Introduction

All right, I guess we're not handing out the questions that I have, so I'll just have to bring you those questions. Yeah, we got them. No, that's next week. No, that's next week. That's next week. So what I thought, for some of the new who weren't in our study of 1 Timothy, that I'd kind of go over a little background.

Because this is the second letter, obviously, 2 Timothy, that Paul writes to Timothy. The letters to Timothy and Titus are called the pastoral letters. These were to give them direction on how to run the body, the local body, in their respective areas. Titus was at Crete and Timothy is at Ephesus, an Asian minor. So Titus, as we went through Titus, I was, have you ever heard the term, you're a Cretan? That's kind of an older-fashioned term, but Cretans were known for being notoriously liars and cheats and terrible people. So that's where that, what we use as your Cretan, was evidently from the fact that Cretans were terrible people. So Titus had that one. Timothy is at Ephesus now.

In the first epistle to Timothy, Paul was very focused on maintaining the purity of Paul's doctrines. He goes to great lengths over the whole letter, basically saying about keeping pure to the word. And don't deviate, don't even give an ear to anything that is contrary to what Paul had taught Timothy. So he's very... I guess, aggressive in the fact that he's protecting the purity of the word and not give in to any other teaching. So he's very, very directive about that.

He gives direction on how the body was to conduct itself in prayer and worship. He gave Timothy instructions on qualifications for elders and deacons. He also gave directions on church procedures for handling widows, for the relationship between masters and slaves, and how to handle money in a godly manner. And so he had lots of practical applications for Timothy, as Timothy was, again, leading the church in Ephesus in Asia Minor.

And so he's given him all these directions, and it's with the basis of being stay true to the word. Stay true. Do not deviate. Don't even give ear to anything else that you hear or people bring up. And so he's very I guess dogmatic about it, that you stay pure to this word.

But also, it's kind of interesting that that paul sees him as as his beloved child and and it's it's that kind of relationship it's not just a uh... you know kind of the director of churches giving this kind of impersonal impersonal uh... direction to him he's very personal he he refers to him as his beloved son we'll see uh... in the final words uh... well actually getting back to a little bit of uh... his protection of the gospel. The last, in 1 Timothy 6, 20 and 21, he says, O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter, and opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you. Again, his final word in the first letter is to say, guard the word. with all that you can, guard your word. So, 1st Timothy was written from Paul's imprisonment in Rome around 60 AD. And 2nd Timothy was written from Rome around 66 AD. So this is when he was in prison in Rome.

And the second where he's in very poor conditions. I think the first time he was there, he was in very rented quarters and he was able to have people come and do everything. And I guess by tradition, he was released and then re-arrested. And when he was re-arrested, he was put in basically very horrible conditions, chained to a guard and dungeon. And it was terrible condition, so a lot changed between his first imprisonment and his second imprisonment.

So, when he wrote Second Timothy, he realized he was about at the end of the road, that he was going to die soon. He knew that. And so, he's writing this letter to Timothy, knowing that he's going to pass away fairly soon. And so this is a very, very personal letter to Timothy. Again, it's not just a generic thing to throw out there. This is very personal to him. So the epistle is written to his beloved and faithful child in the Lord.

That was from 1 Corinthians 4.17. And now his beloved son, which we see in verse 1. Tradition has it that Paul was martyred by beheading on the Ostian Way, west of Rome in 67 AD. So this was written in 66 AD. He was martyred in 67. So he knew he was going to die.

So again, very personal letter to Timothy. So, that's kind of the history. We're now going to get into his second letter, and again, the very personal aspects we'll see as we go through 2 Timothy. We're going to start with the first two verses of 2 Timothy.

And it goes, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, Mike had a bunch of questions coming up, which you don't have. So, what does the name Paul mean? First of all, what was he known by first? Saul. Saul, okay. So, where did we first hear of Saul?

Stoning of Stephen. Stoning of Stephen. In Acts 7, 58. And this is when they'd gone out and they're stoning Stephen. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him, Stephen. And the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So Saul is in hearty agreement with the stoning of Stephen. He's obviously, he's very steeped in the Jewish law, traditions, and he's right there giving hearty approval to the stoning of Stephen.

That's the start of Paul, and then we all know his conversion on the road to Damascus. And so, he changed completely. He's now, which we'll get into a little bit more, he's now the Apostle to the Gentiles, which is, you know, when you think about where Paul comes from, Saul came from, and now he's the Apostle to the Gentiles. Huge change, huge change. He was stoning, or not stoning, well, he was stoning at Stephen, but he was going all around Jerusalem to begin with, and then the outer communities. Obviously, he was on the road to Damascus to go and hunt down Christians at this time. So, Paul has gone a huge conversion we'll see through his life.

