The cloak which I left behind [me] in Troas at Carpus's, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments.
Paul is in prison near the end of his life, and in his last letter he asks Timothy for a coat, some books, and above all the parchments. Why does such an ordinary errand belong in Scripture, and what do the three items say about the man who asked?
Some readers are offended that a farewell letter this solemn stops to talk about a coat:
This again has stumbled the minds of men. They cannot understand an inspired apostle talking about a cloak in the middle of a divinely given pastoral charge. The reason is plain: they themselves have a taste for the things of men, and not of God. Nothing shows God more than His ability to combine what is eternal with care for the smallest things of this life.
Another writer draws out the practical danger:
The cloak we wear and the books we read are not matters of indifference to Him. In our folly we may think such things beneath His notice. Because we think that way, these very things — the clothes we wear, the books we read — often become our greatest snares.
The cloak also tells us what Paul's life had come to:
The winter winds whistled through the window-bars of his prison cell. The damp and cold made his aged body shiver and ache as he lay bound with a chain. Yet not one Christian among the many living in Rome came to him in his need, or brought him a garment to protect his aching limbs. He had a cloak, just one, but it was nearly a thousand miles away.
Another writer finds nothing strange in it:
A cloak is not to be thrown away, and I have no doubt it was as cold in a Roman prison then as it is cold in Rome now in winter. The man of God can ask for the useful covering.
The way he asks shows how he held ordinary things — clothes and reading — with death close at hand:
Here we learn the Christian liberty the apostle used about these outward things of body and mind. He preferred to have a cloak brought rather than buy another. He asked for his books there, which had their interest or use for him, even though he was expecting death and did not know how soon. He would not speak of the Scriptures that way.
The same writer separates these books from the Scriptures:
"The books" too do not appear, from the general expression, to have been the Scriptures... He would not, we may be well assured, leave behind on his journeys a single roll he had of the Scriptures; but he neither burned nor despised other books.
Commentators differ on what these sheets were. One reading takes them as still blank, and links them to Paul's sense that his ministry was closing:
These naturally imply material of the most valuable and lasting kind, not yet written on. The apostle wanted them, knowing that his outward ministry was closing... What could have been more on his mind than the wish to have his letters copied with care, under his own eye, and for lasting use?
Others think the parchments already carried inspired writing, and draw a lesson from Paul's care for them:
Many have thought that the "parchments" may include some of the inspired letters. This is very likely, and the care taken should be a lesson to us in any work that involves writing.
One man who had turned away from the Christian faith argued that parts of the New Testament have only a local and temporary meaning. He picked this verse as his example of something we could have done without:
He reports that the "Irish Clergyman" replied at once that he himself would have lost much, for it was only that verse which kept him from destroying his little library. Those who knew the Irish Clergyman's "little library" in later years — how many languages and subjects it covered — found the incident interesting.
- Small — objected to. Some stumble at a coat inside a solemn farewell letter. The problem is their own taste for the things of men, not of God.
- Small — claimed by God. Nothing shows God more than His power to join what is eternal with care for the smallest things of this life.
- Small — and dangerous. Think a thing beneath God's notice and it can become your greatest snare — the clothes you wear, the books you read.
- Small — and free. Paul asks for his old cloak instead of a new one, and still wants his ordinary books with death close. That is Christian liberty.
- Small — and lasting. The parchments he wanted "above all" point to writing kept with care. Even this small verse proved its worth: it once saved a man's whole library.
Alexander the smith did many evil things against me. The Lord will render to him according to his works.
Paul is near the end of his life, and among the last names he writes down is that of a man who worked hard to harm him. He names the damage and hands the matter to the Lord. What should a believer do with a personal enemy?
Some link this Alexander with the man Paul had already named in his first letter to Timothy. One writer also draws out what his name means.
Paul had handed Alexander over to Satan because of his blasphemy. That put him outside the fellowship of the saints, in the hope that he would judge himself (1 Tim. 1:20). But clearly there had been no recovery. The opposite was true: he did Paul much evil… The meaning of Alexander's name seems most significant: "man defender." It will be of no use to defend man in the flesh against the Living God. Paul's doctrine had exposed man in the flesh and brought him to nothing, while exalting the person of Christ.
