For which cause I put thee in mind to rekindle the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
Paul writes to Timothy in a time of decline and widespread unfaithfulness. His first request is not for new work but for the renewal of something already given. Three questions follow: what was this gift, why were hands involved, and why does a gift from God need stirring at all?
Paul does not open with a command. He speaks first of how dear Timothy is to him, and only then turns to the charge.
Timothy was not less dear to the apostle, but more dear, because he had passed through deep exercise and severe sifting. But he could not leave him under possible discouragement. He would not simply point him to those who had gone before him in faith, nor cheer himself in a general way. He adds, "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands."
What exactly was placed in Timothy? One writer links it to another verse about him.
This gift was the special energy of the Holy Spirit imparted to Timothy. There is no reasonable doubt that it is the gift spoken of in 1 Tim. 4:14. There it came through prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the body of elders; here, through the laying on of Paul's hands. The elders joined with Paul, but the power was in the apostle alone. God used him as the one channel of so great a gift. The difference between the prepositions "with" and "by" shows this.
How does this compare with the way gifts usually come?
We learn here also that Timothy received his gift in an exceptional way, by the putting on of Paul's hands. This is certainly extraordinary. The Spirit of God normally gives gift by His own independent operation (1 Cor. 12:7-11). But in Timothy's case the Spirit of God used Paul as the instrument.
Can anyone repeat this today? One writer is blunt:
No one can imitate this case without an apostle and a properly chosen body of elders, not to speak of prophecy. And the claim to do so is a harmful pretence, unless the power is there to give the gift that was given then.
The command itself is a picture of fire.
To "stir up" the gift means to stir it into a "flame," to "rekindle" it. God had used Paul as the instrument in giving a gift to Timothy. This gift needed rekindling. The danger of decline, which was already starting to show itself, is clear from this exhortation. The rekindling of a gift needs constant use of the Word of God and fellowship with the Lord, as well as a prayerful exercise of the gift itself.
Why would a God-given thing ever cool? One writer points to what surrounds us:
It was a true gift that was in him, and yet he still needed to rekindle it. That is a strong word. It shows the need we have even about what God Himself has given. Contact with the things around us tends to dull our very sense of the gift within. So we need to keep turning to God, so that the gift stays in the divine energy that alone suits it.
What could make Timothy hold back? One writer points to how people were receiving his ministry.
Then comes the danger to the servant of the Lord. He sees that people no longer receive his ministry. So he is tempted to retire, to fall silent, or to decide with Jeremiah not to speak in the Lord's name to the people any more (Jer. 20:9). Paul knew Timothy's heart and the way he leaned. So he guards him against this trap. He urges him to rouse himself, and by constant use to stir up the gift he had received to correct and build up the Lord's people.
The conclusion drawn is the opposite of retreat:
There are difficulties, dangers and general unfaithfulness, and the ministry seems to show little result. Then comes the danger of thinking it is almost useless to use gift. So we need the warning against letting the gift fall into disuse. We are to stir it up; and, in a day of ruin, to be all the more insistent in its use.
- Gift given. Timothy's gift was the special energy of the Holy Spirit. It came through Paul's hands, and the elders joined with him — "by" Paul, "with" them.
- Gift dimmed. The things around us dull even what God Himself has given. That is why a real gift can still need rekindling.
- Gift rekindled. The remedy is not a new gift but a fanned flame. It takes constant use of the Word, fellowship with the Lord, and prayerful use of the gift itself.
- Gift used. The snare is silence — retiring like Jeremiah when the ministry is no longer welcome. Paul's answer is to rouse himself and keep using it.
- Gift needed most. In a day of decline the temptation says the work is useless; the exhortation says be all the more insistent.
For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion.
Paul writes his last letter from a Roman prison to Timothy, a naturally timid servant, at a time when many were turning away from the truth (2 Tim. 1:15). Having just told him to "fan into flame the gift of God" (v. 6), Paul now explains what kind of spirit God has actually given — raising the question: how can a fearful man stand firm in a day of decline?
The word translated "fear" really means cowardice, and it touched Timothy's particular weakness.
