Bring the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus when you come, and the books, especially the parchments.
Parallel Translations
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Bring the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus when you come, and the books, especially the parchments.
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The cloke that I lefte at Troada with Carpus when thou commest brynge with the and the bokes but specially the partchemet.
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The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou commest, bring with thee, and the bookes, but specially the parchments.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to 2 Timothy 4:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 16:8 Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
- Acts 16:11 Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapolis;
- 1 Corinthians 4:11 Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
- 2 Corinthians 11:27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.
- Acts 20:5-12 But these had gone ahead, and were waiting for us at Troas. We sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we stayed seven days. On the first day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and continued his speech until midnight. There were many lights in the upper room where we were gathered together. A certain young man named Eutychus sat in the window, weighed down with deep sleep. As Paul spoke still longer, being weighed down by his sleep, he fell down from the third floor and was taken up dead. Paul went down and fell upon him, and embracing him said, “Don’t be troubled, for his life is in him.” When he had gone up, and had broken bread and eaten, and had talked with them a long while, even until break of day, he departed. They brought the boy in alive, and were greatly comforted.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Bring the cloak which I left at Troas As…
Bring the cloak which I left at Troas As to the meaning of the word φελόνη, commentators are not agreed; for some think that it is a chest or box for containing books, and others that it is a garment used by travelers, and fitted for defending against cold and rain. Whether the one interpretation or the other be adopted, how comes it that Paul should give orders to have either a garment or a chest brought to him from a place so distant, as if there were not workmen, or as if there were not abundance both of cloth and timber? If it be said, that it was a chest filled with books, or manuscripts, or epistles, the difficulty will be solved; for such materials could not have been procured at any price. But, because many will not admit the conjecture, I willingly translate it by the word cloak. Nor is there any absurdity in saying that Paul desired to have it brought from so great a distance, because that garment, through long use, would be more comfortable for him, and he wished to avoid expense.
Yet (to own the truth) I give the preference to the former interpretation; more especially because Paul immediately afterwards mentions books and parchments. It is evident from this, that the Apostle had not given over reading, though he was already preparing for death. Where are those who think that they have made so great progress that they do not need any more exercise? Which of them will dare to compare himself with Paul? Still more does this expression refute the madness of those men who — despising books, and condemning all reading — boast of nothing but their own ἐνθουσιασμοὺς divine inspirations. But let us know that this passage gives to all believers a recommendation of constant reading, that they may profit by it.
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Here some one will ask, “What does Paul mean by asking for a robe or cloak, if he perceived that his death was at hand?” This difficulty also induces me to interpret the word as denoting a chest, though there might have been some use of the “cloak” which is unknown in the present day; and therefore I give myself little trouble about these matters.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 13 The cloke that I left at Troas with…
13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.
Ver. 13. The cloak that I left] O supellectilem Apostolicam! (Eras. in loc.) Oh, what a small deal of household stuff had this great apostle, saith Erasmus; a cloak to keep off the rain, and a few books and writings. Tota etiam supellex mea est chartacea, saith he in another place: All my stock is in books. (Eras. in Farrag. Epistol.) And of judicious Calvin it is reported, that all the goods that he left behind him, his library being sold very dear, came scarcely to 300 florins, that is, about 90 pounds of our money. "Seekest thou great things for thyself?" Jer 45:5.
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But especially the parchments] Notebooks of his own making or collecting: these are highly prized by students. Julius Caesar, being forced to swim for his life, held his Commentaries in one hand above water, and swam to land with the other, {a} And what a sweet providence of God was that, that when Heidelberg was sacked and ransacked by the Spaniards, Ursin’s Catechism, enlarged by Pareus, but not yet published, was taken among other books for pillage, and by him dropped in the streets, but taken up by a young student, and afterwards printed by Philip Pareus, to the great benefit of all good people!
{a} Maior fuit cura Caesari libellorum quam purpurae.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Troas was a city in Asia, where we find…
Troas was a city in Asia, where we find Paul more than once, Act 16:8; 20:5; he preached Christ there, 2Co 2:12. There Paul left an upper garment with one Carpus, which probably (having no great wardrobe) he might want, being a prisoner. And the books, but especially the parchments; interpreters idly busy themselves in inquiring after what they can never find out, what these books were, or what was written in these parchments.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain St. Paul having desired Timothy’s company at Rome, requests…
St. Paul having desired Timothy’s company at Rome, requests him to bring with him such things as he wanted, and stood in present need of.
1. His cloak: probably a garment which in the winter season he might want the warmth and benefit of, especially being in a cold prison. So long as we are upon earth, a prudential care mnust be taken to preserve our health; when winter approached, St. Paul sent for his winter garment to keep him warm. The body is the soul’s organ or instrument by which it acts; therefore we must do what in us lieth to keep it in tune for the service of the soul.
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2. His books; probably the book of the Old Testament; certainly no profane books; he had no leisure for, no liking to, any such.
3. But especially the parchments; these are thought to be note-books of his own collecting, in which he had written several things for the help of his memory, and the benefit of the church.
