2 Timothy 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: Active in serviceThe second chapter of 2 Timothy is delightful. In these verses there are seven figures of speech that are used to describe the duty and the activity of a believer, which need to be impressed upon us more and more as we approach the end time.
2 Timothy 2:1
A SONPaul begins with the first figure of speech, “Thou therefore, my son.” Timothy was not the son of Paul in a physical way. He was his spiritual son in the sense that it was under Paul’s ministry that this young man had turned to Christ. A child of God is born into God’s family by means of his faith in Christ. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1Pe_1:23). Timothy is in the family of God, and he is a child of God. Because of this very reason, Paul says these words to Timothy: “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” I love this"be strong in grace." My friend, if you think that you can grit your teeth and go out and live the Christian life on your own, you’re in for a great disappointment. If you feel that you can follow a few little rules or some clever gimmicks to make you a mature Christian, then you have fallen into a subtle trap of legalism. Paul gives no rules, and the Word of God has no rules to tell the child of God how to live the Christian life. We are saved by grace, and now we are to live by the grace of God and be strong in that grace. Let me give you an example from my boyhood. My dad traveled a great deal in his work, and he always put down a few rules for me to follow while he was away. Some of them I obeyed. I had to cut the wood, and I didn’t mind that. One time we had a place with a lot of trees on it, and I really enjoyed the exercise of cutting the trees into firewood. But my father had some other rules that I frankly didn’t go for.
I hate to admit this, but one of those rules was that I should attend Sunday school. The interesting thing is that he never went himself, but he always made me go. Anyway, when he was away from home, I didn’t go. One time I was fishing, and he came home suddenly and found me. I had just pulled out a fish, turned around, and there stood my dad. He said, “Son, are you having any luck?” Well, my luck ran out right at that moment!
I appealed to him and admitted that I had done wrong, and by grace he was good to me. He said, “I brought home a sack of candy for you and your sister to divide. I wasn’t going to let you have it, but I think I will now.” I really took advantage of his good nature and the fact that I was his son. My father died when I was fourteen, but now I have a heavenly Father, and I sure do appeal to His grace. When things go wrong down here, I go to Him and appeal to Him. When I fail, I don’t run from Him like I used to. I have found that when I am away from Him, the whipping He gives me hurts lots worse. I don’t want to get out at the end of that switch where it really stings. I come in close to Him, and the closer I am the less it hurts. I am a son of my heavenly Father. What a marvelous figure of speech! When I hear Christians say, “I don’t do this, and I don’t do that, and I am following a set of rules,” I immediately recognize that they know very little about the grace of God. They are trying to live the Christian life in their own strength. Paul says, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
2 Timothy 2:2
Paul was greatly concerned about the future. He wondered, just as we do when we approach the end of our ministry, if other men will come along who will preach and teach the Word of God. Sometimes we develop an Elijah complex. At times when I was a pastor in Los Angeles, I cried like Elijah, “Oh, Lord, I’m the only one left!” But I found out that was not true. All over the country I’ve seen the Lord raise up fine young preachers who are standing for the things of God. It is a real concern to us older men that there be young men who will be faithful in teaching God’s Word. So Paul was admonishing Timothy to pass along the things he had been teaching him to “faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” And God will raise up men with gifts of teachingthis is the way He moves even today. As sons of God we ought to be concerned about our Father’s business. The Lord Jesus in His humanity as a boy said, “I must be about my Father’s business.” Well, I have become a son of Godnot like the Lord Jesus, but I’ve become a son of God through faith in Christ. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power [the authority] to become the sons of God, even to them that [do no more nor less than] believe on his name” (Joh_1:12). Now that I am a son of God I am interested in my Father’s business. By the way, are you interested in your Father’s business? And the main business is getting out the Word of God. But we need to recognize that we need the grace of God to do the business of Godas well as in every facet of our lives as His children. Perhaps you are thinking that you are disappointed with yourself. If you are, that means you must have believed in yourself. You should not have. You are to walk by the grace of God"We walk by faith and not by sight." Or perhaps you are discouraged. If you are, that means you do not believe God’s Word and way of blessing. You really thought you could do it your way, and now you are discouraged. Or you may be saying, “I hope I can do better in the future.” Then you do expect to get some good out of the old nature! Oh, my friend, be strong in the grace of God.