The first clause, which might be rendered the spirit of "cowardice," reveals Timothy's special weakness. He evidently was a man, like Jeremiah, of a timid, shrinking spirit — one who only with difficulty, unless under the sway of the Holy Spirit, could face dangers and opponents. But while the servant of the Lord "must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil" (chap. 2:24), he must also be as bold as a lion in the defence of the truth, and in maintaining the honour of his Lord.
And this word is not for Timothy alone. The brothers note that while verse 6 applied especially to him, verse 7 "applies to us all" — God has not given us a spirit of cowardice. It flows from the Spirit who dwells in every believer:
That is not the Holy Spirit exactly, but it could not be apart from His indwelling. The indwelling Spirit imparts to us this three-fold character, apart from which we cannot stand in the evil day... Power without love might be ruthless, and love without the sound mind might be weakness.
If God gives a gift, He also gives the power to use it — but that power is tied to the state of the soul.
The gift may remain even in one who is unfaithful or indifferent; but the power to use it will not be present unless its possessor is walking in dependence upon God, unless he lives in the acknowledgment that power is outside of himself, and in the realization of his own utter weakness.
For whatever we have to do, or whatever we may have to bear in this world, we can always count on abundance of power from on high... The power is His, but this power is exercised on earth by means of His servants.
Power alone could be misused. God joins it with love, because divine power can only be wielded through the divine nature, of which love is the expression.
It is not mere power, which might be used for the destruction of His beloved saints; it is the spirit also of love — love that sacrifices itself for the good of its objects, and counts that sacrifice an unspeakable privilege... It does not hesitate to reprove, rebuke, and exhort; but it prefers to encourage, comfort, console, and intercede on their behalf.
The phrase can be translated "wise discretion" — a healthy mind, freed from self-interest, kept in quiet control before God.
When governed by the Spirit of God, the servant will always show divine wisdom in his work, and be kept in quiet control and subduedness in the presence of God. He will know when to speak and when to be silent, when to be in season and when to be out of season; for he will be maintained in communion with the mind of his Lord.
Mawson illustrates it from the healed demoniac, found "sitting at the feet of Jesus... in his right mind" (Luke 8:35):
You could not have a better illustration of a sound mind than that... It is the touch of the great Physician and His word that heals the mind. The sound mind thinks soberly; the man who has it is not puffed up by his knowledge; he puts Christ first, and considers His glory and not his own interest.
- Cowardice excluded: "Fear" here means cowardice — a shrinking timidity that God has not given, so it must never govern His servant, however hard the day.
- For all believers: Though addressed to timid Timothy, this verse applies to every Christian, as the fruit of the indwelling Spirit.
- Power in dependence: God's power is real and abundant, but it works only through those who walk in dependence on Him, conscious of their own weakness.
- Love directs power: Power without love would be ruthless; love spends itself for others and expresses the divine nature through which alone power can be used.
- Sound mind balances both: Wise discretion — a healthy, sober, Christ-centred mind — knows when to speak and when to be silent, keeping the servant in communion with his Lord.
Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings, according to the power of God;
Paul writes this from prison. He calls a younger fellow worker to stand for Christ at the very moment when standing has become costly. The verse gathers three things into one call: the message, the messenger, and the strength to hold onto both.
The word points back to what Paul has just said about the spirit God gives. It also points to something in Timothy himself.
From 2 Timothy 1:6-8, we gather that Timothy was timid and held back by nature. That is why Paul urged him to stir up the gift he had received. Paul reminded him of the power and love which were his by the Spirit of God. So Timothy was not to be ashamed of the testimony, nor of Paul in his imprisonment. All these instructions were not put on record for the sake of Timothy alone. They are for the help and instruction of every Christian young man from that day to this.
Some read the phrase as a body of truth to be defined. One writer, answering that question directly, says the meaning is far simpler.
Not to be "ashamed of the testimony of the Lord" is the testimony itself — not what it was. He was not to be ashamed of bearing witness to Christ the Lord. Paul was in prison for it; Timothy was not to be ashamed because shame was put on the man who had borne the witness... How many stayed with the blessed Lord when He was taken, or with Paul even when he was?... The testimony reduces itself to its simplest elements — not being ashamed of Christ, set before the world in testimony.