Alexander's quarrel was not with the teaching.
He is an active personal enemy of the Apostle. Personal hostility drove him, so it did not matter what Paul said — Alexander opposed his words. Such people existed in the Apostle's day, and sadly there are still such people in the Christian profession. They resist what a man says, not because it is wrong, but because they are hostile to the person who speaks. The Lord's servant does not repay such a person evil for evil, or insult for insult. He does not say, "I will try to deal with him according to his works." He commits the whole matter to the Lord, and so he can say, "The Lord will render to him according to his works."
Older English versions read the last line as a wish — "the Lord reward him." The better-supported text reads it as a plain statement of what will happen.
One cannot help feeling that the text with the highest manuscript authority is a great relief to the spirit: "the Lord will render to him according to his works." It is easy to see how the common text turned this verb into a wish… On the other hand, that the Lord will render to him according to his works is a certain truth which every Christian conscience must feel.
Some readers stumble here, thinking Paul asks for punishment on a man.
There is only one place in the New Testament where it looks like a Christian is asking for punishment on an enemy: 2 Timothy 4:14. But it should read, "The Lord will reward him according to his works." Paul did not desire Alexander's punishment, but he knew enough of God's ways to know He would deal with him.
Paul does not organise a counter-attack. One writer finds the same wisdom in the Old Testament.
Avoiding all open conflict as useless, Nehemiah commits the matter to God, like Paul… It would be well for us to pay special attention to these examples. There are many forms of evil which we cannot attack openly without damage to ourselves and to others. There are many evil-workers in the church of God whom we must leave alone. To attack them would only serve the cause of the enemy. Our resource in such circumstances is to cry to God against them.
Paul does not treat everyone who failed him the same way.
Alexander is an enemy of the truth. There is nothing to say but, "The Lord reward him according to his works!" The Roman converts were afraid to stand by the champion for the truth, and at his first defence they left him standing alone… "May it not be charged against them!" says the apostle — very different from what he had said in the other case. It is an important thing to distinguish between those who oppose the truth and those who are afraid to stand for it; and this is what Paul does in this case.
Paul met this harm while trusting the Lord with his own future.
In his day he had to meet those who did him "great harm." Yet, trusting in the Lord, he could say, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom" (2 Tim. 4:14, 18).
- The wound. A man inside the Christian profession fought Paul in person. He resisted Paul's words because of who spoke them, not because they were wrong.
- The restraint. Paul does not repay evil for evil; he refuses to say, "I will try to deal with him according to his works."
- The handover. The last line reads best as a certainty, not a wish. Paul leaves the account with the one Judge who settles it.
- The discernment. Paul answers enemies of the truth and frightened friends in two ways. He leaves one to the Lord's reckoning and prays for the other.
- The rest. The Lord rescues His servant and brings him into His heavenly kingdom. So the injured man can name the harm and then set it down.
Against whom be *thou* also on thy guard, for he has greatly withstood our words.
Paul's last letter names names. He turns from those who failed him to a man who fought him, and tells Timothy to stay on guard against him.
Who was this man? One writer ties him to Paul's arrest, and to an earlier clash in the city of Ephesus:
Alexander — of Ephesus, we believe — clearly had something to do with his arrest. He was either one of his accusers, or at least a witness against him. He writes to Timothy: "Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm." Ten years before this, he had stood forward as the open opponent of the apostle in Ephesus (Acts 19). He may now have taken his revenge by reporting the apostle to the Roman authorities. The charge to Timothy, "Beware of him yourself," seems to show this was the same Alexander of Ephesus.
Commentators differ here. Others say we cannot now tell whether this is the same Alexander. They call him only an uncompromising opponent of the truth, and of Paul in particular.
