Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Timothy · About this commentary
Flee, Pursue, Refuse
2 Timothy 2:22-23
22 Flee from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. · WEB
Three imperatives, and the middle one is not done alone.
Flee from youthful lusts. The verb is not resist but run, and Scripture uses it the same way of a young man in a house where argument would have been the losing move Genesis 39:12. Some things are not to be engaged.
But pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Flight without pursuit leaves a vacuum, and the four objects are the same kind of list the letter gave for the gift in 2 Timothy 1:7 — nothing merely defensive.
Then the clause that keeps the verse from being a solitary discipline: with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. The pursuit is company work. A young minister told to flee, and then to run after virtues, is finally told whom to run alongside — which is the letter's practical answer to the isolation of chapter 1.
Verse 23 adds the third imperative, and it returns to the argument theme. Refuse foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing that they generate strife. The reason is causal rather than aesthetic: such questions are refused not because they are beneath notice but because of what they reliably produce.
settled What this mark means