But, the name of Paul versus Saul. The name Paul is a transcript from the Latin Paulus, meaning little. Didn't know that. It was a favorite name by the Cilicians, and the nearest approach in sound to the Hebrew, Saul. So that's a Latin translation of the Hebrew name for Saul, closest one, so that's where he gets Paul. According to some, both names were born by him during his childhood.

Paulus being the one by which he was known among the Gentiles, in which he was subsequently assumed to the exclusion of the other, which meant that he went by Paul once he was the apostle to the Gentiles. He went only by Paul at that point. So, again, it's to indicate that he'd switched from Saul being more Hebrew based, Jewish based, to now he's going to Paul, which is the more Gentile accepted name.

So now he now goes by that because that It's now his manner of approach to spreading the Gospel is to the Gentiles. So he's taking that more Gentile name now. You wondered why did he go from Saul to Paul? Well, he's now the Apostle of the Gentile. Paul is his more Gentile name.

So again, I said, what a far cry from when he was approving Stephen's stoning and his persecution of Christians while adhering to strict Jewish laws. He was Saul. Now he's moved on. He's had the conversion. Now he's Paul. He's working and spreading the gospel to the Gentiles. So again, that's why we switch. We see a name change from Saul to Paul. There's a hint in the name that the Apostle was of diminutive stature. That's why Paul being translated little.

So, in an expression in 2 Corinthians 10.1, which follows the epistle from Paul, he says, who in presence am base among you. So he's saying he's base or minor or small. The word base being tapinos, which among the Greeks meant that which is groveling, slavish, mean-spirited, and another in the 10th verse, his bodily presence is weak. speaks of Paul's physique as being, in the estimation of the athletically minded Greeks, infirm, feeble, lacking manliness and dignity. But as in the case of other servants of God, there was a great heart and a frail body.

So I didn't realize that he was a diminutive man. You know, you see him before he's converted. What's he doing? He's going out after everybody. He's like a bulldog. But I guess he's a small bulldog. He's a diminutive man. But he's very aggressive. Again, small in stature, but great in, initially, persecution. And then secondly, in being the apostle to the Gentiles.

So, I was thinking of something else when I did this. Can you think of anybody else in the New Testament, authors who may have been perceived as weak, but was very strong? I don't know if this is just because I saw it in some commentary or something when I was going through. Is there anybody else who kind of was thought to be maybe weak or small and but wasn't it was not anything and maybe it's just me i just came up with it can you think of anybody or any of the other authors who may have been new testament or new testament maybe it's just because i saw a reference to this once and then i went back and i found where it contradicts it can you think of anybody else see mine is john john at some commentary said that he was he was uh... Not a great speaker, didn't project like a guy who's going out there and slaying the world. And so I was like, I thought, where did they get that?

Mark 3.17, so it contradicts what I saw about him being weak.

In Mark 3.17 it states, And he appointed twelve, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James.

To them he gave the name Boanerges, which means sons of thunder. So, whoever came up with John being diminutive, they called him the Sons of Thunder. Now, that's pretty cool if you're out in the Gospel, you're the Sons of Thunder. So, that was just the other that Paul being supposedly diminutive, I thought John was also in the same category. He was named one of the sons of thunder.

So anyway, how does Paul designate himself and what does it mean in the first verse? What does he call himself? Pretty easy. Apostle. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. So, why would Paul start off the letter calling himself an apostle of Christ?

Why would he do that? To establish his identity. Identity or his authority. Yeah, he starts off with give an official tone to this letter. It's not just, you know, a friend of Timothy writing him and saying, you know, I'm giving you this advice. He's saying, I as an apostle of Christ am giving you this letter with all this instruction. So it's setting an official tone to the letter that's saying the authority by which I'm going to present all this information is because I'm an apostle of Christ. So it's to give an official tone, yeah. Apostle also means that somebody appointed you to be an ambassador or an apostle. You have, it's like right now in the news, there's envoys from the United States government going all over the place. Well, those guys are apostles. They're envoys. They're representatives. Ambassadors. And they have the authority of the government. So yeah, how did Paul understand his appointment as an apostle? How did he understand this appointment?

By God's will. By God's will. By the will of God. He states it. That an apostle of Christ uses it by the will of God. So he's stating again that not only his authority of being an apostle, which we'll get into a little bit more on what it means, but it's by the will of God. This is not only that he meets criteria for what an apostle is, but it's by the will of God. So he's, again, in the beginning of the letter is establishing his authority that's going to give him the authority to give him what's going to come afterwards, all this advice that he's going to give him to run the church at Ephesus. So this is, again, an apostle by the will of God.

