As Long as I Am in This Tent
12 Therefore I will not be negligent to remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the present truth. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, 14 knowing that the putting off of my tent comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15 Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure.
A dying man explains why he keeps repeating what his readers already know.
I will not be negligent to remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the present truth. The reason for the letter is not new information. It is repetition, offered to people who are already right — which is a defensible use of a limited life.
Verse 13 gives the metaphor that governs the paragraph: as long as I am in this tent. A body is temporary housing, and Paul uses the same picture of a tent taken down 2 Corinthians 5:1. Verse 14 adds the urgency: the putting off of my tent comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. That points to a specific conversation, when the risen Christ told Peter by what death he would glorify God John 21:18–19.
So the letter is a man's arrangement of his affairs. Verse 15 states the aim plainly — that after my departure you may always be able to remember these things. The word for departure is exodus, the same word used of what Moses and Elijah discussed with Christ on the mountain Luke 9:31, which is the very scene the next block will describe.
settled What this mark means