cross (Mt 27:46; Ps 22:1), so Paul has been abandoned (4:16; cf. 4:10). As the psalmist looked to God for “rescue” from lions (Ps 22:20–21), Paul has experienced “rescue” at his preliminary hearing (4:17) and expects, even at death, “rescue” into God’s heavenly kingdom (4:18a). Paul continues to see his life as a union with Christ in his sufferings and glory (Php 3:10–11). Further, Paul still focuses on the work to which God has called him; he is grateful his duress has meant that he “might fully preach the word and all the Gentiles might hear it” (4:17).

4:18b–22. Even the greetings he sends indicate Paul is still on the job. He undergirds supporters in Ephesus (Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus, 4:19). He notes that Corinth’s city treasurer Erastus is still there (see Rm 16:23); he has left Trophimus in charge in Miletus despite the latter’s illness (4:20). Paul completes his greetings with four named and with unnumbered and unnamed individuals from Rome (4:21). Though Paul is left without any ministerial assistance there besides Luke’s (4:11), God’s work goes on in the empire’s capital city.

Paul closes with two phrases—one an ascription, the other a benediction—that are fine capstones to his writing career. First, the ascription (4:18b): Paul has a passion for promoting the majesty of God. The insult to God’s dignity by Adam’s disobedience has been more than turned aside by the second man’s obedience. Christ has “abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light” (1:10), restoring God’s creation to its original design of reflecting his glory. Paul’s sufferings have done nothing but contribute to the reestablishment of God’s splendor.

Second, the benediction (4:22): Paul continues to assure Timothy of the kindhearted nearness of God to his people. Paul endures the ignobility of being known as a criminal because his own Savior’s love took him to a criminal’s cross. In life or in death, God’s people can know that he is close by them and that he cherishes them.

The Pastoral Epistles remind us that the Christian life is to be lived in community rather than in isolation and that this life is more like an endurance race than a short sprint.