Paul refuses to let Timothy separate loyalty to the message from loyalty to the man carrying it.
Notice too that the man who carries the testimony is identified with the testimony. That is why the apostle adds, "Nor of me his prisoner." Many claim to hold and love the truth, yet they would prefer to stand apart from the people the testimony is entrusted to. As our passage shows, this can never be according to the mind of God. It would have displeased Him just as much if Timothy had been ashamed of Paul as if he had been ashamed of the testimony.
Note whose prisoner Paul calls himself. Human authority held him unjustly, yet he calls himself the Lord's prisoner.
Shame is not tempting when things are going well. It presses hardest when the work looks small and the world looks strong.
When the tide of blessing is at the full there is little or no room for shame. It is very different when few are gathered in and the love of many grows cold, when the world grows harder and more scornful and the saints cower under its insults... The testimony may look like a failure, but it is still the testimony of our Lord. And the suffering witness, held unjustly by human authority, is His prisoner... Grace joined the witness, who may not be perfect, to His testimony, which is perfect... We are not called to suffer or to bear shame for anything but Christ.
The call is not just to avoid shame. It is to stand beside the gospel and take what falls on it. Commentators say the older wording "partaker of the afflictions of the gospel" is better translated another way.
"Suffer evil along with the gospel." The gospel is pictured here almost as a person. Timothy is urged to throw in his lot with it completely, whatever the cost, so that he also carries any reproach that falls on it.
Most of us are glad to share the gospel's blessings and its successes. Sharing its afflictions is a different thing, and Paul attaches a reason why it is possible at all.
This is only possible "according to the power of God." Here, as in Colossians 1:11, power is connected not with what is active but with what is passive — suffering.
This power does not remove the pain. It holds up the person who feels it.
What! Share in afflictions? Yes. Share in being delivered from feeling them? No — share in afflictions that a man really feels, but "according to the power of God!" This does not mean he stops feeling the pressure of sorrow and weakness. Paul had a "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12). Did he not feel it, do you think? Yes, he felt it daily... The power of God coming in on our side does not lessen the feeling.
- Therefore — the appeal rests on what came just before. God gave power and love by His Spirit, so a timid man could be told to stand.
- Testimony — what you must not be ashamed of is Christ Himself, owned openly before a world that rejects Him.
- Prisoner — the message and the messenger stand or fall together. Being ashamed of the imprisoned servant displeases God as much as being ashamed of the testimony.
- Alongside — Timothy is not asked to admire the gospel but to stand next to it and let its reproach land on him too.
- Power — God's power here is not visible triumph but the strength to feel the pain fully and not let go.
who has saved us, and has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to [his] own purpose and grace, which [was] given to us in Christ Jesus before [the] ages of time,
Paul has just urged Timothy to share in suffering for the gospel by God's power. Instead of a technique for courage, he points back to what God has already done and already planned: a salvation settled in Christ before time began.
Paul mentions God's power in verse 8 and at once traces it to its source.
The mention of God's power leads the Apostle back and upward to the source of all the blessing that was flowing out through the gospel: to God's purpose and grace. That purpose is the unchanging foundation on which God was working. It is also the assurance that no effort of the enemy could stop God from carrying out His thoughts.
The verse names two acts of God, and they are not the same act said twice.
It is plain that the first great object of the gospel is our salvation... Not only has God saved us; we also read that He has "called us to a holy calling." This passage calls it "a holy calling." Scripture also calls it "the heavenly calling" (Hebrews 3:1) and "the upward call" (Philippians 3:14). Salvation sets us free from our sins and from this world under judgment. The calling links us with heaven and with all the spiritual blessings God has purposed for us in the heavenly places in Christ.
Scripture has other names for this calling: heavenly, upward. Here Paul calls it holy, and that fits a letter about decline.
But God "saved us and called us to a holy calling." Here "holy" carries the weight. It suits this letter and the conditions it has in view. The calling was always holy, but now it was urgent to press its "holy" character. It is a calling on high, or upward, as we read in Philippians 3:14. It stands in contrast with the earthly things in which men find their glory, to their shame. It is a heavenly calling, as we see in Hebrews 3:1... But now, as those who bore the Lord's name were sliding into decline, the apostle binds God's salvation together with His holy calling. An evil time is not a time for lowering the standard. It is a time for unveiling it and pressing its importance.