The opposition here had a particular flavour. It was not false teaching, and it was not love of the world:
Alexander is referred to, not as a teacher of error, as in the case of Hymenaeus, nor as loving this present world like Demas. He is instead an active personal enemy of the Apostle. Personal hatred drove him, so it did not matter what Paul said — Alexander opposed his words. Such people existed in the Apostle's day. Sadly, they are still found among those who claim the Christian name. They resist what is said, not because it is wrong, but because they hate the person who speaks.
This warning fits one particular man. Timothy was gentle, and gentleness has its own blind spot:
Against Alexander, Timothy also was to stand on his guard. It is clear, therefore, that he was an adversary still bent on evil to the saints and on opposition to the work. Timothy's gentle character might draw him into a mistaken kindness, when caution was urgently needed. The apostle gives the reason: "he strongly opposed our message." More than the apostle had warned or pleaded with this wrongdoer — perhaps Timothy himself among them.
Paul gives a reason for the warning, and the reason is not that Alexander was unpleasant but that he had set himself against the apostolic message. That opposition may well have looked impressive at the time:
He also uses the moment to warn Timothy about the true character of this adversary: "he strongly opposed our message." Alexander may have been a successful debater, and that may have won him the applause of his hearers. But he was a tool of Satan to his own destruction, unless he later repented.
"Beware" tells Timothy to guard himself. It does not tell him to strike back:
Vindictiveness refused. We are to see that none render evil for evil. There is the ever present danger of meeting flesh with flesh. We may have to be silent when facing malice, and even avoid the one who acts in malice, but in any case we are not to render evil for evil.
That is Paul's own posture. He does not try to settle the account with Alexander. He commits the whole matter to the Lord, and still warns Timothy — sad that such a warning is ever needed among Christians.
- Named. Paul names one man: an active personal enemy who may have had a hand in his arrest.
- Personal. Alexander's quarrel was not with wrong doctrine but with the man teaching it. That spirit still resists a message because of the messenger.
- Targeted. The warning fits Timothy's gentle nature, which could soften into a kindness that drops its guard.
- Reasoned. The ground of the warning is that Alexander "strongly opposed our message." A skilled opponent of the truth serves the enemy, whatever the applause.
- Restrained. Beware means guard yourself, not strike back. The servant leaves the account with the Lord.
At my first defence no man stood with me, but all deserted me. May it not be imputed to them.
Paul writes to Timothy near the end of his life. He describes his first appearance in a Roman court, where not one friend stood beside him. What he does with that desertion is the heart of this verse.
The scene is a courtroom. One writer explains the setting and links Paul's word for desertion to Demas.
This points to Paul's trial — to what we would call his first hearing. The words are better translated "my first defence." Not one person was found to go with him to the court. All "forsook" him, and that word is the same one used of Demas. So they, like him, had given in to the power of the enemy. But if fear was what moved them, grace was still at work in Paul's heart. It lifted him above their unfaithfulness and his own desertion, and made him able to pray that the sin would not be charged against them.
Paul was not made of stone. Two things sharpened the pain: his own love, and what the failure meant to his Lord.
Few can measure how painful and humiliating this was to the apostle, because so few come anywhere near him in faith or in love. No one on earth could feel as he felt what such failure was to the Lord Himself. That feeling gave immense weight to his prayer, "May it not be charged against them!"
Another writer pictures the courtroom itself.
That same lone prisoner stood before the emperor Nero — a defenceless captive, worn down by age and by a lifetime of suffering. He stood in the very jaws of the lion and preached the gospel of God without fear, but no one stood with him. His friends abandoned him. Like frightened hares they ran for safety when his life was in danger. He felt it, and felt it deeply — more for their sake than for his own.
The natural reaction to being abandoned is bitterness. Paul goes the opposite way, and he does it at the point where the road was narrowest.
The apostle found in his day, as many have found since, that the path narrows as we near the goal. So, on trial before the powers of this world, he had to say that no one stood with him and all deserted him. This treatment looks heartless and cowardly, but it stirs no resentment in Paul's heart. Instead it draws out his prayer that it may not be charged against them.
Paul's experience was not new. His Lord walked this road before him.