Behold here, 1. An eminent pattern of pious studiousness in St. Paul. Here was an aged man, an aged minister, that had already read much, a prisoner; no very proper place for study, were prisons then filled with such brutes as generally now; nay, a dying prisoner, one that looked for death and beheading every day; yet aged Paul, dying Paul, cannot live without his books; he must still be reading, learning, studying the scriptures especially, which are such a vast deep, as the line of an inspired apostle could not fathom. Behold, I say, a pattern for such ministers as think they know enough, they have studied enough, and are too old to learn; so was not our apostle, when within a few months of his death.
2. Behold here an eminent pattern of pious humiltiy in Timothy, if bishop of Ephesus now, as some affirm, if only a minister of a particular church as others affirm; yet was he undoubtedly a very humble person, otherwise, St. Paul had not desired, and Timothy had certainly disdained to carry this luggage with him to Rome. Pride would have stooped to nothing of this, but thrown all to the dunghill; whereas true humility disposes a man, especially a minister of Christ, to become all things to all men.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Of whom be thou ware also,.... For he was…
Of whom be thou ware also,.... For he was now at Ephesus; and since he was such a malicious, ill natured, and troublesome person, as well as a blasphemer, an heretic, and had been delivered up to Satan, it was very advisable to shun his company, and have no conversation with him, and be upon the guard against him, that he might have no opportunity of doing hurt to him, or to the church at Ephesus:
for he hath greatly withstood our words: or doctrines; the truths of the Gospel preached by Paul and Timothy, which he opposed himself to, and resisted with all his might, and endeavoured to confute and overthrow; and wherein he was deficient in argument, he made up with railing and blasphemy; and this was the true reason of the apostle's imprecations on him, and why he would have Timothy beware of him, and avoid him, and not the personal injury he had done him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The cloak - Either the toga, which belonged to…
The cloak - Either the toga, which belonged to him as a Roman citizen, or an upper garment, which might be needful as winter came on. Which I left at Troas with Carpus - Who was probably his host there. Especially the parchments - The books written on parchment.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. The cloak that I left at Troas]…
Verse 13. The cloak that I left at Troas] τον φελονην is by several translated bag or portmanteau; and it is most likely that it was something of this kind, in which he might carry his clothes, books, and travelling necessaries. What the books were we cannot tell, it is most likely they were his own writings; and as to the parchments, they were probably the Jewish Scriptures and a copy of the Septuagint. These he must have had at hand at all times. The books and parchments now sent for could not be for the apostle's own use, as he was now on the eve of his martyrdom. He had probably intended to bequeath them to the faithful, that they might be preserved for the use of the Church.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Ti 4:13. The cloak — Perhaps the toga which…
2Ti 4:13. The cloak — Perhaps the toga which belonged to him as a Roman citizen, or an upper garment, which might be needful as winter came on. The word φαιλονη, however, so rendered, also signifies a bag, in which sense the Syriac translator understood it, paraphrasing the expression, a bag containing books; or a kind of portmanteau, the contents of which might be more important than the thing itself. Which I left at Troas with Carpus — Who was probably his host there; when thou comest bring with thee, and the books, especially the parchments — What the books here referred to were, commentators nave not attempted to conjecture: but Dr. Benson fancies the parchments were the letters which he received from the churches, and the autographs of his own letters to the churches. For that he employed persons to transcribe his letters is probable from Rom 16:22, where the name of the amanuensis of that epistle is inserted. In those fair copies the apostle wrote the salutations with his own hand, (1Co 16:21; Gal 6:11; Col 4:18; 2Th 3:17,) and thereby authenticated them as his letters.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The cloak that I left at Troas - On…
The cloak that I left at Troas - On the situation of Troas, see the notes on Act 16:8. It was not on the most direct route from Ephesus to Rome, but was a route frequently taken. See also the introduction, section 2. In regard to what the “cloak” here mentioned was, there has been considerable difference of opinion. The Greek word used (φελόνης phelonēs, - variously written φαιλόνης phailonēs, φελόνης phelonēs, and φελώνης phelōnēs), occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is supposed to be used for a similar Greek word (φαινόλης phainolēs) to denote a cloak, or great-coat, with a hood, used chiefly on journeys, or in the army: Latin, “penula.” It is described by Eschenberg (Man. Class. Lit., p. 209) as a “cloak without sleeves, for cold or rainy weather.” See the uses of it in the quotations made by Wetstein, in loc.
Others, however, have supposed that the word means a traveling-case for books, etc. So Hesychius understands it. Bloomfield endeavors to unite the two opinions by suggesting that it may mean a “cloak-bag,” and that he had left his books and parchments in it. It is impossible to settle the precise meaning of the word here, and it is not material. The common opinion that it was a wrapper or traveling-cloak, is the most probable; and such a garment would not be undesirable for a prisoner. It should be remembered, also, that winter was approaching 2Ti 4:21, and such a cloak would be particularly needed. He had probably passed through Troas in summer, and, not needing the cloak, and not choosing to encumber himself with it, had left it at the house of a friend. On the meaning of the word, see Wetstein, Robinson, Lex., and Schleusner, Lexicon. Compare, also, Suic. Thes ii. 1422. The doubt in regard to what is here meant, is as old as Chrysostom. He says (Homily x. on this Epistle), that the word φελόνην phelonēn denotes a garment - τὸ ἱματίον to himation. But some understood by it a capsula, or bag - γλωσσόκομον glōssokomon,” (compare the notes on Joh 12:6), “in which books, etc. were carried.”