The timing of God's purpose settles the question of merit before anyone can raise it.
These precious words, "His own purpose and grace," stand far above and beyond man's works! No one was there to influence His purpose. No one had ever lived to raise a question about what sort of life would be blessed with His grace. No — it is the grace of God, known and believed, that gives a man's life its right shape.
This does not mean a believer has no good works. It means those works stand on a different footing from salvation.
There are good works in every saint: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10)... Still, God's salvation rests on Christ's work, not ours.
Many read the phrase as a promise about the endless future. Kelly presses it the other way — backwards, before any creature existed.
This, too, was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time began. It is a most weighty and blessed truth. It does not mean only that our security is guaranteed without end. It means that grace was given in Christ Jesus before time began. It was not so with Israel: God called them in time. God's purpose about us Christians was in eternity, before any creature existed... Their blessing was a plan bound up with Christ before the world existed, and before any question of creature responsibility came in... so we are all the more bound to walk, here and now, as He walked.
A gift can be given long before anyone sees it. That gap is what this verse describes, and Darby warns against turning it into a debate about who is chosen.
This is not a question of election here, even if election is involved. The point is that God gave us a place in Christ — the sovereign calling — before the world began, and did not reveal it until Christ came.
- Purpose first. God settled your place in Christ before creation, before any creature could earn or lose anything. He called Israel in time; He formed this calling before time.
- Grace given, not earned. God gave the gift when no one existed to sway Him. So works are ruled out at the root: good works follow salvation, they never pay for it.
- Saved from. Salvation is deliverance — from sins, from judgment, from a doomed world system.
- Called to. The calling adds more: it links you with heaven and everything God purposed for you there.
- Holy, therefore unshakeable. Paul calls it "holy" in a letter about decline. No enemy can shake this foundation, and an evil time is no time to lower the standard.
but has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings;
Paul wrote this from prison. He points Timothy not to better circumstances but to a plan formed before time. The Saviour's appearing has now brought that plan into the open. The verse makes two claims: Christ abolished death, and He brought life and immortality to light. Both raise the same question — why do believers still die?
The verse looks back to the grace God "gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (v. 9). One writer marks how different that is from anything Israel knew.
It is not merely security assured without end, but grace given in Christ Jesus before time began. It was not so with Israel: they were called in time. God's purpose about us, Christians, was in eternity before any creature existed.
"Appearing" here is not limited to Christ's birth. One writer lists what else it covers.
This appearance is not only about His birth. It also covers His life, His death at Golgotha, His resurrection, His ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit on earth. This is what Paul has in mind in 2 Timothy 1:10.
"Abolished" is a strong word. It is the language of one thing driving out another.
"He abolished death": no stronger word could be used. It means that death has been brought to nothing — entirely ended — set aside. When what is all-powerful comes in, clearly everything in its way must give place. It pushes out what filled the space before. So Christ has displaced, abolished, death.
But funerals have not stopped. One writer draws the line between the fact of dying and death's title.
This Scripture presents our Saviour as having abolished death. Death is pictured here as a person, as sin is in Romans 7. Of course this does not mean that men no longer die as a fact. It means He has annulled the title of death as regards His own. Hebrews 2 declares the same: He took part in flesh and blood, "that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." But He has done more: through the Gospel He has brought to light life and incorruption — the body is in question there, and not the soul only.
The wording matters here. One writer marks which of two words Paul used.
What then has the gospel brought to light? Two things which had been hidden until now — life and incorruptibility. Note, incorruptibility, not immortality (it is the same word as in 1 Corinthians 15:53). There was no doubt about immortality; that had been known before. But the gospel now brings incorruptibility to light, along with life. If we do not see this, we do not see the depth of what was in God's heart.
So the news is not that the dead live on. It is what resurrection opens for them.
