2 Timothy
The second epistle to Timothy.
1. Be Strong in Grace
1: "the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus"
2: God is our Father we know because we have all life from him. What does it mean for Christ to be our Lord?
3: My ancestors served God with a clear conscience
Who do you remember in your prayers night and day?
6-7: By gift of God given through the laying on of hands, we assume Paul means the office that was granted to Timothy by ordination. Or does the verse imply that the Holy Spirit itself, the spirit of power and love and self-control, is in some way also transmitted through the ages by the laying on of hands? Regardless, this spiritual inheritance of power and love and self-control can either be extinguished or it can be fanned into flames.
8: Very easy to be too embarrassed to talk about matters of miracle and faith. To demand so much of others who will look at you askance if they do not believe, or even if they claim to believe.
How much is suffering expected of any Christian vs. ministers in particular?
9: Not just of being a Christian in general but also the holy calling of ministry is a matter not just of individual accomplishment but Jesus's gracious loving choice to pick sinners. Peter and Paul were both grievous sinners, but also repentant, and together established the mightiest religion that has ever existed on the face of the earth, all in awe of their Lord. We should keep this in mind when we criticize ministers for their sins.
The good works God has prepared for you, despite your unworthiness and sin, have been the plan all along. The love is still real and still valid even though you are impure.
10: Jesus has abolished death. We now have hope in immortality.
11: This is what we preach. Immortality.
This transforms all we do on earth because everything on earth is marked, not just by death, but by our fear of death and our striving to avoid it. The love of money, youth, beauty, idolatry, fame... so much of it powered by a fear of death and a need to feel (at least a little bit) immortal.
12: What does it mean for Christ to guard what has been entrusted? The immortal life? The good works?
13: 'the pattern of the sound words' - we hope to pass on to the next generation faith and love, but also a specific cultural inheritance of ideas, recorded in scripture thousands of years ago, and also the spiritual words that come to our lips in the present as well. Scriptureh as proven its worthiness and our words are proven by the fruitfulness of one generation to the next, in families and in the instruction of the church.
This is relevant in our time of generational turnover from the boomer evangelicals, who in many millions experienced revival and returned to God, but whose teachings are now being tested by the younger generations.
15: When the going got rough, two men bailed - imagine being immortalized forever in scripture as a traitor, or schismatic, whatever the case may be here - but Onesiphorus was not ashamed and served Paul in different cities.
2. Continue in the Word
2: Keep teaching teachers of the gospel and the way of Christ.
3-7: These verse may be a good argument for the ministerial calling being separate that the average Christian, who may have all kinds of civilian pursuits and has not necessarily been called to militancy.
Sometimes I'd like to think, based on the warnings scripture has for religious authorities, that we should diminish the official roles of pastors in the church. But clearly there is a great benefit to all who are cultivated and farmed by a careful farmer.
8: The gospel contains Christ's genealogy.
11-13: We must reciprocate the faith and the graciousness of Christ, but he remains faithful even when we do not.
14-19: As repeated in other epistles. Don't quarrel, don't babble.
18: A big ol' can of worms of a verse.
19: Regardless of divisions in the church and different doctrines -- the Lord knows who are his -- and everyone called Christian must flee iniquity. God's firm foundation stands - it is sufficient for dealing with Mormons and Catholics and Gnostics and Baptists and all the rest.
20-22: One of the most beautiful images in scripture to succinctly deal with a thorny problem. Why are there so many problems in the church? Well, the house of Christ is a great house. There are millions of honorable and dishonorable people in it. God can use them all... but that doesn't mean it's good to be dishonorable.
You don't have to be the dog dish or the chamberpot. God doesn't want that for you. So abstain from youthful passions and seke righteousness instead. Faith, hope, love, peace. Pure hearts. That is the priority.
23-26: What's the goal of being a pastor? To be kind to people and put up with all of their garbage so that you can gently plant seeds of info that could help bring about repentance and awareness of the truth. What's the truth? That they are locked into a satanic system and, declining to do the will of God, are doing the will of the devil.
3. Perilous Times Foretold
In terms of last days, is Paul speaking of the end times of all the world or is he speaking of specifically the time of judgment that is soon to come upon Jerusalem?
2-5: All of our culture today. Sin!
6-7: This is what defines religious culture worldwide. You can go online and watch reels of fat oriental buddhist priests flattering sad women in terrible marriages. It's loathsome. Religious office is always threatening to descend into the hands of soft men hoping to grift off sad women.
Walk through a Christian bookstore some time. If there's any left. Sad!
8-9: Interestingly, these are the traditional names of the magicians who opposed Moses. Paul is saying that those who oppose the righteous preacher of the gospel have instead become magicians operating within the power of some Pharaoh, some dying empire that God will sweep away. This is true of many in the Christian church, who have surrendered authority over to science and other priestly expertise of the university system.
12-13: Honesty brings you into conflict with the hypocrites.
Pastors must fight sin endlessly to make sure that they do not end up with the Pharisees, scribes who had the kingdom of God torn away from them, and handed to new teachers.
14-17: We are to raise children from youth to be acquainted with the sacred writings. They make us wise for salvation. Ready to hear the message of immortality.
The point isn't that little children or imbeciles are incapable of salvation, but that all of us are responsible for what we have been given. If we are given all the gifts and blessings of life with Christ having been served by Christians our whole lives, and then prove unfaithful because we begin to think something from the world or some other god might be more to our taste, then we destroy ourselves. But if we actually believe what we've been told, our hearts and minds will be ready to actually receive the work that Christ is doing, right now, in the unfolding of history, and also in the final judgment of all souls.
Knowledge of scripture is good for people in general but it is especially necessary for the pastor as it is fruitful when we are trying to do the various pastoral tasks: teaching, rebuking, and setting the goals of how we train ourselves and others.
4. Preach the Word
1: What does Paul mean by being in the presence of God and Christ?
Christ judges the living and the dead. He judges us in real time in this life and also at the end of days.
His appearing and his kingdom are something that happen in history as well as at the end of history.
I'm not saying that Paul understood it all that way but I think that way.
2: in season and out of season? Not sure what he means by that.
The task of the preacher is to rebuke and to exhort with complete patience.
Working through all of scripture and issuing corrections on speech and behavior.
3-4: We know what Paul thought was sound doctrine. But what all did Paul think qualified as a myth?
5: To be an evangelist requires sober-minded endurance of pain and dishonor, because you have to tell people to their face that the world is evil and that immortal life is more precious.
6-8: Paul is convinced he will die soon but is confident that everything he has done for years has spread the word of immortality to mankind.
All who love the appearing of Christ will be given a crown after death, not just an athletic award as in this analogy, but also to reign as in 1:12 of this epistle.
11: Mark and Luke are mentioned in Acts as well as throughout Paul's letters. It is fitting that he reference them here as he has been talking about evangelism this whole book. Interestingly, Paul never seems to reference John and Matthew in the writings we have.