2 Timothy 1:9

Paul writes this letter, likely the last we have from him, from a Roman prison as he faces death (2 Timothy 4:6–8). Timothy is at Ephesus, a great city given over to the worship of Artemis, where the church faced pressure from paganism outside and false teachers within. With Paul in chains, the church was more exposed, and leaders like Timothy carried a heavy load. Timothy appears to have been struggling with timidity or discouragement, and Paul speaks to it at once.

“Wherefore” ties the command to the verses just before, where Paul thanks God for Timothy’s unfeigned faith, the faith that dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Because Paul is sure of that faith, he can press Timothy forward. “I put thee in remembrance” tells us that Timothy already knows what Paul is about to say. The tone is a father’s encouragement, and the command builds on something God has already done.

“Stir up” translates anazōpyréō, a vivid word meaning to kindle up again, to fan a fire back into flame. Its first part, ana-, means “again” or “up”, and the rest, zōpyreō, means to kindle or keep alive. The picture is of embers still glowing that need air to blaze again. The gift is still in Timothy, and he is to tend it until it burns strongly.

“For” gives the reason Timothy can fan the flame. The fear Paul names is deilía, timidity or cowardice, the faintheartedness that shrinks back from duty or danger. Scripture speaks well of a reverent fear of God, and that is a different word. Deilía is the timid spirit that would keep a servant of God from his calling, and Paul sets it against what God actually gives.

God gives three things. Power, dýnamis, is force, might and ability, the strength to act, to bear witness and to serve, which Jesus promised his disciples when the Holy Ghost would come upon them (Acts 1:8). Love, agápē, is the self-giving love that is the first fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and it gives power its right motive. A sound mind, sōphronismós, comes from a verb meaning to discipline, and Strong’s gives its sense as discipline or self-control. It is clear, well-ordered judgment that keeps its composure under pressure, close to the temperance that Paul also lists among the Spirit’s fruit (Galatians 5:23).

Taken together, power gives strength for action, love gives the motive, and a sound mind gives direction. The strength God gives is always guided by love and wisdom, which is the kind of steady, godly character Paul asks of the whole church in Titus 2.

“Therefore” applies verse 7 straight away. Since God gives power and love, Timothy can face what would otherwise shame him. The verb epaischýnomai means to feel shame over something, to shrink back for fear of what others will think and what it will cost. Among the Greeks and Romans, honour and reputation counted for a great deal, and public shame was a strong weapon. To be counted among the Christians, a despised and often persecuted people, could cost a person his standing, his living and his safety, especially under Nero, who likely presided over Paul’s final imprisonment.

Two things could tempt Timothy to shame. The first is “the testimony of our Lord”, the gospel itself, the witness God has given about his Son, his life, death, resurrection and saving work. Paul said of himself, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).

The second is Paul. He calls himself “his prisoner”, using désmios, a captive in bonds. He belongs to Christ and wears chains for Christ’s sake. Standing by a prisoner, especially one held on the kind of charges against the state that Christians often faced, could bring stigma and danger, and Timothy may have been tempted to keep his distance. Paul asks him for loyalty. Believers belong to one body, and “whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

So Paul gives the command: “be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel”. The verb synkakopathéō means to suffer hardship together with someone, so Timothy is to take his share of the suffering that comes with spreading the gospel, side by side with Paul. It is given to believers “not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29), and Paul will soon tell Timothy, “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3).

“According to the power of God” says where the strength comes from. Timothy will bear this by God’s power, the same God who told Paul, “my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Christ went this way first. He endured the cross, “despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), and he is “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5), the Lamb of God who was bound and crucified to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He suffered for us, “leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

Here Paul tells Timothy who this God is whose power he can lean on. “Who hath saved us” uses sṓzō, to save, deliver, keep safe and make whole. Here it is God’s rescue of us from sin, death and his wrath, a work Paul speaks of as done. God has also “called us with an holy calling”. The calling, klēsis, is God’s summons, and it is holy, hágios, set apart to God. Among the Greeks and Romans a calling could mean a civic duty or a trade, and here it is God’s own summons into a life consecrated to him, as God says: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16).

“Not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace” is the heart of the verse. God’s purpose is his own settled intention, and grace, cháris, is his undeserved favour, freely given. Paul says the same in Ephesians 2:8–9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” In Titus 3:4–7 he writes that after the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us “according to his mercy”. Whether people looked to keeping the Law or to rituals and sacrifices to win a god’s favour, this cut across the deep human urge to earn it, and it leaves the glory with God alone.

