Introduction to Paul’s 2nd Epistle to Timothy

Table of Contents

• General Info
• Brief Survey
• Key Verses
• Author, Date and Recipients
• Historical Background
• Timeline
• Themes, Purpose & Theology
• Interpretation Hints and Challenges
• Outline

General Info

In his second letter to Timothy, written just before his death, Paul offered his final words of guidance to his young assistant.  He encouraged Timothy to be faithful to Christ and true doctrine and to shun false teachers.  He charged Timothy to preach the Word with patience and careful instruction.

As with other New Testament (NT) letters written by the Apostle Paul, this epistle is titled according to its recipients, or in this case recipient, namely his co-worker Timothy.  Since this was the second of two letters to Timothy, who Paul left in charge of the church at Ephesus, it is aptly titled Second Timothy or 2 Timothy.  Although Timothy was certainly gifted spiritually, he was also young and relatively inexperienced.  Paul’s two letters to Timothy thus served as a basic leadership manual for the young pastor, giving Timothy instructions for leading the church and warning him of false teachers.  Paul also included many personal instructions on how to be a pious leader and a righteous godly man.

The two letters to Timothy are an essential part of the biblical and NT canon.  They are firmly constructed on, and are consistent with, the groundwork laid by the Old Testament (OT).  They are also consistent with the missions and theological teachings of the early NT churches.  In addition, the were clearly written by an apostle, in this case the Apostle Paul, which was an important requirement for canonization.   Although they contain some distinctive differences when compared with the other ten letters in the rest of the Pauline collection, they also contain many similarities in both content and style. 

Since 2nd Timothy was likely written after the period covered in the book of Acts, the the letter provides valuable historical and chronological information regarding the last few years of Paul’s apostolic ministry.  Yet this epistle also contains many interesting connections with other NT letters, such as the book of Hebrews, James, the two letters of Peter, the first epistle by John, and the letter from Jude.  This adds additional evidence that these letters were written in the apostolic period, and thus belong in the NT canon.

Evidence has been discovered that Paul’s letters were already being compiled as a single collection as early as the beginning of the second century, thus making Paul’s writings the first of the NT books to be both written and assembled into a collection.  Although the earliest collection excluded the pastoral letters of  1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, they were added to the collection without protest by the end of the second century, making the compilation of all thirteen letters of Paul quite common amongst the various Christian communities.  As a side note, the Book of Hebrews by comparison, was not so readily accepted due to the uncertainly of its author.

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Brief Survey

Paul opens his last known written letter by greeting Timothy as a dear son, and thanking God for the faith of Timothy that was passed down to him from his mother and grandmother (1:1-5).  Paul then encourages Timothy to continue developing his spiritual gifts from God and to also remain loyal to the author because many so-called friends had abandoned him due to his chains (1:6-18).  He then appeals to Timothy to continue persevering in his faith (2:1-13).  Next, he gives instructions on dealing with false teachers, giving a long list of their attributes for ease of recognition (2:14-3:9).  He reminded Timothy that everyone who attempts to lead a godly life would be persecuted, but that all true believers must continue to rely on God’s scripture so that all would be thoroughly equipped for good works (3:10-17). 

In the fourth and final chapter, Paul charges Timothy to continue preaching the word at all times and gives him a warning that the time is coming when people will reject sound doctrinal teachings in favor of myths and feel-good preaching (4:1-8), much like the majority of preaching coming out of the modern churches today.  Paul then closes his letter with some personal remarks, requesting that Timothy attempt to visit him since he knew that he would not likely be released from prison and that his time of execution was drawing near (4:9-22).

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Key Verses

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.  So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.  Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.  This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.  And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. (1:7-11).

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.  This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal.  But God’s word is not chained.  Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.  Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.  If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. (2:8-13).

Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” (2:19).

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.  Have nothing to do with such people. (3:1-5).

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (3:14-17).

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (4:1-4).

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (4:6-8).

The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.  To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (4:18).

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Author, Date and Recipients

See Author, Date and Recipients for 1st Timothy for additional info.