How closely Paul had to follow in the steps of his Master! And how clearly the same Spirit led him, whatever the difference in degree of power! We read that when the Lord allowed Himself to be arrested, "Then all the disciples left him and fled" (Matt. 26:56). And before His death He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). A blessed likeness! But how few are ready for the suffering that such a privilege brings!
One writer sets Paul's abandonment beside Peter's warning that judgment begins with God's own people.
Not one stayed by him! Peter tells us that "it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God," 1 Peter 4:17. I name these on the authority of the word of God. They show that even then, at the very beginning, something was going on in the open. The Spirit of God could see it and point to it as the ground of final judgment. It was already visible in the church of God.
If everyone deserted Paul, no reader should expect better today. But the Lord did not leave him alone.
Some believers prefer the simple, reliable word of Scripture to the many confusing creeds of fallible people, propped up as those creeds are by custom, tradition, or convenience. Such a believer must expect the isolation that always goes with faithfulness in a time of decline. The church has certainly not improved since everyone deserted no less a man than the apostle Paul, leaving him to stand alone at his first defence in Rome. Still, the Lord stood with him (2 Tim. 4:16-17). He will do the same for every true-hearted follower, and give enough grace for the heaviest burden anyone may have to carry for His sake.
- Deserted. "First defence" means Paul's first hearing in a Roman court. Not one person came with him. The word for their leaving is the same one used of Demas.
- Felt. Paul was not hardened to it. He felt the desertion deeply — more for their sake than his own, and most of all for what such failure meant to the Lord.
- Forgiven. Instead of resentment, grace produced a prayer: may it not be charged against them. The narrowing path did not narrow his heart.
- Following. All the disciples left His Master, and before His death He prayed for those who were wronging Him. Paul walks the same road, led by the same Spirit.
- Fortified. Decline was already visible in the church's earliest days, so isolation still goes with faithfulness. But the Lord stood with Paul, and He stands with every true-hearted follower, giving grace enough for the heaviest burden.
But the Lord stood with [me], and gave me power, that through me the proclamation might be fully made, and all [those of] the nations should hear; and I was delivered out of the lion's mouth.
Paul writes from a Roman prison, and at his first hearing before the emperor's court no friend stood with him. Verse 16 records that desertion, and this verse answers it: what help did the Lord give — escape, or something else?
The order of the words matters. Presence comes first, then power.
The apostle was in these circumstances for the truth's sake. They only served to bring out fully what a reserve he had in the Lord Himself... Notice the beautiful moral order of these words — not "strengthened me and stood by me," but "stood by me and strengthened me." This order conveys a reality that is very blessed. It puts first, and in the foreground, the Lord's company and presence with His faithful servant at the moment when all deserted him.
This is not an exception made for an apostle. Others see in it a pattern for anyone left standing alone.
May we not say this? It is exactly when someone in the Lord's service, and for His name, has to feel the loneliness of the path of a faithful witness that the Lord comes and reveals Himself in a special way. So at this moment of trial, the Lord stood by Paul and strengthened him — strengthened him inwardly. The enemy's effort became an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles who filled the court.
The power He gave had a definite shape.
If all others fail and forsake us, the Lord's words will always remain true: "I will never leave you nor forsake you"... But when the Lord gives power, it is not power to crush our enemies. It is not power to get ourselves out of hard circumstances. It is spiritual power to bear witness for Him in front of His enemies... From the records of Paul's preaching we know what that proclamation was: the forgiveness of sins "through this Man" — Christ Jesus, the risen Man in the glory (Acts 13:38)... Paul was given power to proclaim Christ, and the Lord Himself used His power to deliver His servant from the immediate danger. So he can say, not "I rescued myself," but "I was rescued from the lion's mouth."
Paul had every reason to defend himself. He used the hour for something else.
Let us note this: Paul says nothing about being on the defensive on this occasion. In fact he boldly took the positive action of fully preaching the truth of Christ before the great Gentile court. Such is the power given as a result of any real sense of the Lord's standing with the servant.
His words also went further than the courtroom.