Immortality is not the word here. People in Old Testament times already believed that the soul of man survived death and that resurrection lay ahead. Job's words here show it, and the Lord made it plain in His dispute with the Sadducees of His day. One thing was not made known: for the believer, resurrection will mean entry into a new and incorruptible order of things.
Note the phrase: "brought to light." These things were not absent from the older Scriptures; they were dim.
It is not said or meant that either was completely hidden. Enough was suggested for the faith of God's elect to show that resurrection and heaven were in His mind, and not earthly blessing only... The Gospel does not speak of life and incorruptibility as entirely unknown before. On the contrary, it assumes they were partly seen, gleaming here and there through the darkness. Now they stand out in bold relief, the grand theme of gospel testimony, as seen in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Paul wrote this letter as Nero's prisoner. One writer asks why he stayed calm.
When he wrote this second letter to Timothy, he was in Nero's hands; but he was not troubled in the least. Why? Because he had such a full sense of what the grace of God was... He did not think about what Nero could do to him. He was occupied with what was in God's mind before the world began.
The same truth reshapes how a believer faces his own end.
We may die; we do not have to. We may meet it as the providential dealing of an infinitely wise God — not as wrath, not as penalty... It is "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" — to be "away from the body and at home with the Lord."
- Purpose. God gave the blessing in Christ before time began, before any creature existed.
- Appearing. Christ's whole coming made it visible: His life, death, resurrection and ascension.
- Abolished. Death was not softened but displaced. Christ cancelled its title over His own, though believers still die.
- Incorruptibility. The second gift concerns the body. Old Testament believers already expected survival and resurrection; the incorruptible order it opens was new.
- Light. Old Testament believers saw it glimmering. The gospel now sets it in full daylight — and that is why a prisoner facing execution could write this without fear.
to which *I* have been appointed a herald and apostle and teacher of [the] nations.
Paul writes from a Roman prison, expecting to die, and names the three roles God gave him for the gospel he has just described. It raises three questions: who gives out such work, what the titles mean, and why God's appointment left a man in chains.
The word "for which" points back to the good news of verse 10 — the message that Christ has abolished death and brought life to light. The titles belong to that message. Paul names them at the very moment the message is costing him everything.
No wonder the apostle, imprisoned in Rome for the gospel's sake, and expecting his blood to be poured out soon like a drink offering (2 Tim. 4:6), adds with triumphant thankfulness, "for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher [of the Gentiles]." A few important manuscripts leave out "of the Gentiles." Given the character of this letter, I think that is probably right.
That is why translations differ. The ESV ends the verse at "teacher," while others add "of the Gentiles."
Other translations render the first title "herald." The three are not repetition. Each names a different way of handling the same truth.
Paul was the herald, the apostle, and the teacher of this truth. As the herald he was the one who cried out this message, as an apostle he had authority to bring this message, and as a teacher he explained it in all its details.
Paul does not say he took up this work or trained for it. God placed him in it. That is what makes his letters weigh more than a wise man's opinion.
God has made this gospel known to us in all its fullness through a specially appointed vessel — one who comes to us as Apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. So it reaches us on sufficient authority, through an Apostle who speaks by revelation and inspiration.
That appointment is also the reason no one today should copy the claim. Notice what Paul does not say about his younger co-worker:
We must take note of Paul's appointment here: the Spirit of God required this to be pressed home. It was no mere appointment by men, and it is not meant as a pattern for others to follow. With Timothy, nothing at all is said about his being appointed to anything. We are not even told what gift Timothy had, though Paul tells him to stir it up and to "do the work of an evangelist" (ch. 4:5). But God gave Paul the special responsibility of "laying the foundation," as "a wise master builder" (1 Cor. 3:10)... As Scripture often notes, so here again, God sent Paul to the nations, not to Israel, though his heart longed after his own people (Rom. 10:1).
That commission ran outward, to the nations. One writer weighs what such a task meant for the man who carried it.
Of this good news Paul was a herald, an apostle, and teacher of the nations. In this he was the most honoured man on earth. The grace of the heavenly Christ had subdued his stubborn will. What greater honour could a poor creature receive than to display that grace in the middle of a selfish world, and to light up the dark places of the earth with the knowledge of the salvation and love of a Saviour-God?
