2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Commentary

I’ve always wondered if Paul’s hands didn’t shake at least a bit as he wrote, “The time for my departure [analyseos*] is near [ephesteken] (6).” Or if his brow furrowed with a sort of defiance as he penned in verse 7, “I have fought [egonismai] the good fight [kalon agona]” (7). Or if the aging apostle’s eyes glistened a bit as he wrote, “Now there is in store [apokeitai] for me the crown of righteousness [dikaiosynes stephanos]” (8).

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson features what are likely among Christ’s greatest missionaries’ final recorded words to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy. It is a grace that the Spirit inspired Paul to let God’s dearly beloved people “eavesdrop” on this parting benediction.

Earlier the apostle had told the Ephesian elders, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me” (Acts 20:24). Now he writes as if he has already crossed the finish line of that race. Paul says that he has “kept the faith” during that “race.” He has, in other words, faithfully protected the treasure that is the gospel that God has given him.

The apostle has, what’s more, shared that precious treasure with people across his known world. Paul has worked hard and sacrificed much for the Lord. He has also experienced great danger during the hard fight and long race that has been his life in, with and for Christ Jesus.

Preachers might reflect with our hearers on some of the things through which God brought the apostle. Almost immediately after his conversion Jewish religious leaders conspired to kill him. Later murderous Grecian Jews, prominent Jews in Pisidian Antioch as well as Jews from Antioch and Iconium also tried to kill him. Even Paul’s missionary travels were sometimes dangerous. When, for instance, authorities sent him to Rome, he nearly died in a storm that wrecked his ship. On Malta a snake bit him and threatened his life.

Now, as he writes 2 Timothy 4, Paul believes he has survived all of that just to have authorities prepare to execute him for his faith. He is, after all, as he writes in verse 6, being “poured out like a drink offering [spendomai]” for his faith. As a result, he adds, comparing his life to a ship, the time has come for his “departure” [analyseos]. The apostle likens his life to a boat whose sailors have hoisted the anchor, untied the ropes and are about to sail for another shore.

The Rome from which Paul’s life will soon depart is what one scholar calls “a cruel and angry city.”Its intensely ambitious emperor Nero let nothing stand in the way of his personal desires and lavish plans for Rome. So, for instance, when a fire that Nero himself probably started blazed through Rome, the emperor blamed its small Christian community. He also meted out some of the harshest punishments than any relatively civilized society has ever witnessed.

Yet at least initially Paul’s situation in cruel Rome was tolerable. He probably remained under house arrest for two years. During that time authorities seemed to do nothing to prevent people from visiting him. However, by the time he writes our text, the apostle’s situation has deteriorated. Men who served as the cruel emperor’s personal guards now probably guard him. Authorities may also be holding Paul in one of Rome’s most notorious prisons.

Some of those to whom we preach feel like they too, with the Paul of our text, are nearing the end of the journey that has been their life. Others are nearing the end of major chapters in their lives. Some of us sense that society’s hostility to Christianity, while nowhere near as intense as ancient Rome’s, is also rising across the world.

It’s not easy to endure those things when Christian friends surround God’s people. However, some Christians experience those dangers and run their race virtually all alone. That’s the apostle’s tragic conclusion about himself in verses 9-16. He has fought the good fight, run the arduous race that God has laid out for him and remained faithful to God in spite of all the danger, toils and snares he’s endured.

Yet while Luke, the apostle’s beloved friend and physician, remains fiercely loyal to him, Paul still feels terribly alone. After all, some of his companions have become separated from him because they’re doing the Lord’s work. However, Paul singles out two former friends and colleagues who have “deserted” [enkatelipen] him: Demas and Alexander.

Yet according to verse 16, the proverbial last straw has come at what was probably Paul’s preliminary hearing before his actual trial. Roman law permitted him to call witnesses to testify for him. Yet no one in Rome was willing to defend him. While few deserved more help than Paul did, not even Rome’s Christians showed him any sympathy. So like his Lord and Savior before him, Paul had to undergo his ordeal alone.

