2 Timothy 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul writes to Timothy, greeting him and thanking God for Timothy's sincere faith, which he traces back through Timothy's mother and grandmother. He urges Timothy to stir up the gift God gave him, not to be ashamed of the good news or of Paul's imprisonment, and to take his share of suffering for it. Paul says he suffers without shame because he trusts God to guard what he has entrusted to him, and he tells Timothy to hold to the teaching he heard and to guard what was placed in his care. He ends by noting that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted him, and by asking mercy for Onesiphorus, who searched him out in Rome.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus.
   • Paul's apostleship is by the will of God.
   • Paul's apostleship is according to the promise of life.
   • That life is in Christ Jesus.
2. 1:2
   • The letter is addressed to Timothy.
   • Paul calls Timothy his beloved child.
   • Paul wishes grace, mercy, and peace to Timothy.
   • The grace, mercy, and peace come from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. 1:3
   • Paul thanks God.
   • Paul serves God.
   • Paul serves God as his forefathers did.
   • Paul serves God with a pure conscience.
   • Paul remembers Timothy without ceasing in his prayers.
   • Paul remembers Timothy night and day.
4. 1:4
   • Paul longs to see Timothy.
   • Paul remembers Timothy's tears.
   • Paul wants to see Timothy so that he may be filled with joy.
5. 1:5
   • Paul is reminded of the sincere faith that is in Timothy.
   • That faith dwelt first in Timothy's grandmother Lois.
   • That faith dwelt in Timothy's mother Eunice.
   • Paul is persuaded that faith is in Timothy also.
6. 1:6
   • For this reason Paul reminds Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God.
   • The gift of God is in Timothy.
   • The gift of God came to be in Timothy through the laying on of Paul's hands.
7. 1:7
   • God has not given us a spirit of fear.
   • God has given us a spirit of power.
   • God has given us a spirit of love.
   • God has given us a spirit of self-control.
8. 1:8
   • Timothy is told not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.
   • Timothy is told not to be ashamed of Paul.
   • Paul is the Lord's prisoner.
   • Timothy is told to share in suffering for the gospel.
   • The suffering is to be borne according to the power of God.
9. 1:9
   • God saved us.
   • God called us with a holy calling.
   • God did not save and call us according to our works.
   • God saved and called us according to his own purpose and grace.
   • That grace was given to us in Christ Jesus.
   • That grace was given before times eternal, before the world began.
10. 1:10
    • That grace has now been made manifest through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.
    • Christ Jesus abolished death.
    • Christ Jesus brought life and immortality to light.
    • He brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
11. 1:11
    • Paul was appointed a preacher of the gospel.
    • Paul was appointed an apostle.
    • Paul was appointed a teacher.
    • Paul was appointed a teacher of the Gentiles.
12. 1:12
    • For this reason Paul suffers these things.
    • Paul is not ashamed.
    • Paul knows whom he has believed.
    • Paul is persuaded that he is able to guard Paul's deposit.
    • It is unclear whether the deposit is what Paul entrusted to him or what was entrusted to Paul.
    • He is able to guard it until that day.
13. 1:13
    • Timothy is told to hold the pattern of sound words.
    • Timothy heard those words from Paul.
    • Timothy is to hold them in faith and love.
    • That faith and love are in Christ Jesus.
14. 1:14
    • Timothy is told to guard the good deposit entrusted to him.
    • Timothy is to guard it by the Holy Spirit.
    • The Holy Spirit dwells in us.
15. 1:15
    • Timothy knows this.
    • All those in Asia have turned away from Paul.
    • Phygellus is among those who turned away.
    • Hermogenes is among those who turned away.
16. 1:16
    • Paul asks the Lord to give mercy to the household of Onesiphorus.
    • Onesiphorus often refreshed Paul.
    • Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul's chain.
17. 1:17
    • When Onesiphorus was in Rome he sought Paul out diligently.
    • Onesiphorus found Paul.
18. 1:18
    • Paul asks the Lord to grant that Onesiphorus find mercy from the Lord in that day.
    • Onesiphorus ministered to Paul in many things at Ephesus.
    • Timothy knows very well how much Onesiphorus ministered at Ephesus.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

"Apostle" is the Greek word apostolos, meaning one who is sent out: an authorized delegate who carries another person's commission and speaks in his name. In the New Testament it usually names a small, specific group sent by Jesus himself, which is why Paul insists his standing came from God's decision and not from any human appointment.