The very next verse ties Paul's suffering to this appointment. The chains are not a detour from the commission. They follow from it.
The apostle explains that he had been appointed as the herald and apostle of the gospel — not from man, as he tells the Galatians, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead... His present sufferings came from his imprisonment (v. 8), from the opposition the gospel now met everywhere, and from being deserted by so many professed believers, and perhaps teachers (v. 15). He sees these sufferings as flowing out of the place he held in relation to the gospel.
Writers draw a plain warning from that link between office and cost:
People who reach for some place of official appointment or recognition are not usually the ones most ready to suffer persecution for Christ's sake. Paul had not wanted the place, but he was fully willing to suffer for Christ if it came to that. God put him in a position where he could not escape suffering.
- Appointed to a message. The three titles hang on the gospel of verse 10 — His standing comes from what he carries, not from rank.
- Appointed to three tasks. The herald cries the message out. The apostle carries authority to bring it. The teacher unfolds it in detail.
- Appointed by God. The commission came by revelation, not by human choice, which is why his words still carry authority.
- Appointed to the nations. God sent him to the nations, not to Israel — the highest honour on earth for a man whose stubborn will grace had subdued.
- Appointed to suffer. He could not hold the place God gave him without chains. Anyone craving the title should first weigh the cost.
For which cause also I suffer these things; but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him.
Paul writes as a prisoner, deserted by many who once stood with him. Yet he sounds confident, not bitter. Three questions follow: why does he suffer, what is the "I know" he rests on, and what has he handed to God for safekeeping?
The sufferings behind "these things" were not the fruit of any wrongdoing. One writer lists what the phrase covered and why it left Paul without shame:
It was his faithful testimony that made Paul suffer. No wrongdoing brought him into suffering and reproach. Imprisonment was only one of "these things" that this faithful servant had to suffer. Other sufferings hurt his sensitive heart even more. "These things" included the desertion of those he loved in Asia, where he had worked so long. Since he was suffering for his faithfulness as a servant of Jesus Christ, he can say, "I am not ashamed."
None of this rested on natural strength:
Was Paul then a man of iron constitution, a heart of oak that threw off every blow and wound as if it were never felt? His circumstances were as trying as his health was frail.
Notice that Paul names no teaching here, only a Person:
No tremor of fear or discouragement can pierce the armour of his confidence in the living God. It was not a matter of "what" he had believed, but "Whom." True doctrine is good, but only as it springs from Him who is true. He is the person who is the foundation of all truth, the living Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer and Upholder of all things.
The word Paul uses for "know" carries a particular sense:
"I know whom I have believed," 2 Tim. 1:12 — I have the inward conscious knowledge of who the person is.
Paul's wording sets two things in order:
Notice the order of the words — believing was the first act, and knowing was the result. The knowledge is inward. It is the fruit of faith and of faithfulness. It grows out of walking in rich fellowship through storm or sunshine, winter or summer. It is an acquaintance like that of one friend with another. Where there is faith there is the knowledge of God. When faithfulness follows, that knowledge grows deeper and more precious.
Paul calls what he handed over "my deposit." Kelly spells out how much it covers:
By "my deposit" we should understand all that I as a believer entrust to the safekeeping of God. It covers not only the security but the blessedness of the soul and the body, of the walk and the work. It takes in every question that could be raised about the past, present, or future.
A deposit is a banking word, and one writer follows it through:
It is as though he had deposited with God everything concerning himself. So there could be no doubt about its safety. In fact, who can doubt that in such hands the interest itself will multiply beyond measure?
The deposit runs in both directions:
If on the one hand we have a "deposit" (all our hopes of glory) with Christ, He on the other hand entrusts His servants with a deposit. What then is this good deposit? It cannot be eternal life, or salvation, for the keeping of that belongs to Christ Himself. So it is probably the truth. It is the truth handed to His servants as stewards, for them to keep faithfully while they serve in the prospect of that day.