It’s seldom easy for anyone God creates in God’s image to be so alone under some kind of duress. It must be horrible to contemplate, as Paul did, dying all alone. It seems the apostle Paul found it very hard to stay standing when it seems as if no one wants to stand with him.

Paul, however, realizes that he isn’t really alone. In John 16:32 Jesus told his disciples, “A time is coming, and has come, when you will … leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” He knew that his heavenly Father would stay with him all the way to the cross.

Paul says something similar in our text. His friends have scattered. No one came to his “support” when he went on trial. All but one of the apostle’s fellow Christians have abandoned him. So virtually everyone has “deserted” him. However, Paul rejoices in verse 17, “the Lord stood at [pareste]” his “side and gave” him “strength” [enedynamosen]. God alone stood with the apostle and gave him the power to under great duress proclaim the gospel in a way that even the Gentiles could hear.

So Paul can celebrate how the God who, in Christ, once came to earth to be Immanuel, “God with us,” stood with him in that Roman courtroom. The Christ, who promised to be with his friends “always, to the very end of the age,” gave him strength. The God who, in Christ, promises to make God’s home among God’s dearly beloved people in the new creation, empowered the apostle to proclaim the gospel.

Yet preachers might note that it’s not the first time God stood with God’s children during a difficult time. When Israel endured the trial that was her entrance into Canaan, it seemed as if no one stood with her. In fact, her enemies constantly surrounded and menaced her.

The Lord, however, promised to stand at her side and give her the strength she needed. When Moses spoke to the Israelites just before they entered the land of promise, he told them, in Deuteronomy 31:6, “Do not be afraid or terrified … for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

This is an essential part of the gospel preachers proclaim each Sunday. We may know what it’s like to feel discouraged because no one seems to come to our aid. However, the God who stood at the sides of and strengthened Moses and the Apostle Paul also stands with and strengthens us.

Every human being may, in fact, desert Jesus’ friends. Yet even if everyone else abandons Jesus’ followers, God never leaves or forsakes us. Christians sometime feel very alone, as though we’re going through difficult times all by ourselves. God, however, stays with us wherever we go.

So when it feels as though God’s adopted children are soaring into the sky, God is, by God’s Spirit, with us. Yet even if we feel as though we’re sinking into the deepest waters, God is also with us. Even if it feels as though life drags Christians far away from the people we love, God stays with us.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers preachers the chance to proclaim that gospel that is that even when we pass through various deep waters, this Lord is with us. Even when everything else around God’s dearly beloved people seems to be flooding, the Lord is with us. Even when different kinds of fires threaten us, the Lord stays with us.

In fact, nothing can separate God’s adopted children from Christ’s love. Neither trouble, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger nor sword can push God away. God’s love stands with Christians in death and life, and in the present as well as the future.

This ever-present God rescued Paul from some threat he called “the lion’s mouth.” God also empowered him to fully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that even the Gentiles, including his persecutors and prosecutors, could hear. Paul also believed that God would stand with him until he safely shepherded him into God’s presence in the new creation.

Here is great gospel for God’s sometimes-beleaguered adopted children: this same God promises to stand at our side and give us strength whether we go to the doctor or move into assisted living. This God stands at Jesus’ followers’ side whether we go to the unemployment office or watch our lives outlast our finances.

This God gives God’s dearly beloved people strength to face threats to our personal, familial, communal or even national security. This God stands with us as we proclaim the gospel by our words and actions to our unbelieving family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers. In fact, this God promises, by God’s Spirit, to stay right with Jesus’ friends until God stands with and among us in the glory of the new heaven and earth.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

The kind of suffering Paul endured can be excruciating, debilitating and, in fact, isolating. In his book, An American Marriage, Michael Burlingame writes about the often-tumultuous marriage of Abraham and Mary Lincoln.

In it he quotes Mary Clemons Ames’ description of Mary’s intense grief over the death of her favorite son Willie. “She mourned according to her nature,” Ames writes. “She shut herself in with grief and demanded of God why he had afflicted her! Nobody suffered as she suffered.”