Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Timothy · About this commentary
Commit It to Faithful Men
2 Timothy 2:1-2
1 You therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. · WEB
A dying apostle solves the problem of continuity in one sentence spanning four generations.
You therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The verb is passive: Timothy is not told to be strong but to be strengthened, and the location of the strength is named rather than assumed.
Then verse 2, which is the practical answer to everything the first chapter lamented. The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit the same things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
Four links are visible in that sentence: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others also. The apostle is about to die, the province has turned away, and the mechanism he leaves behind is not an institution or a document but a chain of people each handing on what they received.
Two qualifications govern the choice, and they are given in order. Faithful comes first — reliability under pressure, the quality Onesiphorus had and Asia did not. Able to teach comes second. A man who can explain but cannot be trusted breaks the chain at his own link, and the letter has just named two who did.
settled What this mark means