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2 Timothy

2 Timothychapter 2

26 verses · BSB2 Timothy book hub →

Speaks with:2 Timothy 1×3James 1×3Titus 3×41 Timothy 6×22 Timothy 4×21 Corinthians 9×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Commit the things thou hast heard to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. In a great house there are not only vessels of gold. If a man therefore purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honour. Calvin reads the chapter as the workman's catalogue of metaphors.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 2 Timothy overview

  • A. 1–13 Soldier, Athlete, Farmer: Endure
  • B. 14–19 Handle the Word Straight; God's Foundation Stands
  • C. 20–26 A Vessel Fit for the Master's Use

The outline

  1. A.Soldier, Athlete, Farmer: Endurevv. 1 to 13

    Read vv. 1 to 13 →

  2. B.Handle the Word Straight; God's Foundation Standsvv. 14 to 19

    Read vv. 14 to 19 →

  3. C.A Vessel Fit for the Master's Usevv. 20 to 26

    Read vv. 20 to 26 →

Threads

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

The faithful sayings of the Pastorals

Pattern

Five times the Pastoral letters mark a church maxim with the formula this is a faithful saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, the desire of the bishop's office, godliness profitable unto all things, if we be dead with him, and the charge to maintain good works.

The formula shows the young churches already carried fixed, quotable teaching while the apostles still wrote. Paul stamps each saying reliable, and the five together run from salvation to office to godliness to endurance to good works.

  1. 1 Timothy 1:15

    Christ Jesus came to save sinners

    The first saying carries the gospel itself, and Paul signs it: of whom I am chief.

  2. 1 Timothy 3:1

    He desireth a good work

    The KJV reads this is a true saying here; the Greek carries the same formula as the other four.

  3. 1 Timothy 4:8-9

    Godliness profitable unto all things

    The saying holds promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

  4. 2 Timothy 2:11 you are here

    If we be dead with him

    The saying runs on: we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

  5. Titus 3:8

    Careful to maintain good works

    The last saying is to be affirmed constantly: these things are good and profitable unto men.

The world behind this chapter

2 Timothy 2
When
Nero's persecution · c. AD 66–67
Where
A Roman prison, writing about how to endure and how to handle quarrelsome teachers
Who first heard it
A young leader tempted to argue with the wrangling men in his congregation

The history

Three working pictures carry this chapter, and every hearer knew all three. A Roman soldier on service was legally barred from ordinary business and trade; his whole life belonged to the man who enlisted him.

An athlete at the Greek games swore an oath that he had trained for ten months under the rules, and a competitor who cheated was flogged and disqualified in public. The crown was a wreath of leaves, worth nothing and worth everything.

A farmer worked land he often did not own, and the custom was that the man who did the labor took the first share of the crop. All three pictures say the same thing: reward follows the rules and the sweat, not the wish.

The great-house picture at the end is domestic. A wealthy household kept gold and silver vessels for guests and honored occasions, and rough clay and wooden ones for slops and daily chores. The vessels were sorted by what they had been used for.

What it meant to them

Timothy was in a church full of arguing men, and this chapter tells him to stop feeding it — no word battles, no foolish speculations, because they only spread. That was hard advice for a man whose critics were loud.

The named error, that the resurrection had already happened, tells us what the arguments were doing to people. Two men had been persuaded that the body no longer mattered, and their teaching was eating outward like gangrene.

Sources cited

  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
  • Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Timothy 2. 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. 22 · Written to them

Flee also youthful lusts

topics/temptation→

MannaFest topical index

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

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