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter from his jail cell during his second and final imprisonment in Rome.  He was awaiting trial for his faith and it is clear that he felt he would not be released (4:6).  History indicates that Paul was executed under the Roman Emperor Nero who reigned from 54 AD until his death n 68 AD.   Thus, Paul would have been executed by beheading, traditional for all Roman citizens, sometime before the death of Nero.  According to tradition, Paul was executed on June 29, which in our modern day has become the Day of the Christian Martyr, a day to honor all Christians who have been martyred throughout history.  The letter, his last known correspondence, can be dated between A.D. 63–67.

Timothy was the recipient of Paul’s letter.  He had been the apostle’s representative in the city of Ephesus for some time.

See A Brief Bio of the Apostle Paul and the Historical Background of Acts for additional info on his life and ministry.

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Historical Background

See Historical Background for 1st Timothy for additional info.

Following Paul’s conversion as recorded in Acts 9:1-31, his work as an apostle eventually extended from Jerusalem in the east to as far west as Italy (Acts 15-28; Rom 15:17-20), including considerable time in Asia Minor, and especially Ephesus (Acts 19-20).  This period of free travel and evangelism ended when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17–36), then detained in Caesarea after an encounter with the Jewish religious group known as the Sadducees, who plotted to kill him but he was saved when the son of his sister exposed the plot and Paul, due to his Roman citizenship, was transferred to Caesarea to stand trial before Festus who also consulted King Agrippa.  As part of his defense before King Agrippa, Paul verbalized his encounter with the risen Christ as originally recorded in Acts 9.  In the end, Festus noted that Paul had done nothing wrong and would have been released if he had not appealed to Rome during the trial. (Acts 23:26).  The last two chapters of Acts (27 and 28) then record Paul’s journey to Rome that would lead to house arrest in a rented house with a soldier guarding him.  For the two years of this confinement, Paul taught about the kingdom of God and of His Son Jesus Christ (~60-62 AD).

When Paul was released from this first Roman imprisonment, during which he wrote the letters now known as 1st Timothy and Titus, and after the events of the Book of Acts, he re-embarked on his missionary journeys, possibly directed toward Spain (Rom 15:23-29), although God may have changed Paul’s travel plans after his release.  We only know that he was eventually re-arrested and imprisoned again in Rome where he wrote the 2nd Epistle to Timothy.  This second imprisonment was nothing like his first.  Unlike his confident hope of release during his first imprisonment (Php 1:19-26; 2:24; Phm 22), his hope of release was now gone (4:6–8).  He was now in chains (2:9) in a cold cell (4:13).  Worst of all, he was essentially abandoned by virtually all of those who were close to him for fear of persecution (1:15; 4:16).  He knew at that point that he would not be released and was martyred during the Christian persecutions under Emperor Nero about 66 or 67 AD.

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Timeline

(1)  These dates are either one or the other (Nisan 14 Passover falling between Thursday sundown to Friday sundown on the Jewish calendar).  The earlier date is the most popular, but there are good evidences and arguments to support either date.

~ Dates are approximated.

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Themes, Purpose and Theology

As we previously noted, Paul was well aware that his time on earth was nearing the end, thus we can see this letter somewhat as a last will and testament.  As a part of this, Paul was passing the torch of a portion of his ministry to Timothy (2:2) just as he earlier did for Titus.  Of course, the authority that he passed to his two younger “sons in the faith” was a non-apostolic authority, as apostolic authority was limited to the original apostles, those who had seen the Risen Christ and ware taught directly by him (Gal 1:11-12).  Thus he wrote to encourage Timothy to continue to faithfully carry out his duties (1:6-11), holding on to sound doctrine (1:13-14) while avoiding error (2:15–18).  He also warned Timothy that this would lead to persecution for the sake of the gospel (2:1-4; 3:10–12), but not to waver in his resolve to continue preaching and teaching the Scripture persistently despite the enormous pressure to do otherwise (3:15–4:5).