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With Carpus - Carpus is not elsewhere mentioned. He was evidently a friend of the apostle, and it would seem probable that Paul had made his house his home when he was in Troas.
And the books - It is impossible to determine what books are meant here. They may have been portions of the Old Testament, or classic writings, or books written by other Christians, or by himself. It is worthy of remark that even Paul did not travel without books, and that he found them in some way necessary for the work of the ministry.
Especially the parchments - The word here used (μεμβράνας membranas, whence our word “membrane”), occurs only in this place in the New Testament, and means skin, membrane, or parchment. Dressed skins were among the earliest materials for writing, and were in common use before the art of making paper from rags was discovered. These “parchments” seem to have been something different from “books,” and probably refer to some of his own writings. They may have contained notes, memorandums, journals, or unfinished letters. It is, of course, impossible now to determine what they were. Benson supposes they were letters which he had received from the churches; Macknight, that they were the originals of the letters which he had written; Dr. Bull, that they were a kind of common-place book, in which he inserted hints and extracts of the most remarkable passages in the authors which he read. All this, however, is mere conjecture.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The cloak [7] which I left at Troas. It…
The cloak [7] which I left at Troas. It is expounded a cloak by St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, &c. Others think he may mean some coffer, or trunk, in which were his books and some things that he valued. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Penulam, Greek: phelonen, some manuscripts Greek: phailonen, and Greek: phailonen. St. John Chrysostom, (Greek: om. 1. p. 375.) Greek: entautha ton imation legei; though he takes notice, that some understood Greek: glossokomon, entha ta biblia.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain cloak . . . I left--probably obliged to leave…
cloak . . . I left--probably obliged to leave it in a hurried departure from Troas.
Carpus--a faithful friend to have been entrusted with so precious deposits. The mention of his "cloak," so far from being unworthy of inspiration, is one of those graphic touches which sheds a flood of light on the last scene of Paul's life, on the confines of two worlds; in this wanting a cloak to cover him from the winter cold, in that covered with the righteousness of saints, "clothed upon with his house from heaven" [GAUSSEN]. So the inner vesture and outer garment of Jesus, Paul's master, are suggestive of most instructive thought (Joh 19:2).
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books--He was anxious respecting these that he might transmit them to the faithful, so that they might have the teaching of his writings when he should be gone.
especially the parchments--containing perhaps some of his inspired Epistles themselves.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 13. The cloak—The Greek term φελονην seems to have…
13. The cloak—The Greek term φελονην seems to have been a form of the Latin word paenula, signifying an overcoat, or over wrapper. Cicero argues that Milo could not have come on to the ground for the purpose of murdering Clodius, for he came in a paenula. Many able scholars prefer to interpret the word book-bag, or portmanteau. But as Alford well argues, the form of the sentence opposes such a view: The book-bag bring me which, etc., also the books, etc. Any man would have said, bring me the bag of books. Perhaps Paul needed the books, that is, papyrus rolls, (see note Mat_1:2,) and parchments, in evidence at his approaching trial, and his cloak, in view of the coming winter, 2Ti_4:21.
This passage seems to prove that Paul writes in a second imprisonment. He must have lately been at Troas and left his overcoat and books. But in his first imprisonment it was five years since he had been at Troas, and Timothy had been with him since at Rome. He must, therefore, have been released and have visited Troas, and again have been imprisoned.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 13. The cloke] Vulg. ‘penulam.’ The oldest use of…
13. The cloke] Vulg. ‘penulam.’ The oldest use of the word is traced back beyond the Latins nearly to the time of Alexander the Great, in a fragment of a Doric poet, Rhinthon (Julius Pollux Onomast. vii. 60). Hence the Latin must have adopted it from the Greek, not vice versa. The Roman paenula was a travelling cloak, long, and thick, and sleeveless, made generally of wool, sometimes of leather. Cf. Mart. xiv. 145 paenula gausapina, xiv. 13 paenula scortea. Dr Farrar suggests that ‘perhaps St Paul had woven it himself of that cilicium, the black goats’ hair of his native province, which it was his trade to make into tents. Doubtless the cloke was an old companion. It may have been wetted many a time with the water-torrents of Pamphylia, and whitened with the dust of the long roads, and stained with the brine of shipwreck. Now, shivering in some gloomy cell under the Palace, or it may be on the rocky floor of the Tullianum, with the wintry nights coming on, he bethinks him of the old cloke and asks Timothy to bring it with him.’ He quotes also the letter of Tyndale, the translator of the English Bible, from his prison in the damp cells of the Vilvoorde: ‘I entreat your Lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that, if I must remain here for the winter, you would beg the Commissary to be so kind as to send me, from the things of mine which he has, a warmer cap … I feel the cold painfully in my head.… Also a warmer cloke, for the one I have is very thin.… He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will send it. But most of all … my Hebrew Bible, Grammar and Vocabulary, that I may spend my time in that pursuit. William Tyndale.’ There is some foundation for the interpretation ‘a book-case’ or ‘portfolio,’ which the Syriac versions support: none for the meaning ‘a chasuble,’ the passages of Tertullian and Chrysostom, quoted in favour, being really conclusive for the meaning ‘travelling cloak.’ There is no certain case of the use of the term in this technical sense before the time of Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople in the 8th century. See Dr Sinker’s Article, Dict. Christ. Antiq.
at Troas] We do not know when this was; Farrar suggests that ‘he left them behind, with Carpus, to take care of them, in his hasty arrest at Troas.’ But see Introduction, p. 43.
