Commentaires bibliques

2 Timothy 2:1-14 Timothy is exhorted to constancy and perseverance in

the discharge of his duty, as a good soldier of

Christ, looking for a certain reward of his fatigues

and sufferings.

2 Timothy 2:15,16 to divide the word of truth rightly, and to shun

profane and vain babblings.

2 Timothy 2:17,18 The dangerous error of Hymenaeus and Philetus.

2 Timothy 2:19 The foundation of God standeth sure.

2 Timothy 2:20,21 Of vessels honourable and dishonourable.

2 Timothy 2:22-26 Timothy is taught what to flee, and what to follow,

and how the servant of Christ must behave toward all men.

The sense is either: Show thyself a stout and valiant man, not being affrighted at the dangers that threaten thee in the publishing and defence of the gospel which brings the glad tidings of the grace of Jesus Christ: or: Be thou strong through the gracious influence of Christ Jesus, without which thou canst do nothing.

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses; the doctrine of the gospel which thou hast heard from me, confirmed by the testimony of many of the prophets of old, or, which thou heardest from me committed to thy trust, there being many witnesses present, when thou wert ordained. or set apart to thy office.

The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also; commit unto others that shall be set apart for the ministry; but let them be such as have an ability to communicate their knowledge to others, and such as thou shalt judge will be faithful to their trust.

Endure hardness; in the Greek it is, suffer evils, that is evils of affliction, expect them, and encounter and patiently eudure them.

As a good soldier of Jesus Christ; remembering that the life of a minister is not a life of ease and pleasure, but the life of a soldier, whose life is a life of hardship, exposed to numberless hazards and dangers.

Having told Timothy that his life was to be the life of a soldier, in which he would be exposed to many difficulties, and dangers, and hazards, he here mindeth him of the law and custom of soldiers, who being once entered in the muster-roll, use to sequester themselves from other employments in trading, husbandry, or the like, that thereby they might be at the command of their general, or captain, to be called out upon what service he pleaseth. So he who is a minister of the gospel ought not voluntarily and of choice engage himself in secular employments, but give up himself wholly to the ministerial work, that so he might please the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath chosen him to be his soldier.

And look as it is in the public games in use amongst you, where divers strive by wrestling, fighting, racing, where there is a crown proposed as the prize for those who are the conquerors in the game; they have not that crown set upon their heads, unless they keep to the laws of that game wherein they are exercised. So it is in the spiritual warfare, or contest; there is a far greater reward, even a crown of glory, proposed for such as overcome; but none shall have it, unless those who keep to the laws which God hath made for those who exercise themselves in that spiritual combat.

As the apostle had before compared the minister of the gospel to a soldier, and from thence concluded his duty not to entangle himself unnecessarily in secular employments; and to those that exercised themselves in their public games, and from thence concluded the obligation upon him to keep to the Divine rule in the management of his office, and of himself under the opposition he should meet with; so here he compares him to a husbandman, (as Christ himself had done, Matthew 13:1, &c.), either to mind him of his duty, first to look to save his own soul, then the souls of others, or of his advantage, it being the privilege of a husbandman, being the proprietor of the fruits, (if he will), first to eat thereof, thereby intimating the privilege of those who turn many to righteousness, Daniel 12:3.

Consider what I say; weigh these things with thyself in thy own thoughts.

And the Lord give thee understanding in all things; but thou wilt not effectually understand them without a Divine influence, opening thy mind to a comprehension of them, and thy heart to a reception of all these things, and all other things which it is reasonable for thee to know and understand.

The apostle passeth from his former discourse, wherein he had armed Timothy against the afflictions of the gospel, to a discourse about the doctrine of the gospel; and here mentioneth two principal heads of that doctrine, the incarnation of Christ, and his resurrection, which he instanceth in, as more particularly to be remembered and pressed upon Christians, in regard they were those two points of the gospel which were either at that time denied, as that of the incarnation was by the Jews, or he knew would first be opposed; and the latter that which

declared Christ to be the Son of God with power, Romans 1:4, and upon a faith in which Christians’ salvation and consolation much depended, Romans 4:25 8:34; he therefore calls to him especially to

remember that Jesus Christ was of the seed of David, truly man, and the true Messiah, who was to be the seed of David, (as the Jews themselves confessed): the manhood of Christ, soon after the apostle’s times, was denied by the Marcionites and Manichees, &c. And that he

was raised from the dead deserved Timothy’s remembrance, both because upon that depended the great evidence of Christ’s Divine nature, and the salvation and consolation of believers.

According to my gospel; this, he saith, was suitable to the doctrine of the gospel which he had preached to them: he calls it his gospel, because committed to his trust to publish; so Romans 2:16, and Romans 16:25, which he expoundeth, Galatians 1:11, the gospel preached of me: he speaks in the plural number, 1 Thessalonians 1:5 2 Thessalonians 2:14; declaring that the gospel was no more his than others’ also who were ministers of it.