2 Timothy 2:3
A GOOD SOLDIERThe Christian is a soldier. How is the child of God a soldier? The last chapter of Ephesians tells us that the believer is fighting a spiritual battle and that he needs to put on the armor of God. Paul said to the Ephesians: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Eph_6:12-13). “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.” Imagine a soldier in the midst of battle going to his sergeant or his lieutenant and saying, “Sir, I’m sorry to have to leave, but I have to go over into the city to see about some business; and then I have a date with a local girl, and I just won’t be able to be here for the battle tonight!” A great many Christians are trying to fight like that today! “That he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” The believer is to establish his priorities. Here he is to endure hardness, which means to suffer hardness, as Paul was suffering. There are those who interpret this verse to mean that a Christian is not to get married. Well, he is not talking about celibacy, but he is talking about being so entangled in worldliness that one is not able to live the Christian life. Let me give you an example. A lady called me one morning while I was a pastor in Los Angeles. She said, “I was at church yesterday when you asked for those who wanted to accept Christ. Well, I did accept Christ, but I made no move to come forward for a particular reason that I want to tell you about. My husband died recently and left me the operation of our liquor store. I am calling you now because I don’t think I can continue operating it.
If you say to get a hammer and break every bottle, I’ll do it. But tell me what I should do.” What would you have said? I’ll tell you what I told her, “Don’t go in there and break bottles. You won’t stop the liquor business by breaking up a few bottles. If you could, I’d be in favor it. But that has been your only income.
I would say that you should sell the store and get out of the business.” In that way we are not to entangle ourselves in the things of this life. The child of God is to recognize that he is a soldier. And we are to recognize that the Christian life is not a playground; it is a battlefield. It is a battlefield where battles are being won, and where battles are being lost also. There is a real spiritual battle going on.
2 Timothy 2:5
AN ATHLETEHere Paul is comparing the Christian to an athlete. “Strive” refers to contending in the game. He wants to win, and he is doing everything he can to be the winner. Someone has said in a very succinct manner, “The only exercise some Christians get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, sidestepping responsibility, and pushing their luck.” That is not the kind of exercise Paul is talking about. He spoke of the Christian life as being a racecourse, and he said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Php_3:14). Paul also said that he wanted to keep his body under control (see 1Co_9:24-27). Paul’s goal was to run the Christian race in such a way that the One who is at the end of the racethe Lord Jesuswould be able to reward him and be able to say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Mat_25:21).
A child of God is to “strive”; God intends that he win the race. Every child of God needs to recognize this. He is to “strive lawfully.” That is, he has to play by the rules. There is no shortcut toward living the Christian life. Forget the gimmickry today that condenses Christianity into a little course or a few rules and regulations. God gave us sixty-six books, and each one of them is very important. It takes the composite picture to give us the mind and the Word of God. We are to study the whole Bible. An athlete can’t cut the corner of a racetrack. Neither can a baseball player run by second base without touching it; he has to touch all the bases to score. A child of God has to do that, too. If you’re going to win, you can’t take any shortcuts.
2 Timothy 2:6
A FARMERThe fourth description of a believer is a husbandman or farmer, the one who tills the field and sows the seed of the Word of God. We hear a great deal today about “laying sheaves at the feet of Jesus.” I certainly hope that we will be able to put a few there, but also there has to be the sowing and laboring in the field. After the farmer has done that, there will be a harvest. This is the reason I don’t cooperate with the great movements abroad that are going to convert the world by evangelism. My feeling is that the Word of God has to be sown, and I take the position that the total Word has to be sown before there can be a harvest.
2 Timothy 2:7
“Remember that Jesus Christ"the word that is not in the original but was supplied by the translators. Paul just stops to say, “Remember Jesus Christ.” Isn’t that lovely! That means He’s going to sit on David’s throne down here. Also, He was raised from the dead, “according to my gospel.” It is Paul’s gospel because he’s the one who preached this gospel.
2 Timothy 2:9
“Wherein I suffer trouble.” You may get in a little trouble if you stand for the Word of God. Paul got into trouble “as an evil doer, even unto bonds.” He was in prison for teaching the Word of God. “But the word of God is not bound.” Although Paul was in chains, he discovered that the Word of God was still going out in the Roman world. Even with a mad caesar on the throne, a dictator of dictators, who had imprisoned Paul to silence him, the Word of God was not bound. Thank God, it still is going out to the world in our day.