He did not use every ounce of his wit and strain every nerve to prove his own innocence. Instead he concentrated on giving the fullest and plainest testimony to the gospel. His trial became the occasion in which "the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it." Paul eagerly seized the chance to set the gospel fully before the most impressive gathering on earth at that time. His words then stood on record in the official report of the trial, open to any and every Gentile.
Commentators differ over who or what the lion was.
"So I was rescued from the lion's mouth." Does this refer to the Emperor in particular, or to his representative in a more general way? People say they cannot determine. The phrase clearly means rescued from the most immediate or overwhelming danger.
Others look behind the human figure. Paul was rescued "from the Satanic enmity which was moving strongly in the secular power" (Leslie M. Grant).
One writer sets Paul beside Daniel, an earlier servant whom God saved from lions.
God delivered Daniel from the mouth of the lion "because he believed in his God." Paul, too, was delivered, though perhaps in another sense. But we do know that he was afterwards put to death by Caesar's executioners. So let us have no fears for our own life. Our time here is certain until our work is done and our testimony for Christ is complete.
- Stood — presence comes before power. The Lord's company with His servant comes first, and the strength follows.
- Strengthened — the help is not power to crush enemies or escape hardship. It is power to witness in front of them.
- Proclaimed — Paul dropped his own defence and preached. The message went fully on record before the Gentiles.
- Delivered — Paul does not say "I rescued myself." The Lord did it. Commentators point to the Emperor, to the power behind him, or to overwhelming danger.
- Finished — the rescue lasted as long as the work did. Our time here is secure until the testimony is complete.
The Lord shall deliver me from every wicked work, and shall preserve [me] for his heavenly kingdom; to whom [be] glory for the ages of ages. Amen.
Paul writes these words from prison in Rome, after his friends had all deserted him. What follows is not a hope of release but a settled certainty, and commentators explain what that deliverance meant.
Every friend had abandoned him. His certainty rests on something outside his circumstances.
So, in this day, ruin has come in among the people of God. Satan has so triumphed that Paul is in prison, the saints have deserted him, and evil is increasing. The Apostle feels all the failure deeply. Yet one thing holds him up and lifts him above it all: he realises that the Lord Jesus is in the supreme place of power, above every influence of Satan. The Lord in glory is his resource.
Kelly weighs what the promise covers. It does not guarantee another escape from the lion's mouth. (Where these writers quote "every evil work," the ESV reads "every evil deed.")
But the apostle widens his view as he looks ahead. "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work" — not necessarily out of a lion's mouth another day, but from all real evil — and He "will preserve for His heavenly kingdom." Earth might bring him still more sorrow, and human persecution to the very worst. For the apostle the question was not whether his body would be saved, but whether he would be preserved for the Lord's heavenly kingdom.
Paul was executed. One writer sees the promise kept, not broken:
Paul said, "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work." Yet this deliverance did not mean he would escape suffering. In fact, the evil work of Satan led to Paul's execution in prison — and that was the very means of his deliverance.
The word does not guarantee that the body stays safe. Hamilton Smith links it to Psalm 121:
As the Psalmist can say, "The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life" (Psalm 121:7). The heavenly kingdom may indeed be reached through a martyr's death, but the soul will be preserved through every evil.
Older translations end that line with the word "soul," which is why Smith speaks of the soul being kept.
Christ's kingdom has two sides. Paul names the side that belongs to Christians.
The meek who are to inherit the earth will have part with the Lord in His earthly kingdom. But Paul, and every other believer of the Christian period, will have part in Christ's heavenly kingdom. In the millennial day, everything in heaven and on earth will come under Christ's rule. He will have His servants both in heaven and on earth.
Edward Dennett ties the phrase to the timing of Paul's death:
The Lord guaranteed that He would preserve him for His heavenly kingdom. That is, He would keep him until he departed to be with Christ in heaven, and the time of his departure was at hand. That would happen before the Lord returned for His saints, and so before He appeared with His saints to set up His kingdom on the earth. This will explain the term "heavenly kingdom."