The verse ends looking forward to "that day":
In the light of "that day" Paul can pass triumphantly through "this day" with all its insults, scorn and shame. We may wonder why the devoted Apostle was allowed to be deserted and opposed even by the saints. We shall not wonder in "that day." Then every wrong will be put right. Then all the shame and suffering and reproach will prove to bring praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Man's power over Paul had a limit:
Man may kill the body and can do no more. Knowing this, the Apostle was sure the Lord could and would keep what he had committed to Him until that day. Until then he could trust the Lord for his own salvation and eternal happiness, and also for the recompense of his service. The enemy could do nothing with such a man, because his hopes and joys were outside the scene through which he moved.
- Cause — Paul's suffering came from faithful service, not wrongdoing. That is why he was not ashamed.
- Person — His confidence rested on Whom, not what: doctrine is good only as it springs from the One who is true.
- Order — Believing came first; knowing followed. That knowledge grows inside, through walking with God in storm and sunshine.
- Deposit — He left with God his soul and body, his walk and his work, every question of past, present and future. In such hands the interest multiplies.
- Day — God holds it all for "that day." Then this day's shame turns to glory, and the enemy proves powerless over the deposit.
Have an outline of sound words, which [words] thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which [are] in Christ Jesus.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted.
Paul hands Timothy something he calls a deposit, and tells him to guard it. Two questions follow: what has been entrusted, and where does the power to keep it come from?
The word points to something placed in safe hands for safe keeping. One writer defines it by ruling out what it is not:
The deposit here, as in 2 Timothy 1:14, means the truth God entrusted through the people He chose. It is God's revelation, given in words taught by the Holy Spirit. It is the pattern of sound words that Timothy heard from Paul in front of many witnesses. It is not the soul or its salvation. It is not the office of a minister. It is not even the grace of the Spirit. It is the perfect communication of what God is in His nature, His ways, His relationships, and His purposes.
Another writer rules out salvation for a different reason:
So the question is this: what is the good deposit? It cannot be eternal life or salvation, because keeping that belongs to Christ Himself. So it is probably the truth — the truth put into the care of His servants — to be held by them in full faithfulness as they serve, looking on to that day.
One writer sets this command beside what Paul said two verses earlier:
In verse 12 the apostle rested with holy satisfaction in God keeping what he had entrusted to Him. Here is the other side. Timothy is called to keep what was entrusted to him, and God gives him help for it in the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. The Spirit given to us stays with us for ever. Our sins and foolishness may grieve Him, but since redemption He does not abandon the believer. When self-judgment clears the hindrance away, He is there to act in His own gracious power, for the glory of Christ Who sent Him down for this very purpose.
Paul had given Timothy a pattern of sound words. But a form of words, left on its own, is not enough:
It is good to have the truth set out in an outline of sound words. Yet no such outline can keep the truth alive by itself. For that the Holy Spirit is needed. Without Him the sound words only embalm the truth. You can see this in some of the orthodox confessions, where the creed has been completely cut off from daily practice. But by the Spirit who lives in us the truth can be kept in its living power.
The command assumes a resource the reader already has. That changes where our attention should rest:
It is worth remembering this. If the Lord sends us on any service, or sets us to defend the truth in a hard day, He has given us power equal to every demand that can be made on us. We are too often taken up with a sense of our own weakness, instead of with the power we have through the Holy Spirit living in us.
Some people enjoy a fight over doctrine. One writer is careful to say that this is not what Paul is asking for:
Many people naturally enjoy conflict over the truth. They catch the scent of battle from far off with fierce joy. But I do not think the apostle is pointing to that hard spirit here. He is not speaking of quarrelling over the truth, or of the pleasure of winning an argument. He is speaking of guarding the deposit of truth by the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Commentators differ in emphasis. One writer stresses trading with what was left in our hands:
It is only right that the Master should have interest on so valuable a deposit. Compare Luke 19:23. The one effective way of keeping this trust is to use it for the Master. But it is not ours to hand over to the enemy as we please. We must not let it be stolen away.
And the charge does not stop with one gifted man:
Yet every believer is called to keep the good deposit in this way, and all who fail to do so will suffer eternal loss of reward. This cannot be done in natural strength. Only as a person walks in the Spirit will the grace that is needed be given.
- Entrusted — The deposit is God's revealed truth, placed in a servant's hands. It is not salvation and not an office. Salvation is Christ's to keep; this is ours to guard.