2 Timothy 2:11
“It is a faithful saying” or better: “Faithful is the saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.” “If we be dead with him” should be “if we have died with him.” When did we die with Him? When He died over nineteen hundred years ago. When we come to Christ and receive Him as our Savior, His death becomes our death. We are identified with Him and are raised with Him in newness of life. This means that this very day He wants to live His life out through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2 Timothy 2:12
“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” I personally believe that not all believers are going to reign with Him. I believe that this verse narrows it down to those who have suffered for Him. I’d be embarrassed if I were put on the same par with the apostle Paul in heaven, because I haven’t suffered as he did. I would be apologizing to him constantly for being placed beside him. I believe this verse is referring to a definite group of Christians who have really suffered for Christ. In the Roman world of Paul’s day there were many Christians who were martyredfive million of them, according to Foxbecause they refused to deny Christ. “If we deny him, he also will deny us.” This is very strong language. It reveals, however, that Paul believes that faith without works is dead (see Jas_2:17). You see, Paul and James never contradict each other. James is talking about the works of faith, and Paul is saying that genuine faith will produce works. Calvin put it like this: “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”
2 Timothy 2:13
God “cannot deny himself.” He cannot accept as true one who is false. That’s the reason He gave such a scathing denunciation of the religious rulers of His day. He called them hypocrites because they were pretending to be something they were not. If Christ accepted someone who was not genuine, He actually would be denying Himself because He is true. Therefore, we should be genuine, my friend.
2 Timothy 2:14
“Strive not about words” means disputes of words. God’s people need to stick to essentials. We don’t need to argue about empty words or philosophies or our little differences. The pastor of an Assembly of God church wrote to me saying that he appreciated our ministry and that he recommends our notes and outlines to his church, although we don’t agree on everything. And we don’tI can’t see his point of view on some matters and he can’t see mine. Perhaps when we get to heaven, we will find it true that there are three sides to every question: your side, my side, and the right side.
Maybe the Lord will have to straighten out both of us. But the important thing is that he and I ought not to argue since we agree on the essentials. And that is the away we both want it. I think we waste a lot of time in a negative approach and trying to correct other believers. Instead of doing that, let’s try to stay on the positive side and enjoy each other’s fellowship in the gospel.
2 Timothy 2:15
A WORKMAN, A TEACHER"Study to shew thyself approved unto God.” You are to study, eager to do your utmost, to present yourself approved unto God. The workman here is evidently a teacher, which means he is to be a diligent student of the Word of God. “Rightly dividing the word of truth” means to handle rightly the Word of God. To rightly divide the Word the Christian is to be a skilled workman like an artisan. The student of the Word must understand that the Word of God is one great bundle of truth and that it has certain right divisions. The Bible is built according to a certain law and structure which must be observed and obeyed as you go through the Word of God. You can’t just lift out a verse here and a verse there and choose to ignore a passage here and a passage there. It is so easy to do this, but the Bible is not that kind of Book. This is the reason I maintain that the Bible is to be taught in its entirety. Here is a quotation that reveals the ignorance of a man who failed to recognize that the Word of God is one great unity that needs to be rightly divided to be understood. I’m quoting from an article: “In short, one way to describe the Bible, written by many different hands over a period of three thousand years and more, would be to say that it is a disorderly collection of sixty-odd books which are often tedious, barbaric, obscure, and teeming with contraditions and inconsistencies. It is a swarming compost of a book, an Irish stew of poetry and propaganda, law and legalism, myth and murk, history and hysteria.” That man really spoke a mouthful. His verbiage is quite verbose and reveals a woeful ignorance of the Bible. And he reveals the result of not rightly dividing the Word of God. Now what is meant by rightly dividing the Word of truth? Well, there are certain dispensations in the Word of God, different methods whereby God dealt with man. The basis of salvation always remains the same. Man is saved only by believing in the atoning death of Christ. But man expresses his faith in God in different ways. For example, Abel and Abraham brought little lambs to sacrifice to the Lord.
