2nd Timothy Chapter 1

From The Open Bible Project

Paul's Second Letter to Timothy

1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, according to the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus,

• (a) Sent of God to preach that life which he promised in Christ Jesus.

1:2 to Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

1:3 I thank God, whom I serve as my forefathers did, with a pure conscience. How unceasing is my memory of you in my petitions, night and day

• (1) The purpose that he aims at in this epistle is to confirm Timothy to continue constantly and bravely even to the end. And he sets first before him the great good will he has for him, and then reckons up the excellent gifts which God would as it were have to be in Timothy by inheritance, and his ancestors, which might so much the more make him bound to God.
• (b) From Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for he speaks not of Pharisaism, but of Christianity.

1:4 longing to see you, remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy;

1:5 having been reminded of the unfeigned faith that is in you; which lived first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and, I am persuaded, in you also.

1:6 For this cause, I remind you that you should stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

• (2) He urges us to set the invincible power of the Spirit which God has given us, against those storms which may, and do come upon us.
• (c) The gift of God is as it were a certain living flame kindled in our hearts, which the flesh and the devil go about to put out: and therefore we as their opponents must labour as much as we can to foster and keep it burning.

1:7 For God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

• (d) To pierce us through, and terrify us, as men whom the Lord will destroy.

1:8 Therefore don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God,

• (3) He proves that the ignominy or shame of the cross is not to be ashamed of, and also that it is glorious and most honourable: first, because the Gospel for which the godly are afflicted is the testimony of Christ: and secondly because at length the great virtue and power of God appears in them.
• (e) For his sake.
• (f) This Gospel is said to be in a way afflicted in those that preach it.
• (g) Through the power of God.

1:9 who saved us and 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 times eternal,

• (4) He shows with how great benefits God has bound us to maintain boldly and constantly his glory which is joined with our salvation, and reckons up the causes of our salvation, that is, that free and eternal purpose of God, to save us in Christ who was to come. And by this it would come to pass, that we would at length be freely called by God through the preaching of the Gospel, to Christ the destroyer of death and author of immortality.
• (h) He says that that grace was given to us from everlasting, to which we were predestinated from everlasting. So that the doctrine of foreseen faith and foreseen works is completely contrary to the doctrine which preaches and teaches the grace of God.
• (i) Before the beginning of years, which has run on ever since the beginning of the world.

1:10 but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News.

• (k) Has caused life and immortality to appear.

1:11 For this, I was appointed as a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

• (5) That is, the Gospel which the apostle preached.

1:12 For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day.

• (6) He confirms his apostleship by a strange argument, that is, because the world could not abide it, and therefore it persecuted him that preached it.
• (7) By setting his own example before us, he shows us how it may be, that we will not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, that is, if we are sure that God both can and will keep the salvation which he has as it were laid up in store by himself for us against that day.

1:13 Hold the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

• (8) He shows in what he ought to be most constant, that is, both in the doctrine itself, the essential parts of which are faith and charity, and next in the manner of teaching it, a living pattern and shape of which Timothy knew in the apostle.

1:14 That good thing which was committed to you, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

• (9) An amplification, taken from the dignity of so great a benefit committed to the ministers.
• (10) The taking away of an objection. It is a hard thing to do it, but the Spirit of God is mighty, who has inwardly endued us with his power.

1:15 This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me; of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.

• (11) He prevents an offence which arose by the means of certain ones that fell from God and the faith, and utters also their names that they might be known by all men. But he sets against them the singular faith of one man, that one good example alone might counterbalance and weigh down all evil examples.

1:16 May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,

1:17 but when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently, and found me

1:18 (the Lord grant to him to find the Lord's mercy in that day); and in how many things he served at Ephesus, you know very well.