This confidence is not a lone flash of optimism. One writer sees preservation running through the whole close of the letter:
The Roman Emperor, the church of God, and His servant Paul are all under review here. All of them work for the "preservation" of His poor imprisoned servant. Through all, come what may, Paul will be preserved, and so will Timothy, and so will all who are like-minded. Even a cruel death may come, but that does not touch the preservation of the faithful servant.
Kelly turns the closing praise into a pattern for prayer:
His and our every prayer may well end in a continual Hallelujah.
Smith turns that same confidence into a question for the reader:
Do we have such confidence in the love of the Father and of Christ? With enemies, dangers and desertion around us, can we still say, "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge"?
- Deserted — Paul writes with every friend gone; his resource is the Lord in glory, not better circumstances.
- Delivered — the rescue covers every evil work, not every suffering; Paul's execution became the very means of his deliverance.
- Preserved — the keeping reaches the soul, not the skin; a martyr's death can be the road into the heavenly kingdom.
- Heavenly — Christ's kingdom has an earthly side and a heavenly side; Paul claims the heavenly part as his own.
- Glorified — deliverance and preservation end in praise, so prayer closes in a continual Hallelujah.
Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus.
Paul's last letter closes with names. He greets two old friends and one household. Why these names, and why last?
Paul names two friends and one household here. All of them went back years with him, and all of them stayed.
"Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus." The first two were early companions who stayed faithful to the end. With them he links the household of Onesiphorus, whom he mentioned at the close of the first chapter of this letter. The apostle felt deeply how Onesiphorus linked himself with his circumstances as a prisoner. Onesiphorus himself was no longer in Rome, and perhaps not at Ephesus either, his usual home… God prospers earnest love for Christ's sake.
Paul had lived and worked in the same trade as this couple. Elsewhere he says what their friendship nearly cost them.
He closes the letter with a few more personal notes. Remember that the apostle "stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade" (Acts 18:2-3). And he calls them elsewhere "my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks" (Rom. 16:3-4).
Their names turn up in city after city across the New Testament. Paul greets them here in the city where Timothy was living.
Aquila and Priscilla had settled in Corinth… After Paul's ministry there ended they went to Ephesus. They were still there when 1 Corinthians was written. But in Romans 16:3 Paul greets them at Rome, so they had travelled back… 2 Timothy 4:19 tells us that once more they were back in Ephesus, where Timothy was living. "Greet Prisca" (a shortened form of Priscilla) "and Aquila." They were indeed strangers and pilgrims, but blessed to know that the Lord directed their wanderings. Priscilla is mostly named before Aquila. From this we may learn that she, like other notable women of those days, "labored for the Gospel."
Their most far-reaching service was done privately, and its results outran anything they did in public.
Apollos had the natural gift of eloquence — he was a master of words. By diligent study he had become "mighty in the Scriptures." Yet when he came to Ephesus he was not well informed about God's intervention in Christ… Aquila and Priscilla heard him and at once saw what he lacked. So they did the delightful service of showing him hospitality, to teach him more fully what had happened through Christ. God used these saints, who had no particular public gift, to launch a very gifted vessel on his career of service. From Ephesus he went to Corinth. There he convinced many Jews about Christ, and he helped the believers much as well. How much of the reward for his effective service will go to the credit of Aquila and Priscilla, who can say?
Paul does not greet Onesiphorus by name. He greets the man's house — the same house he commended to the Lord's mercy in chapter one.
The apostle writes: "May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus" (2 Tim. 1:16), and again he greets that same household here. The whole household is joined to the loyalty of its head. The whole household is commended in a special way to the mercy of the Lord, because Onesiphorus had a loyal and loving heart… The whole household shared the rejection along with its head. This is as it should be. May it be so in our households!
What Onesiphorus did was neither public nor impressive. It was a search through a large city for a man in prison.