“Which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” is literally “before times eternal”, pró chrónōn aiōníōn, from pró (before), chrónos (time) and aiṓnios (eternal). God’s grace toward us was given in Christ before there was a world. His plan to save was settled in eternity, before anyone had sinned. Paul says that God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4), and that those “called according to his purpose” are the ones he foreknew, predestinated, called, justified and glorified (Romans 8:28–30). Revelation speaks of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Christ is the centre of this purpose from first to last, “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13), and at the cross God set him forth as a propitiation, to be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:23–26).

This is why the verse sits here. Timothy’s courage, and ours, rests on what God purposed before time, and so on his unchanging faithfulness.

What God purposed before the world began “is now made manifest”. The word for “appearing”, epipháneia, means a showing or coming. Here it is Christ’s first coming, his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension, the public showing of God’s plan to save. What was hidden is now open.

“Who hath abolished death” uses katargéō, to make idle or inactive, to render inoperative, to abolish. By his death and resurrection Christ has broken death’s power and taken away its sting, and death stands here as an enemy he has defeated. Hebrews says that through death he destroyed him that had the power of death, to “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14–15). Paul sings of the same victory: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). God promised it long before through Hosea: “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction” (Hosea 13:14).

“And hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”. Immortality, aphtharsía, is incorruption, a life free from decay. It looks ahead to the resurrection of the body, when “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53). The world of Paul’s day had many ideas about death and what follows, most offering only vague hope or grim resignation. The gospel brings true life with God and an incorruptible future out into clear light, tied to a real person in history. Jesus is that life. “In him was life” (John 1:4), and he said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25–26).

The hope this verse names is set out in full in the resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15.

“Whereunto” means “for this gospel”, the one Paul has just described. God “appointed” him, títhēmi, to place, put or set, so Paul’s ministry was God’s doing, and Paul did not choose it for himself. He names three roles. A preacher, kēryx, is a herald who announces a message in public with authority. An apostle, apóstolos, is one sent, a delegate of the one who sends him, and Paul was commissioned directly by the risen Christ, though he was not one of the Twelve. A teacher, didáskalos, explains the truth and builds believers up in it. Together they cover the whole work: announcing the gospel, establishing churches on it, and teaching it until it is understood. Paul describes it in Colossians 1:28: “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

In each role Paul follows his Lord. Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14–15), he was the Son whom God sent into the world (John 3:17), and he taught “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29).

“Of the Gentiles” uses éthnos, nation or people, and in its extended sense the Gentiles. This was the mark of Paul’s calling. He calls himself “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13), and the Lord said of him at his conversion, “he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15). He received apostleship “for obedience to the faith among all nations” (Romans 1:5), and he marvelled that to him, “less than the least of all saints”, this grace was given, “that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:7–8). The other apostles worked mainly among the Jews.

Paul’s mission fulfils old promises. God told Abraham that in him and in his seed all the families and nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3, Genesis 22:18), and he made his Servant “a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6). At the cross Christ broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile and reconciled both to God in one body (Ephesians 2:14–16). The risen Lord then sent his church to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20), “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), and Paul’s work is part of that one mission.

“For the which cause” points back to that appointment, and it is why Paul suffers “these things”: prison, chains, public disgrace and the desertion of some who had stood with him. Roman prisons were harsh, with little hope of release. In a world where honour meant so much, a man in Paul’s position looked utterly disgraced. “Nevertheless I am not ashamed,” he says, because what the world counts dishonour is honour before God. This is the example behind his command to Timothy in verse 8.

His reason is a Person. “I know” uses eídō, whose root meaning is to see, and in the tense used here it means “I know”. What Paul knows is someone, “whom I have believed”, and “have believed” is in the same tense, a trust placed once that still stands. The “whom” is usually taken to be Christ, through whom God’s grace was given (verse 9) and who abolished death (verse 10). Paul’s confidence rests on knowing God himself, and his knowledge about God flows from that.

“And am persuaded” uses peíthō, to persuade or convince, and in this form it means to be fully convinced, to trust and rely on something. Paul’s mind is settled. What he is sure of is God’s power and faithfulness: “he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him”. The word behind “that which I have committed” is parathḗkē, a deposit, something placed in another’s hands for safekeeping. In ordinary life it was a valuable item or a sum of money left with someone trustworthy, to be returned when asked for. Paul has placed his life, his soul, his ministry and his eternal future in God’s hands as such a deposit, and God will keep it intact.

