01/16/2021 – Day 245 – 2 Timothy 1-2 // Paul’s Final Word – His Dying Shout of Triumph
Today would have been my Dad’s 100th birthday. He was a navy veteran in WW2 in the South Pacific. It’s funny, I was at work today, and as I passed the tv screen at the coffee bar, I saw a news flash of a living navy vet celebrating his 100th yesterday.
It has been awhile but I am going to quote and paraphrase from my old Halley’s Bible Handbook’s summary of 2 Timothy:
“The book of Acts closes with Paul in prison in Rome about the year A.D. 63. The common belief is that he was acquitted , returned to Greece and Asia Minor, was later re-arrested, taken back to Rome and executed about A.D. 66 or 67. This Epistle was written while he was awaiting martyrdom. “
My insert: The question is: Can we tell? He sounds joyful and upbeat to me!
Background of the Epistle:
“The Neronian Persecution. The Great Fire in Rome occurred in A.D. 64. Nero himself burned the city. Though an inhuman brute, he was a great builder. It was in order to build a new and grander Rome that he set fire to the city, and fiddled in glee at the sight of it. The people suspected him ; and historians have commonly regarded it as a fact that he was the perpetrator of the crime. In order to divert suspicion from himself he accused the Christians of burning Rome.
The Bible makes no mention of Nero’s persecution of Christians, though it happened in Bible times, and is the direct background of at least two N T books, 1 Peter and 11 Timothy, and was the persecution that brought Paul to his martyrdom, and according to some traditions, Peter also.
my note: With respect to 1 Peter, the “Suffering for God’s Glory” Chapter 4: 12- 19 is prominately emphasized for good reason.
“One sourse of information is the Roman historican Tacitus. He knew that the Christians did not burn Rome. But someboy had to be the scapegoat for the Emperor’s crime. Here was a new and despised sect of people, mostly from the humbler walks of life, without prestige or influence, many of them slaves. Nero accused them of burning Rome and ordered their punishment.”
My note: Did anyone see the fairly recent movie: “The Apostle Paul”. In it early on in the film, we see depictions of the horrible martyrdom Christians suffered at the hand of the Romans including one scene where it shows them being used as human torches to light the hallways.
“Chapter 1. “I Know Him”
“His prayers for Timothy (3 -5). Paul opens almost every Epistle thus: prayers and thanks: Romans 1: 9-10; 1 Corinthians 1: 4-8; II Corinthians 1: 3-4; Ephesians 1:3; Philippains 1:3, 9-11; Colossians 1: 3-10; 1 Thessalononians 1: 2-3; II Thessalonians 1:3; “Thy tears (4): probably at their separation at Troas, and possibly it was here that the Roman soldiers seized Paul and hustled him off to Rome on the humiliating charge of setting fire to the city.
Pauls assurance (6-14). He had seen Christ. He had suffered for Him. Christ, though unseen, was the one unquestioned reality of Paul’s life , his intimate actual companion, and he “knew him” (12), as one knows his best friend. “Preacher, apostle, teacher” (11): “preacher, ” procaimer of the Gospel to those who never heard it, foreign missionaries,; “apostle,” with direct personal authority from Christ; “teacher,” instructor of settled Christian communities, our pastors.
The disaffection at Ephesus (15-18). This was one of the saddest things in Paul’s life. In Ephesus, where he had done his greatest work, and almost turned the whole city to Christ, the false teachers had so gotten the upper hand that they were able to make the capital of Paul’s arrest to turn the church against him , at the time of all times when he needed their love and sympathy.”
Before we move to chapter two, look at this quote linking to verse 2 Timothy 1:10: “but has now been revealed by the appearing of the Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
“Surely God would not not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day. No, no, man was made for immortality.” Abraham Lincoln
Chapter Two
Halley comments that Paul’s mind is on eternal glory , verse 10. And he adds that the saying noted , verses 11 through 13 may have come from an early hymn:
“This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him, If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny himself.”
Soli Deo Gloria!