Monday, October 1, 2018

2 Timothy 4:9-22 : Little comforts and Great Comfort


As you go through your mental filing list of people that you have deeply loved,  people  that you have had unpleasant partings with, people that you remember from long ago, what goes through your mind?  Paul was in prison in Rome, and as a prisoner he had a lot of time to think about people. This final chapter of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, and indeed  this final correspondence of Paul contains  a  list of people, some whom he remembers fondly and others with great  concern, alarm. 

Paul is always surrounded by people. He knows someone in every town. He is connected.  There are 17  people listed in this ending.

Paul ends this letter to Timothy, pastor in Ephesus, on a very personal and touching note, and with a few requests. Here we find Paul, a man portrayed  with the same human desires and longings and discouragements that you and I   face.  I wanted us to see that this great, revered apostle and contributor to a third of our New Testament  had a very human face. I wanted us to see that he was very much a human being  like you and I, feeling  the need   for human company and comforts and intellectual stimulation. He experienced the joy and pain of human relationships as you and I do. He flourished and suffered because of these relationships. In one sense nothing in life gives more joy than our relationships. But  it is also true to say that  no experience in life can be  harder and more taxing than broken  relationship. But in the end, what counts in all the hardships, is the knowledge that  God, the never changing, ever faithful  heavenly Father,  throughout all his  many trials  stands by  Paul, strengthening him in his spirit and in his work.  

As always, I direct your attention to the text and discover what is there, learning the  lessons that the Holy Spirit intends to teach us today (cf.  2 Tim. 3:16,17)  

1.     Paul longs for  Timothy’s company:  v.9  “Do your best to come to me soon”. In v.21 He says ‘Do your best to come to me before winter’.  Paul needed to see him soon- before winter, before the sailing season in the Mediterranean was over, and bad weather set in (see Acts 27). At the beginning of this letter, in 2 Tim 1:3 he tells Timothy, “I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy”. Among the people that Paul longed to see was this young man, now pastor of the church in Ephesus. Here was a man that filled Paul’s heart with so much joy. Do you have people like that in your life? People to whom you write and say, ‘can’t wait to see you’?   The temptation is to think of Paul as someone that is very aloof. He always helps others, and gives advice to others, but he himself doesn’t need help. Not so.  Paul needs people, and particularly at this time. He wants Timothy to come.  Luke, the doctor, and travelling companion of Paul, the human author of the Gospel and  of the Book of Acts   alone is with him (v. 11), and surprise, surprise,  he is asking  that Timothy  would bring Mark with him, ‘for he is very useful to me  for ministry.’  You will remember that Paul and Mark (i.e. John Mark) had not always been on great terms. In fact, Paul and Barnabas have a sharp disagreement and a separation because of him in Acts 15:39. Paul felt let down because John Mark had deserted them during their first missionary journey in Perga, Pamphylia (Acts 13:13).  On the second missionary journey when Barnabas wanted to take him along, Paul disagreed and they parted company.    But clearly now (and isn’t that great?), relationships have been restored, and Paul says to Timothy, “bring John Mark with you, he is useful!” It is wonderful to see in these closing verses how important people are to Paul. Treasure  your relationships!

2.     Paul is lonely  and disappointed by  some whom he  once worked with  and  who  have either deserted him or have left him otherwise in a lurch, when he needed them: Demas is mentioned in Colossians 4:14 and in Philemon 24, but he has now  fallen in love with the present world (v.10). People  drop out of our lives. Sadly these things do happen. In addition Paul mentions the loss of company of two others, but not in any way like Demas. Crescens (not named elsewhere) has gone to Galatia (v.10). Titus,who was  formerly  on the island of Crete (Titus 1:5)  is now reassigned to  Dalmatia  (in today’s Croatia).  Tychicus has been sent to Ephesus. It is likely that he was   going to stand in for Timothy at Ephesus, once he came to visit Paul. Isn’t it interesting how Paul remains the ‘director of missions’ during his imprisonment?  In vv.14,15 we see some of Paul’s deepest hurts expressed: “Alexander the coppersmith, did  me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.“  He might be the same Alexander that is mention  in 1 Tim. 1:20 and in  Acts 19:33. Whatever he did we cannot say, but it deeply affected Paul, and he needed  to warn others concerning him. Sadly  so, some people  that we rub shoulders with  have become toxic, and from Paul’s perspective it is they who, after having followed the gospel for a while, now become enemies of the gospel  e.g. 1:15 (Phygelus and Hermogenes);  2:17 (Hymeneaus and Philetus);  3:8 (Jannes and Jambres)  

3.     Paul needs creaturely comforts. He needs his cloak which he left with Carpus at Troas (v.13).  He needs warm clothes. You can imagine. He is in prison, and it’s cold.  Paul, even though he has said that he has finished the course and fought the fight  and   run the race, anticipating his heavenly reward,  is aware  of the possibility that he may  yet have to spend another winter in prison. We are immortal until  our work is done.[1]   And so, on a  very practical note, he needs his coat! We have  lived through two Klein Windhoek- Avis (where we live)  winters  by now, and we are very happy to have  warm cloaks and a winter duvet!
"So, Timothy if you come (and please come before winter) pass through Troas and pick up my cloak  which I left with Carpus.”  We live somewhere between acceptance of everything that God allows us to go through and a desire to improve ourselves and our conditions.  Paul was in prison by God’s appointment. He writes to the Philippians from prison, “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel . . . that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or death” (Phil 1:12-20), and yet he can say, Please bring me that cloak.

