2 Timothy 2:25

Paul writes this second letter from prison in Rome, as his last and most personal charge to Timothy, a young leader in the church at Ephesus, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. Ephesus was a great city given to the worship of Artemis, to magic and to the philosophical schools, and within the church false teachers were spreading “fables and endless genealogies” (1 Timothy 1:4). Paul had warned the Ephesian elders that men would arise from among them “speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30).

2 Timothy 2 is a charge to a faithful minister. Timothy is to be strong in grace and commit the truth to faithful men (2 Timothy 2:1–2), to endure like a soldier, an athlete and a farmer (2 Timothy 2:3–7), to remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead (2 Timothy 2:8), and to be a workman “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Paul warns against “profane and vain babblings” (2 Timothy 2:16–21), and promises that the man who purges himself will be “a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use” (2 Timothy 2:20–21). Our passage shows that vessel at work: he keeps his own heart clean, keeps clear of quarrels, and deals gently with those who oppose him, because they are captives whom God may set free.

The word “also” ties this command to the cleansing of verse 21, since a man becomes fit for the master’s use partly by running from what would defile him. The verb is pheúgō, to run away, flee, shun or escape. Paul gives the same command elsewhere: “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18), and “flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14). Fleeing means getting away at once from the situation, the influence or the desire that would lead to sin.

The word for lusts, epithymía, means desire or longing. It becomes lust when what is desired is forbidden, so the object decides whether the desire is good or evil. “Youthful”, neōterikós, names the desires that press hardest on the young.

Over against fleeing, Paul sets following, diṓkō, to pursue, chase or press after something with determination. One verb sends Timothy running away and the other sends him running after something, so holiness has both a leaving and a pursuing in it.

He chases four things. Righteousness is living by God’s moral standard. Faith is trust in God and faithfulness in walking with him. Charity is love, the self-giving love the New Testament calls agápē. Peace is peace with God and with others. Hebrews joins two of them in the same kind of command: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). Romans gives both sides of holiness: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Romans 12:9). Paul calls this holy living God’s will, our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3–7), and he told Timothy in his first letter to exercise himself unto godliness (1 Timothy 4:7–8). These are the marks of a life the Holy Spirit is changing, and they reflect the character of God himself. The fruit of the Spirit includes love, peace and faith (Galatians 5:16–25), so Timothy’s running is real effort that the Spirit empowers.

Verse 23 follows straight on from the call to peace, and turning down these questions is one way Timothy follows peace. Mōrós, foolish, means dull, stupid, absurd or heedless, a question empty of insight that leads nowhere useful. Apaídeutos, unlearned, means uninstructed, a question ungrounded in sound doctrine, coming from ignorance, immaturity or a contentious spirit. The questions, zḗtēsis, are debates and disputes, such as the speculative genealogies and endless arguments common among Jewish and Greek thinkers of the day, often driven by pride and the wish to look clever.

Timothy is to avoid them, paraitéomai, to beg off, decline or shun. He does it “knowing”, eídō, properly to see, here to understand clearly where such questions lead. They “gender strifes”. Gennáō is the verb for begetting, so the questions give birth to máchē, battles, fights and quarrels, as naturally as a parent has a child.

Paul gives Titus the same counsel: “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain” (Titus 3:9). He warns of the man “doting about questions and strifes of words” (1 Timothy 6:4), and tells the Romans to receive the weak in faith, “but not to doubtful disputations” (Romans 14:1). Behind all of this stands who God is: “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Talk that by its nature splits a church goes against his will for it, and the church is to endeavour “to keep the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3).

Paul names the man he is describing “the servant of the Lord”. The word is doûlos, a bondservant wholly given over to his master’s will, and his master is the Lord, kýrios. Everything that follows comes from that identity, including how he argues.

He “must not strive”: ou deî máchomai, it is necessary that he not fight. Máchomai means to fight or quarrel, and here it forbids contentious arguing and a combative spirit. The servant’s work goes forward through peace and patient persuasion, and the strifes of verse 23 are what he keeps clear of. In their place Paul gives three qualities.

• Gentle unto all men. Ḗpios is mild, kind and tender, the way a nursing mother is with her children. “All men” takes in fellow believers, opponents, difficult people and those who hold other views.
• Apt to teach. Didaktikós means instructive, able to teach others and make the truth clear. Paul has already told Timothy to commit the truth to faithful men “who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
• Patient. Anexíkakos is literally “enduring evil”, forbearing: bearing mistreatment, opposition and provocation without anger, retaliation or giving up. Paul lived it, and called Timothy to share the afflictions of the gospel (2 Timothy 1:8).

