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2 Timothy

2 Timothychapter 1

18 verses · BSB2 Timothy book hub →

Speaks with:1 Peter 4×3Romans 1×22 Timothy 3×2Romans 8×2John 14×2Hebrews 9×1

Summary

Chapter summary

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son. I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, as without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers. I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee. Which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice. Stir up the gift of God. God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Henry reads the chapter as the opening challenge to faithful witness.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 2 Timothy overview

  • A. 1–7 Lois, Eunice, and the Gift to Be Stirred Into Flame
  • B. 8–12 I Know Whom I Have Believed
  • C. 13–18 All Asia Turned Away — but Onesiphorus Searched Him Out

The outline

  1. A.Lois, Eunice, and the Gift to Be Stirred Into Flamevv. 1 to 7

    Read vv. 1 to 7 →

  2. B.I Know Whom I Have Believedvv. 8 to 12

    Read vv. 8 to 12 →

  3. C.All Asia Turned Away — but Onesiphorus Searched Him Outvv. 13 to 18

    Read vv. 13 to 18 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Kept by the power of God

Pattern

Three letters end the canon on one verb: God keeps. Paul's deposit is kept against that day, Peter's scattered strangers are kept for a reserved inheritance, and Jude opens on the preserved and closes on him that is able to keep you from falling.

The keeping runs one direction: in every beat the keeper is God and the kept are his people. Each letter can command endurance because safety rests on the keeper, and Jude turns the doctrine into worship before the letter ends.

  1. 2 Timothy 1:12 you are here

    Able to keep my deposit

    I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

  2. 1 Peter 1:4-5

    Kept for the inheritance

    The inheritance is reserved in heaven for the heirs, and the heirs are kept by the power of God through faith for it.

  3. Jude 1:1

    Preserved in Jesus Christ

    Jude's first word to the called is that they are sanctified and preserved.

  4. Jude 1:24

    Able to keep you from falling

    The letter that exposes the apostates closes on the God who presents his own faultless before the presence of his glory.

The world behind this chapter

2 Timothy 1
When
Nero's persecution, at the end of Paul's life · c. AD 66–67
Where
Written from a Roman prison to Timothy in Ephesus
Who first heard it
A colleague deciding whether to be publicly associated with a condemned man

The history

Roman prisons did not feed people. A prisoner ate what friends brought, and a man with no visitors starved or lived on scraps. That is why the chapter makes so much of Onesiphorus, who searched Rome until he found Paul and was not ashamed of his chain.

Finding a prisoner in Rome took real effort. There were several holding places, custody could be in a barracks, a private house under guard, or an underground cell, and a visitor asking after a man charged with a capital offense drew attention to himself.

After the great fire of AD 64, Nero fixed the blame on Christians, and the historian Tacitus describes the punishments that followed. Being known as one of them was now genuinely dangerous in the capital, which explains the line about everyone in Asia turning away.

The chain was literal. A prisoner awaiting trial could be shackled to the wrist of the soldier guarding him, in shifts around the clock, which meant Paul was never alone and never unheard.

What it meant to them

The first hearer was one man being asked, plainly, not to be ashamed. Everything else in the chapter supports that single request.

The mention of his grandmother and mother reminded Timothy that the faith he was tempted to keep quiet had been handed to him by two women who had no public standing at all.

Sources cited

  • Tacitus, Annals
  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Timothy 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 7 · Written to them

Not a spirit of fear: power, love, sound mind

topics/fear→

MannaFest topical index

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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