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and the books] The papyrus books; ‘perhaps poems of Aratus, a Cilician like himself, or pamphlets of Philo or the Wisdom of Solomon.’ See Bp Bull, Sermon x. p. 242.
the parchments] Writings on vellum; membrana, the Latin word, of which the Greek is a transcript, is properly a feminine adjective with which cutis is supplied, ‘the skin covering the limbs (membra).’ Hence membrana Pergamena was the thin sheep or calf skin sheet invented by Eumenes of Pergamus; of which membrana supplies the Greek word, and Pergamena has been corrupted into ‘parchment.’ Our ‘vellum’ is said to be from the French vélin, calf-skin. Bp Bull, Sermon x. p. 245, takes these ‘parchments’ (after Estius) to be St Paul’s adversaria or commonplace books ‘wherein he had noted what he thought might be of use to him out of the many books he had read.’ Farrar suggests ‘a document to prove his rights as a Roman citizen’ or ‘any precious rolls of Isaiah or the Psalms or the lesser Prophets.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) The cloke that I left at Troas.—The apparently…
(13) The cloke that I left at Troas.—The apparently trivial nature of this request in an Epistle containing such weighty matter, and also the fact of such a wish on the part of one expecting death being made at all, is at first a little puzzling. To explain this seemingly strange request, some have wished to understand by “the cloke” some garment St. Paul was in the habit of wearing when performing certain sacred functions: in other words, as a vestment; but such a supposition would be in the highest degree precarious, for nowhere in the New Testament is the slightest hint given us that any such vestment was ever used in the primitive Christian Church. It is much better to understand the words as simply requesting Timothy, on his way, to bring with him a thick cloak, or mantle, which St. Paul had left with a certain Carpus at Troas. Probably, when he left it, it was summer, and he was disinclined to burden himself in his hurried journey with any superfluous things. Winter was now coming on, and the poor aged prisoner in the cold damp prison, with few friends and scant resources, remembered and wished for his cloak. It is just such a request which the master would make of his disciple, who, knowing well the old man’s frail, shattered health, would never be surprised at such a request even in an Epistle so solemn. Then too St. Paul, by his very wish here expressed, to see Timothy, as above discussed, hopes against hope that still a little while for work in the coming winter months was still before him, though he felt death was for him very near; no forger of the Epistle had dreamed of putting down such a request.
And the books.—The books were, most likely, a few choice works, some bearing on Jewish sacred history, partly exegetical and explanatory of the mysterious senses veiled under the letter of the law and the prophets, and partly historical. Others were probably heathen writings, of which we know, from his many references in his Epistles, St. Paul was a diligent student. These few choice books, it has been suggested, with high probability, St. Paul “had made a shift to get and preserve,” and these, if God spared his life yet a few short months, he would have with him for reference in his prison room.
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But especially the parchments.—These precious papers, above all, would St. Paul have with him. These were, most likely, common-place books, in which the Apostle—evidently always a diligent student—had written what he had observed as worthy of especial notice in the reading of either of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, or the other books bearing on Jewish or Pagan literature and history. These precious notes were probably the result of many years’ reading and study. He would have them with him as long as life remained to him. (Compare on this strange but interesting verse Bp. Bull’s learned and exhaustive sermon: Works, vol. i. p. 240, Oxford Edition, 1846.) Erasmus remarks on this request of St. Paul: “Behold the Apostle’s goods or movables: a poor cloke to keep him from the weather, and a few books!”
A suggestion has been made that the words translated “Much learning doth make thee mad” (Act_26:24) should be rendered, Thy many rolls of parchment are turning thy brain, and that these rolls of parchment referred to by Festus as the companions of St. Paul’s captivity at Cæsarea were identical with those parchments left with Carpus. The Greek words, however, are not the same in the two passages. Of this Carpus nothing is known.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Bring when thou comest for when thou comest bring…
Bring when thou comest for when thou comest bring with thee, A.V; especially for but especially, A.V The cloke (tonhn, more properly written fainolhn); the Latin paenula, the thick overcoat or cloke. Only here in the New Testament. Some think it was the bag in which the books and parchments were packed. The parchments (tanav). This, again, is a Latin word. It occurs only here in the New Testament. They would probably be for the apostle to write his Epistles on. Or they may have been valuable manuscripts of some kind. In ver. 20 we learn that St. Paul had lately been at Miletus; and in 1Ti_1:3 that he was then going to Macedonia. Tress would be on his way to Macedonia, Greece, and Rome, (Act_16:8, Act_16:9, Act_16:11) as it was on the return journey from Macedonia to Miletus. (Act_20:5, Act_20:15) It should further be observed that the journey here indicated is the same as that referred to in 1Ti_1:3, which confirms the inevitable inference from this chapter that St. Paul, on his way to Rome from Miletus, whither he had come from Crete, (Tit_1:5) passed through Tress, Macedonia, and Corinth (ver. 20), leaving Timothy at Ephesus. (See Introduction.)
