(Based on a sermon preached at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO; not an exact transcription)
Introduction: Paul had been convicted and sentenced to death. Before this happened, though, he wrote this second letter to Timothy. In keeping with our August “back-to-school” theme, we could say that Paul is giving Timothy either an introduction to what’s happening; or, Paul’s giving Timothy a wrap-up before Paul’s life ends.
Maybe there’s some of each in this letter.
Let’s read the text, beginning at verse 1:
Text: 2 Timothy 4:1-12, NASV: 1 I solemnly exhort you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
5 But as for you, use self-restraint in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; 8 in the future there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. 9 Make every effort to come to me soon; 10 for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Take along Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.
<Opening prayer>
1 Paul’s remarks and testimony
We notice the chapter, at least these first verses, have two separate thoughts. The first section has a recap, we might say, of Paul’s testimony and coming events. He first gives a “charge”, as some versions have it, or an exhortation, as this version translates Paul’s original word. And that charge or exhortation is, then, now, and always, to “preach the Word”!
And not only that, Paul tells Timothy to be “ready in season and out of season”. I have never really understood what that really means, and there is a lot of variation in some of the comments and commentaries. It’s only a guess but to me this could mean Timothy needed to be ready to share or preach the Word at any time the opportunities rose, not just at the regular times of worship and praise.
Paul next urged Timothy to “correct (“reprove”, King James Version), rebuke, and exhort with great patience and instruction.” One reason for this is that new believers and even weak believers would need to be reminded of our Lord’s simple Truth. Another is that even in these early days of the Church, there were several false teachers bringing false doctrines. Paul mentioned some of these earlier in this letter plus in other Epistles or letters. We still have any number of false teachers even these days, don’t we?
Part of the reason for this is that people, generally, like to hear pleasant things. I don’t know of very many who want to learn something that would make them more accountable or more responsible for what they hear. That’s one reason why, I think, people who preach (however defined) easy stuff or bland messages full of platitudes seem to have larger audiences than those preachers who preach the entire Word. Take another look and see how Paul knew even then that some would reject the truth (of the Word) and latch on to myths!
Now that Paul seems to have grabbed Timothy’s attention—and who wouldn’t be alarmed by reading something like this—he moves on to give Timothy some additional information.
2 Paul’s instructions for Timothy
I have to confess, Timothy doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who needs urging to use self-restraint! After all, Paul had just written him to “correct, reprove and exhort” and, as I understand this, these are all in the sense of “begin to do this and then keep on doing it”. In Paul’s mind, then, Timothy wasn’t doing any of those and needed to start. The same thing is true of Paul’s charge for Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist” and to “fulfill [his] ministry”.
Now Paul gets into the real, unvarnished truth of the matter. He now explains to Timothy that he was “already being poured out as a drink offering”, alluding to, I think, the drink offerings mentioned in Exodus, Numbers, and even Joel 1:9. There are too many to list—Strong’s concordance mentions the phrase “drink offering” 64 times!—but it was real, and Paul knew that he, too, was near the end of his days on this earth.
Then, before he goes on to a bit of testimony, he changes the figure of speech from an offering to a boat or ship ready to leave harbor. He said, “The time of my departure has come” and several commentators observe that this had a picture of a boat or ship straining against the rope or maybe an anchor as the ship is ready to leave. We may forget (I sure did) for a moment that Paul had plenty of Mediterranean miles under his feet and knew well the moment when the captain would command “Cast off!” or whatever the words were for, in nautical terms, “Let’s get out of port!”
Very briefly, let’s look at the next three glimpses of Paul’s final testimony here. He first says, “I have fought the good fight” and truly he did! He might well have seen the Corinthian version of the Olympics where boxing was one of the events. He also knew the “gloves” worn by these men were probably not the padded ones by “the Glove Company” but just straps of some kind surrounding whatever the boxers held in their hands. When you got hit, you went down, but don’t ask me how these events were scored in those days!
But whether he actually fought in any contest is debatable—as a Roman citizen, he may have had other privileges and protections non-citizens couldn’t possibly use. Still, he fought the good fight—and won!—then he adds this, “I have finished the course.” Going back to the Corinthian games, foot races were another event or series and, as Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9, no matter how many ran, only one man got the prize. He stayed within the lines and stayed in his lane, running the course laid out for him.
And finally Paul says, “I have kept the faith”. He had preached the faith to any number of people over the years and over the miles and Paul never changed the truth of his message. He had already warned Timothy about false teachers, but Paul never taught anything false. Paul never tickled the itching ears of those who wanted some easy stuff—more likely, he scratched by pointing out the truth they didn’t really want to hear!