So it's just establishing his authority to give the advice that he's going to give in this letter. So, again, and maybe he's already answered, but what is your definition of an apostle? I always thought that it's another That's kind of the procedural part. What constitutes an apostle? Not only that he's an ambassador and all this. What was it?

Stunned faces out there. He's personally appointed by Jesus Christ. And personally appointed, but he had to be a witness. He had to know him. He had to be a witness to it. An apostle is one who witnesses Christ and what he did. He had to be associated with him, to personally witness this.

That was an apostle. Because there were plenty of disciples, but what constitutes an apostle? So, I mean, disciples, thousands, thousands of disciples, but there are there are certain ones that are called apostles. And these are the ones that had the personal relationship and saw and witnessed all that he did.

So Paul wasn't Paul was later on the road to Damascus. All the rest of the apostles were lived with him, walked with him, learned from him, witnessed all of his miracles, and all the different things. Those were the twelve apostles. And then you get Paul, later, on the road to Damascus.

He sees Christ in the vision, in the blindness that he saw. So that's where he sees Christ after the resurrection when he's on the road to Damascus. So again, he has a different time when he sees Christ than the other apostles. But they're all witnesses of his miracles and of Christ.

Now, I also think with Paul, I can't remember how long it was, but he spent actually time with the Lord in the Arabian desert for three years. So again, Paul has a very distinct difference, I think, than the other apostles, that he witnessed him after the resurrection. And so, he's been glorified at that point, and now he's meeting him on the road, and then he spends three years with him in the Arabian Desert. So, from the apostleship, I think Paul has a unique position, in that he has now been one who has witnessed Christ risen, glorified, and met him on the road, and then spent three years with him. Can you imagine spending three years with the Lord?

It's no doubt why Paul's epistles are so powerful, is that he spent personal time with the Lord, learning. and telling Paul, I'm sure, how to teach this, and to give him strength, and that you're going to go into lion's den. You're going to be in with Jews that are going to hate you, Gentiles who are going to run you out of town. There are going to be all this stuff. But he gave him direction for three years. Can you imagine a three-year Bible study with the Lord?

I mean, the amount of knowledge and the personal aspect of that is just mind-blowing to me. And the knowledge that was transmitted to him was entirely new. It wasn't Jewish anymore. It had to do with church. And so, what he was learning was this whole brand new revelation about the body of Christ and the church and all that. And that's his ministry centered and focused. All the things that we, the terms we use, identification, position, condition, glorification, all that he learned. Not that the other apostles didn't learn it along the way, but they weren't the spearheads, which sent him And being sent to the Gentiles, he didn't have to undo Jewish to teach the Gentiles about the body of Christ. He could start right with that.

You know, to think about that, I think of, you know, I know, like, Ingrid's brother was a missionary, and I know, like, in South America and things, where you go, there's a lot of Catholicism. It's almost harder to witness to Catholics who are steeped in all the Catholic tradition than to find somebody who is not in the Catholic Church, who has not been steeped in that religion. You don't have to go to South America, it's in Denver. Well, I'm just saying there's a lot more, I think, Catholicism and great things. And so it is, it's a lot easier to start off with a Gentile than somebody who is steeped in Jewish or Catholicism or anything like that. If you're not, you're a clean slate and you can get moved quickly.

So, and the other thing I think with Paul too, is this, you know, the three years, can you imagine what he, how Paul is, his mind is being blown. Because he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, steeped in the law, I mean, he wanted the Christians dead. And now here's Christ, one on one with him, telling him, it's all new, it's all different. And so Paul is, again, an apostle to the Gentiles.

And just 100%, you know, I think about this, why did God do that? It's the perfect example. Somebody who you never would think would be a Christian, and he uses that person. Because that's the most powerful witness you can have, I think. Is somebody who is so far to this side, and he understands. Now, you know, what it is to be in Christ. And so I think, you know, God has perfect plans, but it was perfect. Paul was the perfect person to do this.

But again, the mind blowing part of him trying to learn for three years, everything that he's now going to share with us, as we've said several times, you wouldn't know anything about us being in Christ, anything about, you know, the identification, none of that would be without Paul's epistles.