The apostle"s directions concerning his cloke.
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It has been considered beneath the dignity of inspiration that there should be such a trivial record. But the criticism is singularly superficial.
I THE APOSTLE"S DIRECTIONS. "The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments.
1. There is no evidence that the cloke was an ecclesiastical vestment; for there is no evidence of vestments being worn at all in the primitive Church. It was a thick cloke or mantle which the apostle needed in view of the approaching winter. His death might be near at hand, but, as its day was uncertain, it was natural he should provide against the winter cold.
1. It was a precious consignment that was left with Carpus, the Christian disciple, at Troas. It included, besides his cloke, books and parchments.
1. Even an apostle could not do without books for his ministry.
2. The parchments were more valuable than the books, containing, as they did probably, some of his own writings, if not the Holy Scriptures.
II THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE APOSTLE"S DIRECTIONS.
1. The request concerning his cloke implied that he was a poor man, as well as exposed to hardship and cold.
2. It suggests that he was partially deserted by the Yeoman Christians.
Why could they not give him or lend him a cloke? What had become of the Roman Christians who met him, so many years before, fifty miles from the city, and gave him such a hearty welcome?
3. It proves his personal independence. He will not ask a cloke from any one. T.C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The cloke … the books … the parchments.
2Ti_4:13
The cloke … the books … the parchments.
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Paul--his cloak and his books
I. Let us look at this memorable cloak which Paul left with Carpus at Troas. Troas was a principal seaport-town of Asia Minor. Very likely the apostle Paul was seized at Troas on the second occasion of his being taken before the Roman emperor. The soldiers usually appropriated to themselves any extra garment in the possession of an arrested person, such things being considered as the perquisites of those who made the arrest. The apostle may have been forewarned of his seizure, and therefore prudently committed his few books and his outer garment, which made up all his household stuff, to the care of a certain honest man named Carpus. Although Troas was full six hundred miles journey from Rome, yet the apostle Paul is too poor to purchase a garment, and so directs Timothy, as he is coming that way, to bring his cloak. He needs it much, for the sharp winter is coming on, and the dungeon is very, very chilly.
1. Let us perceive here with admiration, the complete self-sacrifice of the apostle Paul for the Lords sake. Remember what the apostle once was. He was great, famous, and wealthy. Ah! how he emptied himself, and to what extremity of destitution was he willing to bring himself for Christs name sake. The Saviour must die in absolute nakedness, and the apostle is made something like Him as he sits shivering in the cold.
2. We learn how utterly forsaken the apostle was by his friends. If he had not a cloak of his own, could not some of them lend him one? No; he is so utterly left, that although he is ready to die of ague in the dungeon, not a soul will lend or give him a cloak. What patience does this teach to those similarly situated I In your greatest trials do you find your fewest friends? Have those who once loved and respected you fallen asleep in Jesus? And have others turned out to be hypocritical and untrue? Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me. So now, when man deserts you, God will be your Friend.
3. Our text shows the apostles independence of mind. Why did not he borrow a cloak? Why did not he beg one? That is not the apostles taste at all. He has a cloak, and though it is six hundred miles away, he will wait until it comes. A Christian man would do well to remember that it is never to his honour, though it is not always to his dishonour, to beg.
4. We see here, how very little the apostles thought of how they were dressed. Paul wants enough to keep him warm; he asks no more. When good Bishop Hooper was led out to be burnt, he had been long in prison, and his clothes were so gone from him, that he borrowed an old scholars gown, full of rags and holes, that he might put it on, and went limping with pains of sciatica and rheumatism to the stake. We read of Jerome of Prague, that he lay in a damp, cold dungeon, and was refused anything to cover him in his nakedness and cold. Every saint is an image of Christ, but a poor saint is His express image, for Christ was poor. So, if you are brought to such a pitch with regard to poverty, that you scarcely know how to provide things decent by way of raiment, do not be dispirited; but say, My Master suffered the same, and so did the apostle Paul; and so take heart, and be of good cheer.
5. Pauls cloak at Troas shows me how mighty the apostle was to resist temptation. I do not see that, you say. The apostle had the gift of miracles. Our Saviour, though able to work miracles, never wrought anything like a miracle on His own account; nor did His apostles. Miraculous gifts were entrusted to them with gospel ends and purposes, for the good of others, and for the promotion of the truth; but never for themselves.
II. We will look at his books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them.
1. Even an apostle must read. He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yes he wants books! He had 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, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy, and so he says to every preacher, Give thyself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted, lie who will not use the thoughts of other mens brains proves that he has no brains of his own.
2. Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: what will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if Providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class--if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry.
III. We now want to have an interview with the apostle Paul himself, for we may learn much from him. The poor old man, without his cloak, wraps his ragged garment about him. Sometimes you see him kneeling down to pray, and then he dips his pen into the ink, and writes to his dear son Timothy. No companion, except Luke, who occasionally comes in for a short time. Now, how shall we find the old man? What sort of temper will he be in?
