Authorship, Commentaries. See the introduction to 1 Timothy. Of the three Pastoral Epistles (whose authorship is often disputed), 2 Timothy is the most difficult to dispute, because of the abundance of personal notes. Pseudepigraphic letters could also contain personal notes (e.g., Diogenes’ letter to Rhesus), but they rarely had many, whereas 2 Timothy is full of them. Pseudepigraphers had little reason to include these details.

Situation. For the general situation of persecution in Rome, see the introduction to 1 Peter. Assuming Pauline authorship, Paul writes 2 Timothy while imprisoned in Rome, awaiting probable execution; he wants Timothy to join him before it is too late (2 Tim. 4:21). Paul was probably released after his imprisonment in Acts 28 (see comment on Acts 28:30) and undertook the missions presupposed in 2 Timothy; then he was rearrested, this time during Nero’s massive repression of Christians. He was most likely beheaded under Nero in a.d. 64.

Paul’s opponents have spread in the province of Asia, and the situation has become much worse since Paul wrote 1 Timothy (2 Tim. 1:15). Paul could be discouraged; like Jeremiah in the Old Testament, his life is to end while God’s people are turned away from him, and he will not live to see the fruit of his ministry. His consolation, however, is that he has been faithful to God (2 Tim. 4:7-8), and he exhorts Timothy to follow in his paths no matter what the cost. (That the letter was preserved almost certainly indicates that Timothy did persevere.) The letter is dominated by the themes of persecution from outside the church and false teaching within, and Paul’s final exhortation to a young minister is to focus on the Scriptures and the sound teaching to be found in them.

Genre. In many ways, Paul’s final letter resembles the letters of moral exhortation written by philosophers to their disciples. But as a letter sent before his death, it also resembles Jewish tracts called “testaments,” in which a dying leader imparted his final wisdom to his sons or followers, wisdom also of value to subsequent readers. Although most testaments were pseudepigraphic and Paul may have written this letter only for Timothy, the similar situation envisioned gives 2 Timothy the force of a testament: Paul’s ultimate wisdom for young ministers.

 

Introduction and Thanksgiving

1:1-2. Paul modifies the normal opening of letters (author, to addressees, greetings—a word related to “grace”) in his characteristically Christian way. Both rabbis and philosophers could call their disciples “sons.”

1:3. Ancient letters frequently included thanksgivings to God or gods on behalf of the addressee, who was often praised in the thanksgiving. “Unceasingly” or “constantly” probably means in Paul’s regular times of prayer. Many Palestinian Jews prayed during the morning and afternoon offerings in the temple; they also said special blessings on rising in the morning and going to bed at night. Palestinian Jews reckoned days from sundown to sundown, so “night and day” is not an unnatural sequence. (One should not read too much into Paul’s sequence, of course; the same sequence occurs not only in Jewish texts like Judith and 4 Ezra but also in strictly Latin texts like Horace, Quintilian and Cicero. In contrast, Josephus and usually the Septuagint, as well as the Roman writer Martial, could say “day and night,” and the New Testament references are not consistent. “Night and day” seems to have been the more common idiom.)

1:4. Expressions of longing were common in ancient letters of friendship, signifying the deepest intimacy. (This is not, as one commentator thought, a poor imitation of Romans 1:11 or other passages!) In the East, tears were an appropriate expression of sadness for troubled or long partings.

1:5. Even though fathers were responsible for their sons’ education, Judaism and Greco-Roman aristocrats wanted mothers to be knowledgeable so they could impart knowledge to their young children. (This is true even though Judaism did not provide women advanced education in the law, and even though Greco-Roman society generally reserved rhetorical and philosophical training for men.) Until the age of seven a Roman boy’s mother was his main formative influence; many thought that children should not be taught reading until age seven, but others wished to begin it much earlier, even at the age of three. Jewish Scripture education began by the age of five or six, although this education always emphasized memorization and recitation more than reading skills.

The “faith” of Timothy’s mother and grandmother was Jewish (Jewish Christian by the time Paul met them—Acts 16:1). Jewish fathers were primarily responsible for their son’s instruction in the law, but Timothy’s father was a Gentile (Acts 16:1, 3). Those without a living religious father also learned from grandmothers if they were still living (cf. Tobit 1:8).

Most education included corporal discipline, but some ancient education experts stressed instead encouraging the child, making him or her feel successful, provoking competition and making learning enjoyable (Quintilian). Ancient writers differed on whether public instructors or home schooling was better, provided the former held classes small enough to permit private instruction.

