2nd Timothy Chapter 1 Study
2 Timothy 1:1: Paul was sent to proclaim the true grace of God in Jesus Christ along with its terms and conditions.
1:2-3: Paul served God in line with how He has made Himself known in the Jewish Scriptures. The Jewish Scriptures promised and foreshadowed the Messiah’s first coming to purchase redemption, along with His second coming wherein He will deliver His faithful subjects to eternal life in His presence and destroy those at enmity with His kingdom in the lake of fire which is the second death.
1:4-5: Unfeigned= genuine or authentic.
The Apostolic mindset is clearly that a person’s claim to having an authentic faith in Jesus Christ does not make that so.
1:6: There was obviously some added ability given to Timothy when he was ordained by Paul to oversee the Church at Ephesus. Timothy had already proven himself faithful in many things by that point. God can and does enable the faithful to handle harder and previously unknown responsibilities as they come, but the unfaithful are not qualified for spiritual gifts nor spiritual empowerment from God. Often, especially in Charismatic and Pentecostal circles, the leaders will go around laying hands on anyone to supposedly give them spiritual gifts and empowerment who cooperates with their show. They thus prove that the Holy Spirit of the true God is not the spirit that they are ministering.
Consider the need to add fuel to a fire in considering what it means to stir up the gift of God. Yet there is also such a thing as strange fire which man produces to counterfeit the fire of the Holy Spirit. Such a fire rivals the Holy Spirit and should indeed be extinguished. See our message on the curse of emotionalism for help in diagnosing such strange fire.
1:7: The Holy Spirit is actually called the Spirit of the fear of the Lord in Isaiah 11:2 (in the middle of a passage which corresponds closely to this verse). Paul is speaking here about how the Holy Spirit delivers those who commit their way to the Lord from the fear of man and the fear of potential negative consequences of doing what is right in God’s eyes.
1:8: And as passages like Acts 14:22 and John 16:33 make clear, tribulation in the world inevitably comes to those who are faithful to Christ. Many think they’ve experienced tribulation of this nature who don’t know it like they ought to know it. Yet many might indeed know it very well if they only stood against the unbiblical concepts and the tolerated sin in the church which they are currently a part of.
1:9: “Saved us” is referring to either Paul and Timothy or to all with authentic faith in Jesus Christ like they had. They were thereby in God’s grace and no longer slaves to sin’s guilt and power. Their ultimate salvation was not complete and not guaranteed though. No one’s is in this life. Remember how Paul had exhorted Timothy in the previous epistle to lay hold of eternal life; and how he instructed him in how to prepare the Christians he oversaw to lay hold of eternal life.
God planned that Christ would come to this fallen world in the flesh and die as a sin offering before the world began. No person earns the grace He offers in any way by their works. Receiving that grace and walking in it nevertheless has conditions which are unpalatable to the flesh of all people. Those conditions call for works fit for repentance and submission to God’s holy commandments and ways which are expressed in His Word (as we deal with in every study since there is no book of the Bible which fails to talk about this nor is there any true Bible concept which isn’t related to this). This all leaves each of us with nothing to boast of before God; and leaves us with nothing in our lives which we can righteously keep back from the cross of Christ without forfeiting the eternal life He offers us.
1:10-11: A fitting cross reference here is 1 Timothy 2:4-7 which was covered in our last study on 1 Timothy.
1:12: God’s purpose and grace in Christ Jesus which has been offered to man, and now fully revealed, is what Paul is referring to here. Receiving that grace and walking therein will result in suffering as a result of doing so. Continuing therein necessarily means enduring suffering in righteousness and not turning from the Lord therein.
Yet God has proven Himself faithful. The last day, when all is brought to light, all are brought to account, and eternal consequences are measured out will prove that suffering in faithfulness to God’s Word was not in vain and well worth it for those who did so and endured to the end of their Christian race.
1:13: “Sound” here is a reference to hygiene. The Greek is “hygiaino” (hoog-ee-ah-ee-no) where we get our word for hygiene (as wholesome as translated in 1 Timothy 6:3). This is talking about retaining sound doctrine and not failing to live in accordance with sound doctrine. Later in the epistle, in 2 Timothy 3:5, where Paul warns Timothy about the perilous times that will come, and how they will be perilous because there will many who have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof, in that passage Paul is using a different word in the Greek than the word which is translated as “form” here. In 2 Timothy 3:5 Paul is speaking of those with an external practice of religion that is called Christianity who are yet heathens at heart– and prove to be so by their character and deeds when their lives are overall examined Biblically.
1:14: Going back to verse six, the fire of the Holy Spirit will be extinguished in an individual eventually if it is not stirred up.
1:15: Some turn away from the Lord. This is not only a grief for those who stay faithful, but it can also leave them hanging in difficult and/or complicated circumstances when the companionship and assistance of those who turned away would have especially helped. The negative effects of their turning back from the Lord can also increase the difficulty and/or complication of the circumstances of the faithful.
1:16-18: The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day! Consider the mindset of a true Apostle of Christ regarding obtaining mercy on Judgment Day. We really need to identify with the Lord in taking His side in everything where His authority is an issue, and we really can’t neglect supporting any cause or person that He would consider His own. What does this prayer for Onesiphorus to obtain mercy on Judgment Day say about the danger and the doom of those who don’t lay down their lives for the sake of walking in the truth of God’s Word, and for the sake of Christ’s people, like Onesiphorus did? Reference the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 here.
And in regard to the everlasting punishment that the wicked will go into (even many who call Jesus Lord), which Jesus spoke of in Matthew 25:46, we have a cross reference to that, and a foreshadowing of that, when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis. This is also a cross reference of 2 Timothy 1:18 in relation to the glimpse of the distinct persons within the Trinity which each passage gives in very similar words.
Genesis 19:24-25: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.”
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