Scripture rings with this confidence. Jesus says of his sheep, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”, and none can pluck them out of his Father’s hand (John 10:28–29). Paul is persuaded that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39). Jude gives glory to him “that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24). Our life “is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), and Christ is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Our security rests on God’s hold on us.

“Against that day” means “until that day”. The day, hēméra, is the day of Christ’s return, the day of judgment and the completion of God’s saving work, when believers are vindicated and receive their inheritance. Paul is confident that he which hath begun a good work in us “will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6), and that Christ will confirm us to the end, “blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:8). That day is certain because Christ is already risen, “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20–23).

Paul now turns from his own example to two charges for Timothy, and they show how Timothy is to guard what God has given him. “Hold fast” renders échō, to have, hold or possess. The verb is an ordinary one, and its force comes from the command: Timothy is to keep hold of this and keep holding it.

“The form” is hypotýpōsis, an outline, pattern or standard, a sketch that sets the shape of something. Timothy has received a recognizable shape of Christian truth, and all teaching is to be measured against it. “Sound” is hygiaínō, a verb meaning to have sound health, to be well, used figuratively of what is uncorrupt and true in doctrine. “Sound words”, hygiainóntōn logōn, are healthy words, teaching that nourishes and builds godliness. The Pastoral Epistles often speak of teaching in terms of health. Paul warns against anyone who “consent not to wholesome words” and dotes “about questions and strifes of words” (1 Timothy 6:3–4), and he tells Titus, “speak thou the things which become sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).

The danger was real at Ephesus, where fables, speculation and unhealthy debates had already appeared (1 Timothy 1:3–7) and vain babblings were spreading (2 Timothy 2:16–18). Against that background Paul tells Timothy, “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:16). An elder must hold “fast the faithful word as he hath been taught” (Titus 1:9), and Jude urges believers to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).

“Which thou hast heard of me” names the source. Timothy learned this teaching from an apostle of Christ, and it came from God’s revelation. He is to pass it on in turn: “the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

“In faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” says how Timothy holds it. Faith is trust in Christ and in the truth of the gospel, and love is self-giving devotion to God and to others. Both are found in Christ and come from him. Sound teaching held in faith and love becomes a living obedience, the “faith which worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6), and the love itself is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).

“That good thing which was committed unto thee” renders parakatathḗkē, something put down beside another, a deposit or sacred trust, and the word for “good” is kalós. The idea is the one Paul used for his own trust in verse 12, a valuable placed in another’s keeping, which in ordinary life carried legal weight and a high expectation of faithfulness. Here the deposit is the gospel and the pattern of healthy teaching Paul gave Timothy, the truth about God’s salvation in Christ, which is worth more than any treasure. Paul gave Timothy the same charge in his first letter: “keep that which is committed to thy trust” (1 Timothy 6:20).

“Keep” is phylássō, to watch, guard and preserve. It is the same verb Paul used two verses earlier of what God “is able to keep”. God keeps what Paul has entrusted to him, and Timothy is to keep what God has entrusted to Timothy, so the God who guards us also enables us to guard his truth. At its heart this deposit is the truth about Christ, in whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

Timothy keeps it “by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us”. The verb enoikéō means to dwell in, to inhabit, and it is the word Paul used in 2 Timothy 1:5 of the faith that “dwelt first” in Lois and Eunice. The Spirit lives in believers to stay. Paul writes “us”, so this is true of every believer, the same Spirit who is “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9). Jesus promised the Comforter, “the Spirit of truth”, who “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:16–17). He guides into all truth (John 16:13), brings Christ’s words to remembrance (John 14:26), enables us through the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13), and glorifies Christ (John 16:14). So the task of guarding the truth is great, and the One who carries it out through us is God himself. It belongs with Timothy’s call to “endure hardness” (2 Timothy 2:3) and with the whole letter’s call to faithfulness.

This passage begins and ends with something God has placed in us. At the start it is a gift to fan into flame, and at the end it is a treasure to keep by the Spirit who lives in us. Between them stands everything that makes that possible: the spirit of power, love and a sound mind, the grace given us in Christ before the world began, the Saviour who has made death idle, and the God who keeps what we entrust to him.

So we can use what God has given us, even where it costs us something, because the strength is his. We can stand with the gospel and with those who suffer for it, because Christ was the faithful witness before us and his power is made perfect in weakness. We can hold the pattern of sound words firmly and gently, in faith and love, and pass it on to others. And when our own grip feels weak, we can say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed”, and rest in the God who is able to keep us until that day.