And so, again, the importance of Paul in this is tremendous in being an apostle, an apostle to the Gentiles, and, well, to everyone, but he was called out to be the apostle to the Gentiles. So, we can get into some of the, you know, the definition of an apostle, there's lots of things Mike has kind of touched on some, the apostolos, to send one off on a commission to do something as one's personal representative with credentials furnished. So, the word he's using in the first century is an envoy or an ambassador. Paul thought of himself as an official ambassador of Christ Jesus. Expositors say the use of this official title, Apostle, is an indication that the pastoral epistles were not merely private letters, but were intended to be read to the churches committed to the charge of Timothy and Titus, respectively.

So, again, we'll see that even though it was a personal letter, this was to be brought out. That all this instruction wasn't just a personal letter to Timothy, but it was to be brought out to here for Timothy Ephesus, an Asian minor. So again, where was Paul writing this from? I gave it away. He was in a prison cell when he was doing this, knowing that he was going to die, turns out, within a year of writing this letter. So, he's now in prison in Rome for the last time, making 2 Timothy his swan song.

He's now pushing 70 years of age, and his message is very unpopular due to the emperor worship encouraged by Nero. Nero was a narcissist, is that the term? It's all about me. So it was, he's the emperor, he's the sole focus. If you take anything off of his being the emperor, you're in trouble. So that's where Paul's at, and that's why the martyrdom comes, is that at this point, Nero is, it's all about me. If you contradict me, you're gone. So he knows his time is coming to an end.

And he was all very much alone, because in 2 Timothy 4.11, we'll see, only Luke is with me at this point. So again, in the first prison sentence, he had people coming in and out, supplying his needs, fellowshipping, writing, doing everything. And the second one, he's chained to a guard in a cold, dark dungeon. And it says, only Luke is with me.

So he doesn't have the people, so he's getting at the end of his rope now. His first defense in Roman court, he tells us, no one supported me, but even that was not a complaint. He reminds, the Lord stood with me. So after he says, only Timothy is with me, he says in 2 Timothy 4, 16 and 17, the Lord stood with me. So even though he's alone without humans being with him and supporting him, he realizes that the Lord is with him and understands that.

And, you know, as we talked about the three years in Arabia, he knows the Lord. I mean, I just understand how much you, in those three years, how much that relationship affected him through his life. If he was being chained, or he was being stoned, or he was being run out of town, he knew the Lord was with him. He knew that. And he's saying this at the end, the Lord is with me. knowing that he's going to be face-to-face with the Lord in a very short period of time.

So, again, it's just an incredible time for Paul at this time to write this letter. And we'll see as we go through the letter, again, they'll be very personal things, but it's also to be shared to the Church at Ephesus Asia Minor and ultimately for us. That Paul calls attention to his apostleship shows that this letter is not entirely personal, but carries full authority. It's not written for Timothy alone, but for all servants of Christ in the future.

So, again, Paul's saying, I speak by my authority as an apostle. So, what was Paul's message? We see it in the first passage here Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and what what was it according to According to what According to proclaim the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, so Paul preached according to what? The promise of life in Christ Jesus. What does that mean? It means salvation. Yeah? But to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. So, is that So he could live longer? It's an eternal thing. It's eternal. It's on the other side of the cloud. What cloud is that? The other side of what? The cloud. What cloud? That's what I'm asking. I don't know what cloud. I think that's in drawings.

Go ahead. Eternal life, it's a quality of life. I mean, it's duration as well, but it's kind of life. And it's life in Christ Jesus. And a promise concerning eternal life has been made by God, and the apostles were chosen by Him to proclaim this message. All spiritual life comes from Christ, and its nature is defined by the promises of the Word of God. So, He's promising life in Christ Jesus. So he's saying this is a promise. With belief, faith in the finished work of Christ, you have life in Christ. It's a promise.

Does God break his promises? If you think of death being a separation, this life is opposite of that. I should explain that cloud thing. Most knew him on this side of the cloud, but after the resurrection... What is the cloud? The earth. Paul knew him after the cloud, after he was resurrected in glory. Paul knew him after he was resurrected in his glorified state. So yeah, Paul knew him in that sense.

But Paul, an apostle, called by the will of God, so he knows God has told him this. And in those three years, he told him about that. And he told him, you're going to be the apostles of the Gentiles. But according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus. So Paul knew, I think from day one, with his time with Christ, he had life in Christ Jesus. Christ told him that. Because we see that in all of his epistles. The promise of life in Christ Jesus, yeah.

I think that's a really important point because if you go back to the encounter between the Lord Jesus and Nicodemus, what the Lord Jesus promised Nicodemus was if you're born again, you'll get to enter the kingdom of God. That's not the same thing. No, it's not. What Paul is saying, there is, you don't have life. But Christ has promised eternal life in him, and that's the promise. And God never goes back on His promise. Right, that's what I was trying to get at. When did God ever break a promise or a covenant? Still hasn't. Still hasn't. Will not. The nation of Israel shows that. Yeah, I'm always amazed. People wonder, how does Israel survive? Well, they've got somebody on their back, you know, that kind of watches over them, you know, as a nation.