A secondary, and more personal purpose for Paul’s letter, was that the apostle was lonely and cold while in this final prison and he missed his friends.  As we mentioned in the “Historical Background” chapter above, Paul had been virtually abandoned by his “friends” and he especially longed to see Timothy and Mark, two of the younger men who had accompanied and aided him many years earlier on his various missionary journeys.  Some visited him (1:16–18; 4:21), but others had gone on to various other places due to their own ministries.  Only Luke was able to stay with him for any length of time (2 Tim 4:11).  Mark was believed to be working in Colossae, which was fairly close to Ephesus, where Timothy was at the time (4:9-13; Col 4:10).  In addition to missing his friends, he needed warm clothing and he wanted his books to continue his studies (4:13).  History does not record whether or not Timothy and/or Mark reached Rome before Paul’s execution.

Since Timothy had worked with Paul for years and was extremely familiar with the apostle’s doctrine, he did not see the need to provide additional theological instruction.  The author however, alluded to a number of important theological doctrines such as salvation by grace alone (1:9-10), the Person of Jesus Christ as the righteous judge while the people would no longer accept sound doctrine (2:1-8), the faithfulness of Christ and perseverance during human suffering (2:1-13), and finally, the definitive statement on the divine inspiration of Scripture (3:16-17).

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 Interpretation Hints and Challenges

There are no major interpretive issues typically associated with 2nd Timothy, however some questions sometimes may surface.  We’ll attempt to clarify a few of the most common in the order that they occur in the book.

In 2Timothy 1:10, Paul states that Jesus has destroyed (or abolished) death.  Some may wonder, if this is so, why did Paul state in Romans 5:12 that “death came to all men because all sinned”.  In addition, the author of Hebrews declares that people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.  Do we have a conflict?  The short answer is “no”.  The answer rests on the different types of death in the Bible.  Because all humans have sinned (except Jesus), all humans who are not alive at the Lord’s second coming will face physical death, then there will come judgment.  At the final judgments, nonbelievers will face eternal death in hell while believers will live forever in heaven, since for believers, Christ has conquered death on the Cross by walking out of the grave (see 1Corinthians 15).

Another possible difficulty is that Paul seems to instruct Timothy not to “quarrel about words” (2:14) and to “avoid foolish and stupid arguments” (2:23).  Does this mean that Christians should not debate theological matters?  Not at all!  Elsewhere we find Jude instructing us to “contend for the faith” that was entrusted to us (Jude 3), and Peter likewise admonishing us to: Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (1Pe 3:15).  Paul himself often argued with opponents of the faith, particularly with the Jews, and perhaps in his most famous debate, with the Greek philosophers on Marks Hill in Athens (Ac 17:16-31).  Thus Paul was advising believers not to get hung up on inconsequential arguments.

Perhaps the most important debate of any passage in the book of 2nd Timothy involves the interpretation of chapter 3, verse 16 which reads All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, and verse 17 adds, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  Some interpreters have claimed that this verse only guarantees that some Scriptures are inspired (and thus inerrant) but not all.  This misunderstanding likely stems from a few of the Modern English Bible translations.  Almost all English translations of the verse begin with “All (or Every) Scripture is God-breathed” (NIV, ISV), “Every Scripture is God breathed”, or “All (or Every) Scripture is inspired by God” (NASB, NLT, CSB, GNT,NET), “All (or Every) Scripture is breathed out by God” (ESV), or “All (or Every) Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (KJV, NKJV).  The only version that could be somewhat twisted to mean otherwise would be the English Revised Version, which reads “Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness” (ERV).  This 19th century British revision of the King James Version leaves the door open for skeptics to claim that every inspired by God is profitable etc, but it stops short of saying plainly that all or every scripture “is” inspired.  However, the NRSV, a 20th century update from more reliable manuscripts remedies this by reading “All Scripture is inspired by God... ”.  See our article on Modern English Bible Translations for additional info on the various translations.

Examining the Greek should remove all doubt.  All (pas) Scripture (graphe) is God-breathed (theopneustos) and (kai) is useful (ophelimos) for teaching (pros didaskslis), rebuking (elegmos), correcting (pros epanorthosis) and training (paideia) in (ho en) righteousness (dikaiosyne).  It simply can’t be twisted to mean that only some parts of scripture are inspired or inerrant.  The Apostle Peter, in his second epistle, also verified that Paul’s words. although sometimes hard to understand, was also genuine Scripture (graphe) in 2Peter 3:16, and Peter further warned that people distort his or Paul’s scripture (graphe) at their own peril.

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Outline

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