2 Timothy is probably the very last letter that the great apostle Paul ever wrote.

Having walked the Way of Jesus for so long, what final wisdom would he have for a young man who still had far to walk? 

In our day we see the desperate need for Bible teachers in every local church. 

We have seen the terrible devastation brought on the Church by false teachers, self-serving personalities, status-seeking careerists and those who do little more than declare their own religious opinions or home-spun wisdom from the pulpit. 

In this final letter from Paul we see how his greatest concern for the health and growth of the future Church was self-sacrificial Bible teachers who were determined to speak and live only as God has spoken.

2 Timothy is possibly the very last letter that the great apostle Paul ever wrote. We come to the end of the thrilling life of a man who had served Jesus with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. What would be his final instruction to the church? As he got ready to die, what did he want to say in order to build up the expanding multinational Church of Jesus the Messiah? Having walked the Way of Jesus for so long, what final wisdom would he have for a young man who still had far to walk? 

(This letter) may be regarded as the dying counsels of the most eminent of the apostles to one who has just entered on the ministerial life… We feel that, having little time to express his wishes, he will select topics that lie nearest his heart, and that he deems most important. There is no more interesting position in which we can be placed, than when we sit down at such a man’s feet, and listen to his parting counsels. To a young minister of the gospel, therefore, this epistle is invaluable; to any and every Christian, it cannot fail to be a matter of interest to listen to the last words of the great apostle of the Gentiles…
Albert Barnes’ introduction to his commentary on 2 Timothy. 2 See Barnes for a fuller analysis.

In our day we see the desperate need for Bible teachers in every local church. We have seen the terrible devastation brought on the Church by false teachers, self-serving personalities, status-seeking careerists and men who do little more than declare their own religious opinions or home-spun wisdom from the pulpit. In this final letter from Paul we see how his greatest concern for the health and growth of the future Church was self-sacrificial Bible teachers who were determined to speak and live only as God has spoken.  

In the first letter to Timothy Paul instructed Timothy in all the basics of being a faithful minister in a local church. In this second letter he sets two alternatives before Timothy. He could be a barren, compromised, unfaithful minister who would be ashamed at the appearing of Jesus… Or he could be a fruitful and faithful minister who would be received with great joy by Jesus on that final day.  

It is a vital challenge. Having been united to Jesus in His death and resurrection, what kind of life and ministry will we have? How can we fulfil our duty in the way that Paul himself did? If we are saved from hell but live a life of fruitless compromise, how will we face Jesus when He appears? Just what did He save us for? 

Can we trust Him to save us from future Hell if we don’t trust Him now to save us from the selfish, greedy life that comes from Hell? 

It is clear that this letter was written when Paul was a prisoner – see 1:8, 16. Was this during the time of his imprisonment at Caesarea? Was it during his imprisonment at Rome? Was he released from prison in Rome and then subsequently re-arrested? It is our view that this letter was written by Paul during a second imprisonment in Rome and we provide the following reasons for this view.

• 1. In Paul’s letters to the Philippians and Philemon he was confident of being released – Philippians. 2:24; Philemon verse 22. Here he expected to be executed – 2 Timothy 4:6. 

• 2. In chapter 4:16 he refers to an earlier trial. “The most natural interpretation is to suppose that he had one hearing, and had been discharged, and that the imprisonment of which he speaks in this epistle was a second one.” This is also implied in 4:17 – “I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.” 

• 3. In 4:20 he seems to speak of a recent journey he made, leaving Erastus at Corinth and Trophimus at Troas. It is clear from Acts 26- 27 that he did not stop at either Corinth or Troas on the way to his first imprisonment in Rome. It was 5 years before his first journey to Rome that he had been at Corinth, and would he really need to tell Timothy about Erastus and Trophimus after such a long interval? 

• 4. In 2 Timothy 4:13 Paul requests a cloak, books and parchments from Troas. This seems to indicate that he had recently been there and had left them in his unexpected departure. Again, we would have to ask, if he was still in his initial imprisonment, did he not need these things in the intervening five years? He had spent two years in Caesarea and could easily have sent for these things. 

• 5. In the letters from his first imprisonment he speaks of certain people being with him, but in this letter they are spoken of as absent. In Colossians 1:1 Timothy was with him. In Colossians 4:10 Mark was with him. Now Paul asks for both Timothy and Mark to come to him (2 Timothy 4:10). In Colossians 4:14 Demas was with him, but now (2 Timothy 4:10) Demas has betrayed the gospel and gone to Thessalonica. These facts seem to indicate a change in circumstances since the earlier prison letters. 

So, if Paul was in Rome in a second imprisonment , where was Timothy? It seems clear that he was Ephesus. In 2 Timothy 4:19 Paul asks him to greet the household of Onesiphorus, and 1:18 indicates he was an Ephesian. In 4:13 Paul wants Timothy to visit Troas on the way to Rome, and 2 Cor. 2:12 & Acts 20:5 seem to indicate that Troas lay between Rome and Ephesus. Paul warns Timothy about Alexander (2 Timothy 4:14), and we know Alexander was an Ephesian (1 Timothy 1:20; Acts 19:33). Finally, in 2 Timothy 4:9 he asks Timothy to come, then adds (verse 12) that he had sent Tychicus to Ephesus. In Titus 3:12 we see that Paul did not like to leave a place without a leader, so it helps us to see that Tychicus was replacing Timothy.