2 Timothy4chapter 4

2 Timothy 4:1-2

The charge is sworn before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, the courtroom and the coming both in view. The charge itself is five imperatives with one object: preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort. The tempering clause carries the pastoral weight, with all longsuffering and doctrine, patience and teaching yoked so that urgency never becomes mere scolding.

2 Timothy 4:3-5

The reason for the urgency is a forecast: the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, the healthy teaching of the Pastorals refused like a diet, and hearers with itching ears will heap to themselves teachers to scratch them, the market driving the pulpit. Ears turned from the truth are turned unto fables, muthoi; the appetite does not go away, it changes supplier. Against the drift stand four commands to one man, watch, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

2 Timothy 4:6-8

the time of my departure: I am now ready to be offered is spendomai, the drink offering of Philippians 2:17 now actually being poured, and departure is analusis, a ship loosed from its moorings, a tent struck. The audit is three perfects, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, the arena, the racecourse, and the deposit all discharged. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness from the righteous judge at that day, and the letter widens it deliberately, not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing, the crown attached to loving the blessed hope.

2 Timothy 4:9-12

The requests turn personal: come shortly, for the circle has thinned. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, the man who greeted the Colossians now departed to Thessalonica, and the two loves of the chapter face each other, his appearing against this present world. Only Luke is with me; and Mark, once the cause of the split with Barnabas at Acts 15:38-39, is now to be brought, for he is profitable to me for the ministry, one of Scripture's quiet restorations.

2 Timothy 4:13-15

The list is a prisoner's: the cloke left at Troas with Carpus against the coming cold, and the books, but especially the parchments, membranai, the costlier skins most readers since antiquity have taken for copies of Scripture. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, and the Lord reward him according to his works is the psalmist's committal of justice to God, the best manuscripts reading it as a future, he will reward, not a wish. The warning is practical, be thou ware also, for opposition to the words is his settled trade.

2 Timothy 4:16-18

At the first answer, the prima actio before Nero's court, no man stood with me, and the abandoned prisoner prays their failure be not charged, the Lord's own words from the cross echoed by his apostle. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and the deliverance out of the mouth of the lion is read of Nero, of Satan the roaring lion, or of the literal arena a citizen would escape, each with its holders. The last deliverance he expects is not acquittal but arrival, the Lord will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, and the doxology rises from a death cell, to whom be glory for ever and ever.

2 Timothy 4:19-22

The last greetings are history: Prisca and Aquila, the tentmaking couple of Corinth and Ephesus, still serving; the household of Onesiphorus, greeted as a household as in 1:16; Erastus at Corinth, Trophimus left at Miletum sick, an apostle's companion sick and left so, the text recording it without embarrassment. Do thy diligence to come before winter, when the seas closed and the dungeon chilled, the cloke of verse 13 waiting on the sailing season. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia send greetings, Linus by early tradition the Roman church's next overseer, and the last written words of Paul are a benediction, the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit, grace be with you.