1:6. Laying on of hands was used for ordination (see comment on 1 Tim. 4:14). The image of “rekindling” (NRSV) a fire is possible in this verse (cf. Jeremiah 20:9), although the word for “kindle” (NASB) had been extended metaphorically so often by this period that it is not clear that its fire nuance would always be in hearers’ minds.

1:7. Although Essene texts sometimes linked evil behaviors with pervasive evil spirits, in Greek “spirit of” often meant simply “attitude of.” The exhortation not to be afraid was one of the most prominent biblical assurances from God (e.g., Genesis 26:24; Jeremiah 1:8) and was a customary expression of assurance from others as well (Genesis 43:23). Although Timothy may have been “timid,” one should not therefore assume that this was his unique problem, as some interpreters have (Acts 18:9; 1 Cor. 2:3).

 

Carry on Paul’s Mission

Timothy is to maintain his ground (2 Tim. 1:3-7), joining Paul in suffering for the gospel entrusted to them.

1:8. Disciples were called to follow in their teachers’ steps. Paul’s suffering here entails especially his imprisonment and impending execution.

1:9-11. The language of “calling” is especially Old Testament and Jewish, that of “appearing” and “immortality” especially Greek (though long before already adopted by Diaspora Jews), and “Savior” was both. That Paul is equally conversant in both worlds is not surprising; most Diaspora and many Palestinian Jews generally saw no contradiction between fidelity to the Old Testament and speaking the language of their culture.

1:12-14. The “entrusted deposit” (2 Tim. 1:12, 14) was originally a monetary image, although other writers had also applied it to teaching; one was responsible to safeguard or multiply any money given one for safekeeping. Jewish teachers felt that they were passing on a sacred deposit to their disciples, who were expected to pass it on to others in turn (cf. 2 Tim. 2:2).

 

Allies and Opponents in Asia

Paul briefly addresses the opposition that Timothy and he face in Asia, where Timothy ministers.

1:15. “Asia” refers to the Roman province of western Asia Minor, of which Ephesus was the most prominent city (cf. 1 Tim. 1:3). “All” excludes the household of 2 Tim. 1:16-18; in accordance with the flexibility of common language in antiquity, it means “most.” Although many Jewish teachers predicted widespread apostasy for the end time or even felt that it characterized their own generation, they lamented it. This is hardly the sort of detail a later pseudepigrapher writing in Paul’s name would have made up about the end of his ministry. (Later hagiographers sometimes described the rejection of their heroes, but the narrative was normally accompanied by a description of the awful judgment that befell the apostates who rejected them.)

1:16. “Onesimus” (Philem 10) could be a contraction for Onesiphorus, but the person Paul describes here is hardly a recently freed slave. Because Paul speaks of a whole “household” of believers, the Onesiphorus to whom he refers probably had slaves and other dependents. “Refresh” is the language of hospitality, which included housing travelers; Onesiphorus must have had a large home and housed Paul whenever he came to Ephesus. He is a good example to Timothy of one not “ashamed” (2 Tim. 1:8, 12; 2 Tim. 2:15).

1:17. Very many people in the first century traveled to Rome; Onesiphorus, as a well-to-do patron in the prominent Asian city of Ephesus, would naturally be able to do so. “Finding” Paul would mainly be a matter of finding local Christians who could tell him where to find Paul, whether during his earlier detention (Act 28:30) or the more severe current one. If the latter is in view, Paul might have gotten his news about Asia (2 Tim. 1:15) from Onesiphorus.

1:18. Because Paul greets Onesiphorus’s “household” in 2 Tim. 4:19, some writers have argued that Onesiphorus is dead and that Paul here prays for his posthumous salvation (although the context makes it clear that Onesiphorus was already a Christian). Judaism often spoke of departed heroes as “of blessed memory,” and some later tomb inscriptions eulogized the righteous dead with “May he [or she] be remembered for good.” Posthumous acts of atonement were sometimes offered for the dead, but prayers for the “salvation” of the dead in the strict sense seem to be either minimal or altogether lacking in first-century Judaism. Further, it is not clear that Onesiphorus is dead; Paul looks ahead to the day of judgment for himself as well (2 Tim. 1:12; 2 Tim. 4:8). Paul could speak of someone’s “household,” including the individual, while the person was still alive (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:15, 17).