1. We find him full of confidence in the religion which has cost him so much.
2. But he is not only confident. You will notice that this grand old man is having communion with Jesus Christ in his sufferings.
3. Triumphant.
4. In expectation of a crown. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The cloak at Troas
Doubtless the cloak was an old companion; it may have been wetted many a time with the water torrents of Pamphylia, and whitened with the dust of the long Roman roads, and stained with the brine of shipwreck, when, on the rocky cliffs of Malta, the Euroclydon was driving the waters into foam; he may have slept in its warm shelter on the uplands under the canopy of the stars; it may have covered his trembling limbs, bruised with the brutal rods of the lictors, as he lay that night in the dungeon of Philippi; and now the old man thinks, as he calls himself, with a passing touch of self-pity, an ambassador in chains, and as he sits shivering in some gloomy cell under the walls, or, it may be, on the rocky floor of the Palladio, in the wintry nights that are coming on, he bethinks him of the old cloak, and asks Timothy to bring it with him. The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments--the Biblia and the papyrus books, few we may be sure and yet old friends. Perhaps he had bought some of those very books in the school of Gamaliel at Jerusalem, or had received some of them as presents from his wealthier converts. Perhaps among them may have been some of those books in which, as we can trace from his Epistles, he had read the poems of his native poet, Aratus, or some of the pamphlets Of Plato, or the wisdom of Solomon. The papyrus books, then, but especially the parchments, that is, especially the works inscribed on vellum--what were these? Was there any document amongst them which would have been useful to prove his rights as a Roman citizen? Were there any precious rolls of Isaiah and the Psalms, or the lesser prophets, which father or mother may have given him as a life-long treasure (for in those days parchments were valuable things)in the far-off days when, little dreaming of all that awaited him, he played as a happy boy in the dear old Tarsian home? Dreary and long are the days; longer and drearier still are the evenings in that Roman dungeon, and often the rude legionary soldier, who detests to be chained to a sick and suffering Jew, is coarse and cruel to him. And he cannot always be engaged in the sweet session of silent thought, even in the sweet hopes of the future or the remembrance of the past. He knows Scripture well, but it will be a deep joy to read once more how David and Isaiah, in all their troubles, learned, like his own poor self, to suffer and be strong. Who, as he reads this last message, can help remembering the touching letter written from the damp cells of his prison by our own noble martyr, William Tyndale, one of the greatest of our translators of the English Bible: I entreat your lordship, he writes, and that by the Lord Jesus, that, if I was to remain here for the winter, you would beg the Commissary to be so kind as to send me, from the things of mine which he has, a warmer cap; I feel the cold painfully in my head; also a warmer cloke, for the one I have is very thin; also some cloth to patch my leggings. My overcoat is worn out, my shirts even are threadbare. The Commissary has a woollen shirt of mine if he will be so kind as to send it. But most of all I entreat your kindness to do your best with the Commissary to be so good as to send me my Hebrew Bible, grammar, and vocabulary, that I may spend my time in that pursuit.
William Tyndale. The noble martyr was not thinking of St. Paul; but history repeats itself, and what is this fragment from the letter which he, too, wrote so soon before his death, but the same thing as the cloke which I left at Troas with Carpus, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments?
I. Does it not show us that this great and holy apostle was first a man like ourselves; a tried and suffering man with human wants and human sympathies; aye, and human limitations, and with transcendentally severer trials, yet with no greater privileges than we enjoy? Does he not call to us with more clear encouragement, Faint not, dear brother, dear sister in the Lord; I, too, was weak; I, too, was tempted; but thou, no less than I, canst do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us?
II. Then, in what a lovely light of manliness, good sense, and contentment does this place the apostles character! The sword, he well knows, is hanging over his head whose flash shall slay him, but life is life. Until the Lord calls him, there is no reason at all why life should not go on, not only in its quiet duties, but also with such small blessings as it yet may bring. There is no flaring fanaticism, no exaggerated self-denial, here. The wintry nights will be cold and dull; there is no sort of merit in making them colder and duller. That is why he writes for the cloak and the dear old books. God, for our good, sends us all trials enough to bear, but it is only for our good. There is not the least reason--it is not even right--to create tortures and miseries for ourselves which God has not sent us. We are allowed to take and we ought to take every harmless and every innocent gift which God permits to us, and to thank Him for it.