Now, you may be wondering, “Okay, so what does this mean?” Paul knew very well he would face judgment, or, evaluation, of his deeds and sayings. He had mentioned this at least twice in 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5, but now he knew that he had won every contest. He was confident that, just as the winning athlete stood at the platform and waited for the judge or judges to award the prize, that’s where he was standing. He was waiting for his reward for his faithful service for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Lest anyone think, “I can’t possibly do all Paul did”, that’s not the point and that’s not the issue. The clue or nugget that Paul laid out for us is right there in verse 9. The crown of righteousness which Paul was waiting to receive wasn’t just for him alone! He’s explaining that this particular crown was available, and could be won, for any and all who loved our Lord’s appearing! I sure hope we have that love and hope in mind because you and I know some believers who sure don’t seem to have that kind of focus. Oh, that we all might win this crown!
Now let’s take a brief look at the four types of disciples and followers Paul’s mentioning in the next few verses.
3 Paul described four types of disciples
Paul almost pleads with Timothy to “make every effort to come to me soon”, apparently asking him to leave Ephesus, where Paul had left him before (1 Tim 1:3) and get to Rome ASAP! After making his request, Paul mentions briefly the four types of disciples, co-workers, followers, whatever you want to call them.
Timothy is, I think, an example of “type 1”, or those who had been faithful, staying faithful, even though he was many miles away from Paul at the time. Acts had any number of accounts where Timothy stayed true to the faith and never abandoned Paul. We’ve seen way too many of our youth go away to college, the military, the world of work, and these youth are seldom seen again once they leave these church doors—not just ours, any church. Once they are old enough to be on their own, sadly, that’s exactly what happens: they prosper but the church, their church, usually does not. I hope all of our young people will grow up to be Type 1 disciples, just like Timothy, faithful to the Lord in anywhere they choose to live.
But there’s another type of disciple, those like Demas are “type 2’s” or those who stayed faithful for a while and then gave up. They fled, they quit; they didn’t stay true when they needed to. One former coworker in my Air Force days was from the Flor-a-bama area, or Florida’s panhandle near the Alabama line. He used to say in that unique voice that “they lit out like a scalded dog!”
Meet Demas, then, a classic Type 2 disciple who was faithful, and then wasn’t. He not only left Paul—the word in verse 10 is “deserted” which does mean a willful “see you later, maybe” kind of “I’m out of here” of departure. All that Paul was led to write was that Demas “. . . loved this present world”. After all he and Paul had seen, what could Demas possibly want down here? Whatever it was, it was enough for him to desert Paul for whatever he could get down here. Please, please, don’t be a Demas or Type 2 disciple. Stay true to the Lord and the faith.
Paul mentions Crescens, who headed to Galatia but we know nothing of him. Titus is probably the same man who got a letter from Paul but Titus is headed for Dalmatia, also called Illyricum or the area of Croatian and perhaps Bosnia-Herzegovina according to various maps. Then Paul speaks of Luke, a “type 3” disciple. These are the kinds of Christ-followers who stayed true to the faith and never left when the going got tough. Acts has a number of “we” passages where Luke mentions some of the activities he and Paul and perhaps others had endured. But for the vast majority of Paul’s last days, Luke was there, faithful to the end. Praise the Lord for this type of disciple, who stayed true during good times and bad. Luke, we salute you/
And Paul closes with a mention of a “type 4” disciple. Mark, also known as John Mark, had gone with Paul, then still known as Saul, in Acts 13 to Cyprus but Mark left them both (Acts 13:13). Paul was still upset about this and broke fellowship with Barnabas because Barnabas wanted to take Mark on the new missionary journey and Paul said, “No way am I taking him along!” But over the years, the Lord changed Mark and the Lord changed Paul so that now Paul asks Timothy to bring Mark along. Type 4’s like Mark are those who quit but repented (how else could Mark have been a useful vessel for the Lord?) and are willing to serve again.
You and I may fall into any of these types of disciples but it’s important to remember that the Lord desires to use all of us in any number of ways. Paul’s testimony proves this. He gave a good bit of information for Timothy to follow and closed by mentioning other disciples. My prayer for us all is that we find God’s will, and do it, loving Jesus all the while. Also, may the words of Paul’s final message ring true for us even as these words did for Timothy, so long ago.
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASV).