But I hope you don’t take a lamb to church next Sunday morning, because you would be entirely out of order. It’s all right for Mary to have a little lamb that follows her to school, but your little lamb should not follow you to church. The reason is that the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world has already come. That Lamb is Jesus (see Joh_1:29). You see, Abel and Abraham looked forward to the Lamb of God, and we look back to His death. That is an illustration of rightly dividing the Word of truth.
I wish that the man who wrote the article I quoted knew a little bit about the Bible. In his article he says that the Bible is the Book nobody reads, and obviously he belongs in that class. Before any person can speak authoritatively on any subject he has to know the subject. I would certainly recommend that this man study the Bible before he attempts to write about it! A child of God needs to study the Word of God. When I began my study for the ministry, I attended a denominational school, and I confess that the Bible was utter confusion to me. At that point I would have agreed with the author of this article. Then there was placed in my hands a Scofield Reference Bible, and I sat under the teaching of a wonderful pastor who led me to listen to men like Dr. Harry Ironside, Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, and Dr.
Arthur I. Brown. Those men blessed my soul, and the Bible became a new Book to me. It started making sense because it was being rightly divided, according to dispensations which exhibit the progressive order of God’s dealings with humanity. For instance, to recognize the distinction between law and grace is basic to the understanding of the Scriptures. And Paul is telling Timothy to study, to be diligent in his study of the Word so that he may be a teacher who rightly divides the Word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:16
Avoid empty chatter that has no value whatsoever.
2 Timothy 2:17
I don’t know much about these two men Paul mentions here, but they apparently were apostates.
2 Timothy 2:18
In that day, there were some who were teaching that the resurrection had already taken place, which meant that those still living had missed it!
2 Timothy 2:19
“Having this seal.” The seal was a mark of authentication and ownership. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” Back in Deu_6:8-9, God told His people to take His commandments, “And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” The Israelite was to use his house as a billboard for the Word of God. That identified him as a worshiper of God. Now how about the believer today? How does he advertise the fact that he is a child of God? “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” That is how the people are going to know who belongs to God. This is what separation is: separation from evil and separation unto Christ. If you name the name of Christ, be sure you’re not living in sin. Unfortunately, there are some who assert fundamental doctrines and faith, and then it turns out that they have had an affair with a woman or have been proven dishonest. The Lord knows those who are His because He can discern the heart, but all that the world can look at is the outward life.
My friend, the world certainly makes sin look attractive by clever advertisements on billboards. How do we as believers compare? Are our lives an attractive advertisement for Christ?
2 Timothy 2:20
A VESSELIn these verses a believer is pictured as a vessel. If a vessel is to be usable, it must be clean. For example, imagine you are walking across a desert, and you come to an oasis. You are parched and almost dying of thirst. You find two cups there. One is made of gold and highly ornamented, but it’s dirty.
The other is an old crock cup. It will just barely hold water because it is cracked, but it is clean. Which one would you use? Now give God credit for having as much intelligence as you have. He too uses clean vessels; He does not use dirty vessels. Remember in the second chapter of John’s gospel we read of the Lord Jesus making wine at a wedding.
He had the servants drag out the old beat-up crocks (which the Jews used for purification) and had them filled with water. He took those old unattractive crocks and used them for His glory. And today God is looking for clean vessels to usenot beautiful, but clean.
2 Timothy 2:22
Oh, how many times He has placed together “faith, love, and peace,” and they do sum up the Christian life. These things should not be just mouthed from the pulpit but should be lived out through the lives of those in the pew.
2 Timothy 2:23
Some folk are continually wanting to argue with me about nonessentials. I don’t have time for that. We are living in a world that is on fire! Let’s get the Word of God to it before it is too late.
2 Timothy 2:24
A SERVANTFinally, a believer is like a servant, and he is to be gentle to all men. It may seem like we have a contradiction here. The soldier was to fight, but the servant is not to fight. Is this a contradiction? No, it is a paradox. When you are standing for the truth, you are to be definite and let people know where you stand. Don’t be a coward! Someone has put it this way, “It is said that silence is golden, but sometimes it is just yellow!” My friend, stand for the truth. However “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” If you are trying to win a person to Christ, don’t argue with him. If he disagrees with you, let him disagree with you. Just keep on giving him the Word of God.