Introduction to 2 Timothy

Title and authorship

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God — the standard opening, written by a man in chains awaiting execution. The letter goes to Timothy, called my beloved child, whom Paul had found at Lystra and taken with him Acts 16:1–3.

What marks this letter is the density of unrepeatable detail. A cloak left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments 2 Timothy 4:13. Erastus staying at Corinth, Trophimus left sick at Miletus 2 Timothy 4:20. A coppersmith named Alexander who did much harm. Nine people greeted by name and six more named as having gone. None of it advances an argument, which is exactly why it reads as a letter rather than a treatise — a man settling small matters because there is no more time for large ones.

Date

This is a last letter and says so plainly: I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure has come 2 Timothy 4:6. The first image is of a drink offering emptied beside a sacrifice; the second, analysis, is the word for weighing anchor or striking camp.

The circumstances do not fit the imprisonment Acts ends with, where Paul lived two years at his own expense and received all who came Acts 28:30. Here he is chained as a criminal 2 Timothy 2:9, deserted at his first defense 2 Timothy 4:16, and asking for a cloak before winter. The natural reading is a second and harsher Roman imprisonment, after the release the letters to Titus and Timothy assume, which places this in the middle sixties of the first century. Scripture gives no year.

Backgrounds

Timothy was a third-generation believer — the faith lived first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice 2 Timothy 1:5 — and by temperament he needed encouraging rather than restraining. Paul reminds him to stir up the gift, tells him God gave no spirit of fear 2 Timothy 1:6–7, and urges him not to be ashamed of a prisoner.

Around Paul the circle had thinned. All who are in Asia  turned away from me 2 Timothy 1:15; Demas left, having loved this present world 2 Timothy 4:10 — the same Demas who had been a fellow worker when Paul wrote to Philemon Philemon 1:24; and at the first hearing no one stood with him. Only Luke is with me.

One name runs the other way. Mark, whose desertion had once split a missionary team Acts 15:37–39, is to be brought because he is useful for service 2 Timothy 4:11. The last letter records both a defection and a restoration, and does not pretend either is the whole story.

Theology and purpose

The letter is a handover, and its governing image is a deposit — parathēkē, something valuable left with a trustee. Paul is persuaded God can guard what he has committed to him 2 Timothy 1:12; Timothy is told to guard the good thing committed to him 2 Timothy 1:14; and the same content is to be handed on to faithful men who can teach others 2 Timothy 2:2. Four generations are named in that one verse — Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others — which is the letter's answer to a dying apostle's problem.

What is deposited is defined in the letter's most quoted passage. The holy Scriptures are able to make a person wise for salvation; every Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God is complete and equipped 2 Timothy 3:15–17. Theopneustos occurs nowhere else in Scripture. It pairs with the other great statement on the subject: Peter says how the writings came — holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit 2 Peter 1:21 — and Paul says what they are and what they are for.

The rest follows from those two things. Endure hardship; do not quarrel about words; preach whether or not the season is favorable 2 Timothy 4:2, because a time is coming when people will assemble teachers to suit their own appetites. And the closing image is an athlete's: the fight fought, the course finished, the faith kept, and a crown laid up — not for Paul only, but for all who have loved his appearing 2 Timothy 4:8.

Additional notes

Note — how 2 Timothy 3:16 is translated, and why it matters. The English translations divide here in two ways, and the second difference is doctrinal.

The first is whether the subject is every Scripture or all Scripture. Little turns on it: the previous verse has already named a defined body, the holy Scriptures Timothy knew from infancy, so every means every part of a known collection rather than any random religious writing.

The second is the placement of the verb, which Greek does not supply and a translator must. One reading gives every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, making inspiration something asserted of it. The other gives every God-breathed Scripture is also profitable, making inspiration a qualifier — which leaves open the possibility of Scripture that is not God-breathed.

The text favors the first, and the connective is why. The word and stands between God-breathed and profitable, joining them as two things said about the subject; on the qualifying reading that and has nothing to pair with and must be weakened to also. Verse 17 then states the purpose of the whole: that the servant of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped — a result claimed for the Scriptures as such, not for a subset within them.

Outline

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