But no, it's the promise of life in Christ Jesus. Is that comforting to you? Do you have that same promise? Amen. That's the thing. We have the same security in the life in Christ Jesus. We have the promise through what Paul has revealed in our identification with him, our death, burial and resurrection with Christ. We have the promise of life in Christ Jesus. We have that same promise that Paul has.

It's the basic John 3.16 promise.

Whosoever believes will have. That's a promise. Yeah. Whosoever. And again, that same promise as I was reading this, that promise is to me. That promise is to you. Believing in the finished work of Christ on the cross and understanding that, that promise is the same. Life in Christ Jesus.

Do we understand that? I mean, sometimes I just get blown away by that. Yeah. I think that back in John 17, that he's talking about eternal life. And eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. So you think about, well, I have human life. I have soulish life. You know, my cat's got cat life. That means you're moving around and you're animated. But what he's promising here is my life. That the resurrected, glorified Christ will share his life with you. And in that life comes this intimacy with the Father and the Son.

And then I go to Colossians 3.3. We're hid in Christ, in God.

Is that any better position than that? And we have a new name. When Adam was created, it was breathed into him the breath of life. This is a different life. We are placed in Christ's life. Right. And that's when you read this, the promise of life in Christ Jesus. It's not, you know, next to him. It's not kind of in the same neighborhood. It's none of that. The promise of life in Christ Jesus.

Again, this is Paul after, remember this is his final epistle. So he's laid out all this stuff about identification, he's Romans, all the different things about body life. But his final thing is this, in his final letter, in this intimate letter to Timothy. is that he's telling by the promise of life in Christ Jesus. He sees the end coming, and he realizes that it's the promise of life in Christ Jesus. That's what he's focused on. He's had a whole life of being stoned, shipwrecked, whatever, and now he's telling Timothy by the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

That's all of us can take that same solace. We all, with unveiled face, beholding his inner mirror, and the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image. My thought there was that when he breathed into Adam the breath of lives, he communicated his life to Adam. What he's doing now is he's taking the believer and putting him in the source of life who is the Lord Jesus.

And what does that do? Eventually that conforms us to what? His image. Which is, again, a mind-blowing thing. He's conforming us to the image of Christ by the promise of life in Him and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's a different breath of life. That was physical life.

This is now spiritual life, which is eternal. so uh... this is kind of a weird one mike had this in his notes and i hadn't realized this but it was kind of a technical we can get into it maybe next time verse one is christ jesus is a better use than jesus christ the order of which you say christ jesus or jesus christ there's evidently something that uh... uh... that the way paul says it is and and some translations do it uh... the best except the order of names reverse christ jesus not jesus christ so it's a specific order we get into it next week or something that paul has a very specific i didn't know that that there is a way of the reason why he he does that so and i i don't know was it do you want to talk about The word of Jesus, or using Jesus versus, didn't you have, somebody had that in one of their, one of the messages, I think.

Do you remember that? using Jesus versus Christ or something? Using Jesus without the Christ. Without the Christ, yeah. Jesus is more just like a name. Is that right? I can't remember what it was. Yeah, Christ is the title. Christ is the title, but yeah, the name is, yeah. Anyway, so I don't know if we want to finish up some more next week or we'll get started on Lesson 2. But that was kind of an introduction. Any questions, thoughts? I know it's kind of a quick summary of what went on. All right, let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you again just for your use of Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles and ultimately to the world. Just amazed at the intimacy that you had with Paul, the Lord Jesus had with Paul for three years just explaining all this and how that must have been just so... just mind-boggling for Paul to understand, but he did understand it and he preached it for his entire life up until the time he was martyred. He held true to your word and spread the word and gives us as believers, the path, the death, burial, and resurrection, our identification and co-crucifixion with Him, and just all of body life is brought out by the epistles from Paul. We thank you for his life and his ability to bring forth what he learned from the Lord during his time in Arabia with him.

Father, we again just thank you that the position that we do have is in Christ and what that means. And the life that we have now is a life in Christ. And Father, we just are so thankful for that and what that means to us. And the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which gives us that life and again just works through us to conform us to the image of Christ. So Father, we thank you again for this book. We thank you for the Bible in general, just for the guidance we have in this world. And Father, we just pray for Miles as he gives the message in the next meeting, and just prepare our hearts to receive it. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.