II Timothy (Page 2)
Two central theses anchor 2:19 against the false teaching of 2:18. Christ himself is the foundation of God that ‘standeth firm,’ a person and more than a doctrinal claim. Holding to him keeps the church from being shaken by the world.
‘Become like little children’ suffers a real misuse, and Gilbert Tennent’s shift in the pulpit from exegesis toward personal experience fed a broader problem. Paul puts real weight on scholarship in 2:15 and 4:13, asking for his books and parchments even from prison. The pastoral epistles give anti-intellectualism no support.
Suffering and glory run through 2 Timothy as a matched pair, and Romans 5 shows that the gospel’s glory far surpasses the suffering that comes before it. Timothy stands in real danger of apostasy. Losing sight of heaven, more than any outside threat, makes believers fall away.
‘Wrangling over words’ in 2:14 has a right reading and a wrong one, and even the OPC’s General Assembly has used the wrong one to shut down real doctrinal contention. Paul charges Timothy to contend for the true gospel. Avoiding necessary contention disobeys the text.
Timothy’s weakness truly weakens his ministry, and Paul says so plainly. Paul’s own weakness, by contrast, testifies to the strength of the gospel. Paul keeps his focus on Christ’s resurrection, which answers every suffering either man will face.
Paul calls Timothy ‘my son’ in 2:1, and the phrase reflects the Father’s own relationship to Christ. Paul points to Onesiphorus again, this time to instruct church members who hold no office. Sonship is the real subject of what looks like personal correspondence.
Paul rebukes Timothy for fearing persecution, and he sharpens the rebuke by exalting Onesiphorus, who held no church office, over Timothy, who did. The exposition of 1:9-14 grounds that uncomfortable comparison. Office never replaces the courage Onesiphorus showed without it.
The gospel was a real scandal and threat to the ancient world, and Rome and Athens objected to it in very different ways. Unbelieving Jews found Christ an affront to the law itself. Paul and Timothy refuse to be ashamed in the face of that real hostility.
Timothy was half Jewish and half Greek, and he embodied the union of Jew and Gentile in Ephesians 2:11-16. Paul’s imprisonment and journeys, and the differences between his two letters to Timothy, set the scene. The charge ‘Be not ashamed’ draws its force from that embodied union.
The pastoral epistles speak to every believer, beyond those in office, and they reveal a real intimacy between Paul and Timothy. Timothy’s conversion was a kind of resurrection, a living example of the gospel’s liberty. What happens to one convert shows what happens to the whole church.