4.     Paul needs books!  V.13b ”bring the books and above all, the parchments…”   Spurgeon,  in a sermon  on this very text says, “ He is inspired, and yet he wants books.He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books. He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants books. He's had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books. He had been caught up into the third heaven and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, and yet he wants books. He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books and parchments.” What  an important reminder of the fact  that God has given us a book to read. Do you read your Bible regularly? Do you read good books? Reading Christians are generally growing Christians. What were  these books and parchments? In all likelihood  it  would have been a copy of the Greek Old Testament, and perhaps also his ‘notebooks’, the parchments, things which  he might have written (or half written).  Paul, even in prison, facing death  wanted to learn, wanted to be stimulated. Start  reading!

5.      Paul testifies  to  God’s  comforting presence in prison (vv. 16-18)  Notice what he says: “The Lord stood by me” (v. 17). Evidently some preliminary trial has already taken place (v.16)  and some deliverance had  happened. He tells us that like Daniel in Babylon he has been delivered from the lion’s mouth (v.17), and again in v. 18, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed ....”; and then in the closing benediction he says, “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you”. Here is the apostle Paul  in this terrible situation, alone and abandoned by many, but he knows that he  is not alone.  God is there. He is tangibly present. 

     Welsh Pastor, Geoff Thomas,  now retired,   tells the story  of Pastor Sandor of Romania  who was imprisoned in the 1950s. Kept in an overcrowded cell he longed for time to be alone with Jesus, for deeper prayer and an increased spiritual usefulness. And then, for helping a weaker prisoner he was sentenced to a lengthy spell in a below-ground punishment box where he could hardly sit, enduring insufferable heat, no sanitation and minimal food and drink. Initially he was despairing and confused, and then he remembered what he’d been praying for, and realized that Jesus was with his spirit there, that he has been given two weeks of undisturbed fellowship with the Lord. He always afterwards blessed God for that wonderful cell. There he knew this presence, this real, protecting, transforming, faith-enriching, holiness-developing, wisdom-granting, preacher-emboldening presence that would sustain Timothy and enable him to stand alone in Asia Minor and triumph over all these adversaries in the world and in the professing church.

So, what is the Holy Spirit saying to us in this section?  When we  are lonely  we  need friends. Poor relationships affect us and trouble us.  When our body is cold we need clothing. When our mind is unoccupied we need reading matter. We are human. These are legitimate human needs. But when everything is said and done, and nothing has become tangible  for us, God is there, an ever present help in trouble (Psalm 46)

I close with this story about William Tyndale (1494 -1536), that great English Reformer. He was the author of a number of books and of the Tyndale Bible.  There is only one letter that has survived.[2] It was written while Tyndale was a prisoner at Vilvoorde Castle in Belgium, about 10 km’s north of Brussels. There he was being kept in a cold and dingy dungeon.  Let me read it to you: “I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what has been determined concerning me. Therefore, I entreat your Lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here during the winter, you will request the Procurer to be kind enough to send me from my goods, which he has in his possession, a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a perpetual catarrh [inflammation in the nose or throat], which is considerably increased in the cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin; also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings: my overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will be kind enough to send it. I have also, with him, leggings of thicker cloth, for putting on above; he has also warmer caps for wearing at night. I wish also his permission to have a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But above all, I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the Procurer that he would kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study. And in return, may you obtain your dearest wish, provided it is always consistent with the salvation of your soul. But if any other resolutions have been come to concerning me, before the close of the winter, I shall be patient, abiding the will of God to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose spirit, I pray, may ever direct your heart. Amen. William Tyndale
Just as Paul did in 2 Timothy, Tyndale asked for his cloak and for his books. He would be led from the castle and martyred on Friday, October 6, 1536 through strangulation and burning.

THE GREATEST NEED IS FOR THE LORD AND HIS GRACE TO BE WITH US.

Paul's closing  words  from a prison cell are comforting: “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (v.22). 
This is what Timothy must have. 
This is what we must have, actually more than friends, warm clothes and books. 
After all is said and done, we must  have  the comforting presence  and fellowship of  the Lord Jesus with our spirits.



[1] George Whitfield : letters p.1
[2] https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/tyndales-only-surviving-letter/

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