1:2

Timothy was not Paul's biological son. A teacher in this period could call a pupil or a convert his "son," and Paul uses the word that way throughout his letters to Timothy. The greeting itself is a blend of two conventions: Greek letters normally opened with a word meaning "greetings," Jewish ones with "peace." "Grace" here means generosity freely given to someone who has no claim on it.

1:3

"Whom I serve from my forefathers" does not mean Paul's ancestors are doing the serving. It means the God he serves is the same God his Jewish ancestors served, so his loyalty to Christ is continuous with his family's religion rather than a break from it.

1:4

The Greek points to a particular occasion of weeping that both men would remember, most likely their last parting. The letter never says which occasion, and no other passage identifies it.

1:5

"Unfeigned" in 1611 meant not faked or not put on, the opposite of an actor's pretense. Acts 16 describes Timothy's mother as a Jewish believer and his father as a Greek, which is why the line of faith here runs through the women of the family.

1:6

Laying hands on someone was a formal public gesture of commissioning, used in Judaism and then in the early church to set a person apart for a task and to transfer a responsibility to them. The verb behind "stir up" is a fire image: to fan embers that are still alive back into flame. It assumes the gift is present and not extinguished, only banked down.

1:7

"A sound mind" does not mean sanity or mental health. The Greek word covers self-mastery, level-headedness and the discipline to keep one's impulses in hand. The contrast is with panic, not with madness.

1:8

"The testimony of our Lord" means the testimony given about the Lord, not evidence the Lord himself gives. "Gospel" is simply the old English for good news, translating a Greek word used for an announcement of victory or of an emperor's accession. "His prisoner" means Paul is in custody because of Christ, not that Christ is holding him.

1:9

"Before the world began" renders a Greek phrase that literally reads "before times eternal," that is, before the ages of history started running. It locates the decision earlier than any datable event rather than at a particular early date.

1:10

"Appearing" translates epiphaneia, a word used in the ancient world for the visible arrival of a god or the ceremonial entrance of a ruler into a city. "Abolished" translates a verb meaning to put out of action or strip of force, so the sense is that death has been disabled rather than that it no longer occurs. "Immortality" is literally deathlessness, a state not subject to dying.

1:11

"Preacher" here is the Greek word for a herald, the official who announced a ruler's message aloud in public. The point is delivering someone else's announcement, not delivering a sermon. Two notes on the text: the words "of the Gentiles" are missing from the oldest surviving manuscripts and appear in later ones, which is why some modern translations stop at "a teacher." "Gentiles" is the standard term for everyone who is not Jewish.

1:12

"That which I have committed unto him" uses a banking and legal term, parathēkē, meaning goods placed in another person's keeping for safe storage, which the keeper is honor bound to return intact. The Greek can be read either way: what Paul has deposited with God, or the trust God has deposited with Paul. Translators have split on it since antiquity. "Against that day" is 1611 English for "in readiness for that day," not "opposed to it," and "that day" is the expected day of Christ's return and judgment.

1:13

"Form" translates a word for an outline, sketch or model to be copied. "Sound" translates a medical word meaning healthy or free from disease, the root of the English word hygiene, so "sound words" are teaching that is in good health rather than teaching that merely sounds sensible.

1:14

"Ghost" simply meant spirit in 1611 and carried none of its modern associations with hauntings. "That good thing which was committed unto thee" is the same banking term as in verse 12: something placed in Timothy's keeping that he is obliged to hand back undamaged.

1:15

"Asia" is not the continent. It was a Roman province occupying the western end of what is now Turkey, with Ephesus as its leading city. The Greek can mean that the Christians of that province have abandoned Paul, or more narrowly that the people from that province who were in Rome deserted him there; the sentence does not settle which. Phygellus and Hermogenes are named nowhere else and nothing further is known about them.

1:16

A "house" or household in this period meant everyone living under one roof: family, dependents, servants and slaves, treated as a single unit for purposes of honor and obligation. "My chain" is singular because a prisoner in Roman custody was commonly chained by one wrist to the soldier guarding him. Visiting such a prisoner was socially risky, which is what makes the lack of shame worth mentioning.

1:17

Prisoners in Rome were held in scattered private houses, barracks and lockups rather than in one central jail, and there was no public register to consult. Finding a particular prisoner in the city genuinely required going door to door.

1:18

"That day" again means the day of judgment. "Ministered" translates a common verb for waiting on someone or rendering practical service, covering errands, money, food and support rather than anything ceremonial. Ephesus was the major port city of the province of Asia and the place where Timothy was working.