- Exchanged — Paul left what was his with the Lord for safe keeping. The Lord left His truth with Timothy. Both sides of the trust are kept.
- Empowered — Right words alone only embalm the truth. The Spirit who lives in us keeps it alive, and He does not leave us when we fail.
- Employed — We keep the deposit by using it for the Master and by refusing to hand it to the enemy. We never keep it by burying it.
- Extended — Every believer is called to this keeping, not just the gifted worker. None of it can be done in natural strength.
Thou knowest this, that all who [are] in Asia, of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes, have turned away from me.
Paul has just urged Timothy not to be ashamed of him, a prisoner — and here he names what that cost. The region where his preaching had done most had walked away, though notice he does not say they walked away from Christ.
Asia here is a region of the Roman world, not the continent we know today. That is what makes the sentence so heavy: these were people who owed Paul everything.
Through Paul's preaching, "all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19:10). So they owed him a great deal. But now the aged and devoted Apostle was in prison, and they had lost their first love. The warmth of their zeal had cooled. They had become ashamed of God's chosen vessel of the truth.
Darby measures the change against how the work began.
What a change already since the beginning of the gospel! Think of the Thessalonians and the Ephesians. Ephesus was the capital of what is here called Asia. Paul had preached among these same people, so that all Asia had heard the gospel. And see how they had all now abandoned him!
Commentators are careful about how far this went.
It would be wrong to conclude that they had turned their backs on Christianity completely and stopped professing it. That was not the case. Their faith had grown weak. They had withdrawn from the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he had become a despised prisoner. By that act they showed too that they were leaving the great and blessed teachings the Apostle had preached to them.
There were respectable-sounding reasons for keeping a distance.
They had certainly fallen in with the drift of this age. So they would be tempted to see Paul as an extreme man, as too narrow, as a zealot, as someone whose fanaticism put the progress of Christianity at risk. They turned away from him, looking for smoother paths, where the cross would be lighter.
Darby weighs the two losses against each other.
Why? They were ashamed of him. They had given up the truth that Paul taught in particular. They had also given up Paul himself, and that might be the greater thing. Some were even ashamed of Paul's chain.
Kelly names the trigger.
From the context I would judge that the apostle's imprisonment brought out this utterly shameful and guilty desertion. The enemy used the human shame heaped on the greatest servant of the church and of the gospel. These people were the rich fruit of his own work in divine power. Yet in spirit they in effect joined the world, cowering under its shame. Faith and love should have made them stand with the apostle in his suffering, as suffering that brought glory to the name of Jesus.
Paul names two men. Why name them at all?
Scripture records their names, which shows they were well known. They were probably leaders among the believers, and so their example would lend approval to this unfaithful course. Perhaps the teaching of these men had adapted itself to the currents of the moment. The trends of any age always find a voice through some who claim the place of teachers.
Paul says Timothy already knows this. So the point is not news but preparation.
Their desertion would prepare Timothy, and countless others, for what might be like it in kind and in time. Scripture records nothing in vain. It is true that we gain strength for the conflict by looking at the Captain of salvation, not at deserters. But it is good to be ready for what has already happened, for what might happen, and for what the same causes are sure to bring about again and again.
Kelly points to the one man who did not join the retreat.
But the turning away from Paul was not absolutely complete even in Asia. There was at least one bright exception. God in His grace always uses a time of general evil to bring out unusual faithfulness and devotion… The contrast helps much, and clearly, to show us where the general defection lay. And the Lord repaid the house of Onesiphorus, with compound interest, for the grace He had given to its head.
- Debt — Asia had heard the word of the Lord through Paul; the people who abandoned him were the fruit of his own labour.
- Chain — the trigger was his imprisonment. Shame at his chain, not disbelief in his gospel, started the drift.
- Drift — they did not abandon Christianity. They cooled, looked for smoother paths, and let go of what Paul had taught.
- Names — Scripture records Phygelus and Hermogenes because people knew them. Known men give a desertion its cover.
- Exception — the failure was not total. One man, Onesiphorus, stood by Paul, and the Lord repaid his household.