He does no great public work. But he often refreshed the apostle, and he was not ashamed to stand with a man in prison for Christ's sake. In Rome he sought Paul out. That was no doubt hard in so large a city, where prisons would be more than a few. Anyone could excuse himself from such a task as unnecessary. But the apostle, and certainly God too, valued the faith that kept going until it found Paul. What proof that things which may look small in our eyes are not really small in God's estimate!
- Names — Paul's last letter closes with the people who stayed. Faithfulness gets recorded.
- Trade — Prisca and Aquila made tents. Paul worked beside them, and they risked their lives for him.
- Home — They had no public gift. But they took Apollos in, taught him, and God used them to launch his whole career of service.
- Chain — Onesiphorus was not ashamed of a prisoner. He searched a huge city until he found Paul, and refreshed him again and again.
- House — Paul greets that man's whole house. One loyal heart at the head of a home carries the whole house with it — and what looks small to us is not small to God.
Erastus remained in Corinth, but Trophimus I left behind in Miletus sick.
Paul's last letter closes with a short travel note: one friend stayed at Corinth, and Paul left another behind sick at Miletus. Why did an apostle who had healed others leave his own companion ill?
The first half of the verse records a fellow worker staying where he was. Paul does not order him elsewhere.
There was no compulsion in regulating the labours of his fellow-ministers, even by an apostle. They were servants of the Lord. No one would have urged this more earnestly than Paul, and no one would have drawn back more than he did from setting up a controlling authority between the Lord and His servants. There were urgent calls elsewhere, no doubt; but Erastus stayed at Corinth. He was probably the man who had once been treasurer of the city.
Miletus does not fit the voyage that first brought Paul to Rome as a prisoner. That gap points to a release and a later journey.
Verse 20 leads one to think that Paul was released from custody after his trial. His first voyage to Rome took place under the circumstances recorded in Acts 27 and 28, and he had no chance then to leave Trophimus at Miletus. He left him there sick, which shows that it is not always God's way to heal sick believers directly, as some claim.
Paul had healed others, and Trophimus was his friend. Yet the power was not his to spend as he chose.
We also learn here that the apostles used the miraculous power given to them in the Lord's service. They did not use it for their private interests, or as their personal affection might suggest. Paul had left Trophimus sick at Miletus.
So who were these miracles for?
Apparently the miraculous power of healing which, in the course of his testimony, had been so strikingly used by the Apostle, was never used for the relief of a brother or a friend. As one has said, "Miracles as a rule were signs for unbelievers, not a means of cure for the household of faith."
Kelly names what decided the matter either way, then points to a second friend who got advice instead of a miracle.
Here again the apostle looked only to the Lord. His glory was the only motive, whether for working miracles or for holding back. So in the earlier letter the apostle told Timothy to stop drinking only water. He was to use a little wine for his stomach and his frequent illnesses. Any Christian friend might give that advice today, though without the Spirit's inspiration. This remains for us now in the written word. There was certainly no miracle in Timothy's case, any more than in Trophimus' case.
If Paul could have healed him and did not, then the illness had a reason.
Paul, for example, with all his mighty powers of healing, says, "I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus." God had His own purpose in Trophimus' suffering, and a needless miracle might have spoiled that purpose. And on Paul's part, God did not give him powers of miracles to use at random, or at his own will, but to use in the service of his Master.
after_note: DELETE
Paul lost a helper when he needed help most. His words about it carry no bitterness.
We see that whatever miraculous power was in the Church, it was not used to make every believer comfortable in this life. Nor did it always enable him to bring comfort to others. The apostle felt the absence of Trophimus, no doubt. But he has not a word of reproof for him, and not a thought of complaint about it.
- Left, not abandoned — Erastus stayed at Corinth, Trophimus stayed sick at Miletus. Paul pressures neither and blames neither.
- Left by an apostle who could heal — the apostles used that power in the Lord's service, not for private interests or personal affection.
- Left because signs point outward — as a rule, miracles were signs for unbelievers, not a supply of cures for believers.
- Left for a purpose — God had His own purpose in Trophimus' illness, and a needless miracle would have spoiled it.
- Left without murmuring — Paul felt the loss of his companion, yet he has no reproof for him and no complaint about it.