Paul asks the same of every believer: “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men” (Titus 3:2). These qualities are the Spirit’s fruit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23), and they reflect God’s own character: “The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy” (Psalm 145:8). They fit the way God works, whose strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). The gospel moves forward through humble, patient teaching that seeks to win souls, even when the servant faces the “profane and vain babblings” of 2 Timothy 2:16.

Verse 25 puts the servant’s gentleness to work on the hardest case. He instructs his opponents “in meekness”, praiótēs, which means gentleness, mildness or meekness, and by implication humility. In correction it means a spirit that seeks to restore, free of arrogance, harshness and self-righteousness. James uses the word for how we receive God’s word: “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). The one who corrects others meekly has first received the word that way himself.

“Instructing” is paideúō, the training of a child, education and, by implication, discipline. Here it is teaching with correction in view, a patient effort to bring understanding and growth.

“Those that oppose themselves” translates antidiatíthemai, a middle verb meaning to set oneself in opposition. The KJV’s “themselves” carries that middle sense: these people have set themselves against the truth and against the one teaching it, and he still teaches them gently. Jesus showed that heart toward a city that set itself against him: “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).

“If God peradventure will give them repentance” marks the limit of what a teacher can do. “Peradventure” translates mḗpote, perhaps, and the uncertainty is ours, since we cannot see whom God will turn. The verb dídōmi means to give, and the gift is metánoia, repentance: a change of mind, compunction for guilt together with reformation, a turning around that changes heart and life, away from sin and error and toward God and his truth.

The rest of Scripture says the same. God exalted Jesus “to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). When the church in Jerusalem heard of the Gentiles receiving the word, they said, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Romans 2:4), and salvation by grace through faith is “the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Repentance leads “to the acknowledging of the truth”. Epígnōsis is full knowledge, a clear and complete recognition, and “the truth”, alḗtheia, is God’s revealed truth, above all the gospel. God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

So teaching and persuasion are necessary, and the change of heart is God’s work. That guards the servant from pride, the thought that skill can convert anyone, and from despair when his efforts bear no visible fruit. He sows the word faithfully, with patience and prayer, and leaves the harvest with God.

“Recover themselves” is ananḗphō, to become sober again, to come back to one’s senses. The picture is of a person waking from a drunken stupor and thinking clearly again after being dazed and deceived. The reflexive “themselves” makes it a personal turning, made possible by God’s grace and the ministry of others.

They recover “out of the snare of the devil”. A snare, pagís, is a trap fastened with a noose or a notch, and figuratively a trick, a stratagem or a temptation. The devil works by hidden traps that catch people unawares and lead them into sin, false doctrine and rebellion against God. Paul speaks of “the wiles of the devil” and of our struggle against spiritual powers (Ephesians 6:11–12).

They “are taken captive by him at his will”. Zōgréō means to take alive, as a soldier takes a prisoner of war, and so to capture. The snare is the trap and captivity is the state that follows. These people act as if by their own free choice while they serve the devil’s purposes, against their own good and against God’s will.

That is why the servant is gentle. The people opposing him are prisoners who need rescue, and God’s gift of repentance, through the meek teaching of his servants, is the way out. God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13), and his people are told, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

Every quality Paul asks of Timothy is found whole in Jesus Christ. He was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The four things Timothy follows meet in him. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is “the author and finisher of our faith”, who “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And he is our peace, who made peace through the cross (Ephesians 2:14–16). He called on his Father with a pure heart, as his prayer in John 17 shows.

He is the true servant of the Lord, who “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). He was meek and lowly, the greatest of teachers, and patient with slow disciples and with his own people who rejected him. He gives a peace that strife cannot touch: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), so the acknowledging of the truth in verse 25 is coming to know him.

He also breaks the devil’s snare. He took our flesh “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14–15). On the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). He was sent “to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind” (Luke 4:18). The recovery of verse 26 is recovery in Christ, into the liberty “wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Galatians 5:1), and as we behold his glory we are changed into the same image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

These verses show us a God who gives. He gives repentance and the knowledge of the truth, and in Christ he gives freedom to people caught alive in a trap they could not see. The servant of the Lord works inside that hope. Because repentance is God’s gift, he can teach without the pride that trusts in clever argument and without the despair that gives up when nothing changes. Because those who oppose the truth are captives, they are people to be won and prayed for, and gentleness, patience and clear teaching are the way to them. The race is shared, too, run “with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart”, and the God who granted the Gentiles repentance unto life is able to bring even a determined opponent to his senses.