2 Timothy

Paul writes as "an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus," to "Timothy, my dearly beloved son" (2 Timothy 1:1-2), and the greeting is immediately personal in a way none of his other letters quite match. He recalls "the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also" (1:5). Three generations of a household's faith, named, before a single doctrine is taught; whatever Timothy carries forward, he did not invent it. From that memory Paul moves straight to exhortation: "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear (deilias, δειλίας); but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (1:6-7). Timothy was, by the letters' own witness, a naturally timid man; Paul does not deny it, he addresses it, and roots the courage he calls for not in Timothy's temperament but in what has already been given.

Chapter 2 hands Timothy a set of working pictures for ministry under pressure. "Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus... Thou therefore endure hardness (kakopatheson, κακοπάθησον), as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" (2 Timothy 2:1,3-4). The soldier is joined by the athlete, who "is not crowned, except he strive lawfully," and the farmer, who "must be first partaker of the fruits" (2:5-6): three trades, one lesson, that faithful labor precedes and earns the reward, and none of it happens by accident. Paul grounds the whole charge in the gospel itself, "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound" (2:8-9), and then in what may be a fragment of an early hymn or creed: "It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him... if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself" (2:11-13). Even Timothy's failure could not undo what God is; the ground under the charge holds regardless.

Chapter 4 opens as a solemn commission, sworn "before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom": "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears... Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry" (2 Timothy 4:1-5). Paul does not hedge the charge with an expiration date; he hands it off because his own time for it is closing.

Paul, the Figure, writing his last letter from a Roman cell.