III. Then, look at the matter in one more light. What is it that a life of ceaseless ungrudging labour has left to St. Paul? What earthly possessions has the apostle gained as the sum total of services to the world, unparalleled in intensity and unparalleled in self-denial? Perhaps he wants to leave some small memento behind him, some trifling legacy by which some true heart may remember him ere the rippled sea of life flows smooth once more over his nameless grave. Just as the hermit St. Antony left the great bishop St. Athanasius his one sole possession, which was his sheep-skin cloak, so St. Paul, perhaps, might have liked to leave to the kind and faithful Luke, or to the true and gentle Timothy, the cloak, the books, the parchments. But, oh, how small a result of earths labours, if earth were everything, worth far less than a dancer gets for a single figure in a theatre, or an acrobat for a fling on the trapeze; not worth one-millionth part of what a patent brings in for some infinitesimal invention! Oh, the work and the reward are not the same for eternity. It is not for such rewards that the great high service of the world is done. Earths rewards, observe, have marvellously small relations to intrinsic values. The singer who has a fine note in her voice may blaze in diamonds worth a kings ransom. But the thinker who has raised the aim and nature of nations may die unnoticed; and the poet, who has enriched the blood of the earth, may be left to starve. Paul pours out his whole life as a libation on Gods altar, in agonies for his fellow-men; he cleanses the customs, he brightens the hope, he purifies the life of men; he adds, for centuries, to the untold ennoblement of generations; what is the sum total of his earthly reward? What is the inventory of all his earthly possessions as he sits upon his prison floor? Just the cloke that I left at Troas, and the books, but especially the parchments. Would that content you? Do you think that he sighed or was envious of evildoers, when he contrasted his solo possessions--that cloak and those few books, which were all that he had--with the jewels of the adventurer Agrippa, or the purple of the execrable Nero? Not one whir. They were not what he had aimed at. He sat loose to those earthly interests on which mens minds are sometimes to the last so deplorably and so hideously fixed. No; better as it is. He will thank God for such warmth as he may find in the cloak and such consolation as the books may bring him, and, for the rest, he will trust death, and he will throw himself on God. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Note-books
of his own making or collecting: these are highly prized by students. Julius Caesar, being forced to swim for his life, held his commentaries m one hand above water, and swam to land with the other. (J. Trapp.)
A great love of books
An incident of my own experience has often interested me, and may not be without interest to you. I learnt one evening in London--it was at an evening party at which many persons were assembled--from a friend of mine that a friend of his and mine was lying dangerously, and, as it turned out, fatally ill in his chambers in the Temple. That friend of mine was the late Sir David Dundas, who was for many years in Parliament, and with whose friendship for many years I was favoured. I went down the next morning to ask after him, and, if it were proper, to see him. He invited me, through his servant, into his room, and I found him upon his bed of sickness, feeble, not able to talk much, and scarcely able to turn himself in his bed. We had some little conversation, and in the course of it he offered to me something like a benediction. He said--I remember his words very well--I have never pretended to be a learned man or a scholar, but God has given me a great love for books. He then referred to the writings of the celebrated Lord Bacon, and taking a quotation from a letter which that eminent person had written to a friend, he turned to me and said, May God lead you by the hand. That was one of the passages fixed in his mind from his reading of the words of Lord Bacon. Now, that was a solemn hour with my friend--if I may quote a very expressive and beautiful line from one of Scotlands real, but one of her minor poets, Michael Bruce--When dim in his breast lifes dying taper burns. At that solemn hour, reviewing his past life, reviewing the enjoyment he had partaken of, he thanked God for having given him a great love of books. Two days after that--I think the second or third after that interview--that dying taper was extinguished, and my friend passed into the unseen world. (John Bright.)
A good book a lasting companion
Truths which it has taken years to glean are therein at once freely but carefully communicated. We enjoy communion with the mind, though not with the person of the writer. Thus the humblest man may surround himself by the wisest and best spirits of past and present ages. No one can be solitary who possesses a book; he owns a friend that will instruct him in moments of leisure or of necessity. It is only necessary to turn over the leaves, and the fountain at once gives forth its streams. You may seek costly furniture for your homes, fanciful ornaments for your mantelpieces, and rich carpets for your floors; but, after the absolute necessaries for a home give me books as at once the cheapest, and certainly the most useful and abiding embellishments. (Family Friend.)
Choice of books
What books you will choose as your intimate friends will depend upon your humour and taste. Dr. Guthries choice seemed to me charming. He told me that he read through four books every year--the Bible, The Pilgrims Progress, four of Sir Waiter Scotts novels, which he reckoned as one book, and a fourth book, which I have forgotten, but I think it was Robinson Crusoe. You will choose some books because they soothe and quiet you; some because they are as invigorating as mountain air; some because they amuse you by the shrewdness of their humour; some because they give wings to your fancy; some because they kindle your imagination. (R. W. Dale.)
Mental occupation in prison
Exile and imprisonment are among the darkest tragedies of existence. But Ovid, banished from the luxurious and learned capital to the barbarians of Tomis, in the inhospitable waste along the Euxine, stripped of property, wife, and children, saved himself from despair by labour, and, surrounded by hopeless savagery, produced some of the finest of his works. Boethius, the last and noblest of the ancients, before the darkness of the Middle Ages fell on Europe, lying under unjust sentence of death in the tower of Pavia, forbidden books, intercourse with fellow-scholars, preserved his sanity and fortitude to face a cruel death by writing The Consolation of Philosophy. Don Quixote, which convulsed a nation with merriment, was the solace of an undeserved imprisonment, which bodily suffering made more unendurable. The dungeon of Waiter Raleigh was his calm study. In the condemned cell Madame Roland, less moved by the certainty of her own fate than by apprehension for her beloved husband, fortified her mind against possible madness by the composition of her memoirs. Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots beguiled imprisonment of half its terrors with hard study and careful writing. (Harpers Bazaar.)
