Paul's Second Letter To Timothy Analysis

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY

CONTENTS

Paul’s second letter to Timothy was probably the last one he wrote. He had been rearrested and was in prison (4:6), knowing that the end was at hand. It is a letter filled with courage and strength, showing us what kind of person Paul was – or, better, what kind of person God can help us to be if we trust in Him. The letter consists basically of four charges directed to Timothy from the aged Paul.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

At the time of writing, Paul was in prison and on trial for his life (1:8,15,17; see 4:6-8). Only Luke was with him (4:10), for everyone else had left for various reasons (4:10). Paul had already had his first defense from which he was delivered from a sentence of death (4:16,17). However,

Paul wants Timothy to come to Rome as soon as possible (4:9, 21) for the apostle is now convinced that he will never be free again. He longs to see his young son in the faith once more before he dies. Yet with a full and rich life of service to the Lord behind him, Paul can look confidently in the face of death, whether Timothy arrives in time or not. This request, a dying request, and the letter in which it was contained must have had a devastating effect on Timothy. In the midst of Paul’s strength and encouragement comes the pathetic appeal for his cloak, left at Troas (perhaps at his arrest), the books, and especially the parchments (4:13). The only worldly possessions the great apostle has left are these, the friendship of the faithful brethren, and the certain knowledge that he has fought a good fight

allusion to them occur possibly in the Corinthians letter of Clement of Rome as early as c. A.D 95, probably in the letters of Ignatius and Polycarp during the first decades of the second century, and certainly in the works of Ireneaus towards the end of the century. The Muratorian Canon, which dates from about AD 200, ascribes all the letters to the apostle Paul. The only exception to this testimony is the heretic Marcion who was excommunicated in AD 144 in Rome. But he had theological reasons for rejecting these (and other) New Testament letters, and Tertullian expressed surprise that he had omitted the Patorals from his canon. Eusebius in the fourth century included them among ‘the fourteen epistles of Paul’ which ‘are manifest and clear (as regards their genuineness)’, the fourteen being the Epistle to the Hebrews which (he added) some rejected as not