An affection for a cloak
Newman tells us (in 1840) how he kept an old blue cloak which he got in 1823, and had an affection for it, because it had nursed me through all my illness. I have it still. I have brought it up here to Littlemore, and on some cold nights I have had it on my bed. I have so few things to sympathise with me that I take to cloaks.
An endeared garment
A shawl with a strange history was buried with the late Professor Cocker, of Michigan University. Shortly before his death, Dr. Cocker called the attention of his pastor to a worn and faded shawl spread on his bed, and requested to have it wrapped around his body and buried with him. He had made it himself when a young man in England; had worn it in all his journeyings to and from over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, when residing in Australia, when he escaped from the Fiji Islanders as they were preparing to kill and roast him, and when he was ship wrecked. It accompanied him when he landed in the United States, and even clad the remains of his dead child when, penniless and disheartened, he first arrived in Adrian. It is not surprising that a garment with such associations had, though worn and faded, become precious to him, and his desire that his body should be enshrouded in it is easily understood.
Use of a cloak
John Welch, the old Scotch minister, used to put a plaid across his bed on cold nights, and some one asked him why he put that there. He said: Oh, sometimes in the night I want to sing the praises of Jesus, and I get down and pray. Then I just take that plaid and wrap it around me to keep myself from the cold.
Cloak, books, and parchments
Winter was coming on, and his somewhat emaciated frame was less able than formerly to withstand the cold. He remembers that when he was last at Troas, he left his heavy overcoat there, in charge of his friend Carpus, probably because he preferred to take a portion of his journey on foot. He will be sure to need it as the weather becomes more severe, so he requests Timothy, who is now at Ephesus, to bring it with him when he comes west to Italy.
I. Take care of your bodily health. Young men are often particularly neglectful on this matter. Many is the man whose constitution has been undermined for life by his own carelessness as a youth in respect of food, rest, and clothing.
II. Maintain the culture of your mind. Do not be so engrossed with business, that you rarely open an instructive book. Do not forget that your intellect wants to be stimulated and fed, as it cannot be if you think of nothing but bills, and accounts, and orders, and invoices, and what is vulgarly and expressively called shop. A sailor, who had circumnavigated the globe with Captain Cook, was pressed by his friends to give them some account of the wonders he had seen, and at last consented to do so on a certain evening. A large and eager company assembled, in expectation of a great intellectual treat; when the rough mariner thus began and ended his description of his travels: I have been round the world with Captain Cook, and all that I saw was the sky above me and the water beneath me. And, truth to tell, there are young men who show little more discernment than that blunt sailor. They have no intellectual ambition, no thirst for knowledge, no passionate desire for self-improvement. If business is going on well, and their salary is regularly paid, and they have enough to eat and drink, they are content. There is no systematic study; no training of the mind, no whetting or sharpening of the intellectual faculties. I warn you, young men, against so ignoble a use of what is, in some respects, the best part of life. Lord Bacons opinion upon books he thus expressed: That histories make men wise, poets, witty; mathematics, subtle; natural science, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to debate. As you would possess such qualities, then, your reading must be catholic and extensive.
III. Especially see to the welfare of the soul. However limited be your reading, see that the Bible has its rightful place. It is said that in the British Museum alone there are so many books that the mere mechanical reading of them would demand a thousand years. So you cannot read everything--you must make your selection; but oh! let this peerless volume reign supreme in your library. Let it be the monarch of your bookshelves. There is an old Latin proverb, which is good enough so long as the Bible is out of account, Cave ab homine unius libri--i.e., Beware of a man of one book. But when that one book is the Book of God, the counsel may be inverted; for there is no man more to be sought after than the man who daily feeds from this table, and drinks from this well. Especially the parchments. Let no general reading, however excellent and instructive, elbow this to one side. Be diligent students of Gods Word, and, as Dr. Doddridge said, you shall be excellent scholars ten thousand years hence; whereas, however proficient in secular knowledge, if the Bible be neglected, you shall be unfitted for the occupations of the redeemed in heaven. You have a richer Bible than ever Paul possessed. Those clumsy, greasy parchments, written by laborious scribes, would form a strange contrast to such triumphs of modern skill as are now sent out in millions from the great repository in Queen Victoria Street; and you can place in your waistcoat-pocket treasures of inspiration, which in the apostles time would have taxed the strength of a man to carry. The greater, then, your responsibility. Oh, make good use of your Bibles! Above all, accept without delay the Divine salvation revealed. (J. T. Davidson, D. D.)
The cloak and the parchments; or, mans needs
We have here--
1. A striking illustration of the manner of Divine inspiration. The divinest communications of truth appear in connection with things of personal and secular concern.
2. A beautiful display of spiritual self-possession.
3. An affecting utterance of human needs. With all his present principles, past achievements, and future destiny, he has yet necessities as well as resources. Spirituality did not destroy his physical sensibilities; heroic courage and independence did not deaden his social affections; supernatural illumination did not make him depreciate the ordinary means of information and excitement.
I. physical. The cloak. Paul needed a garment, and wished for one. To slight the body is a mark of heretics; to destroy it is to be a murderer. What a world of need is caused by its possession! What urgent demands does it make on care and effort, skill and labour! But the thought here is, that the body is a source of trouble, inconvenience, dependence;--that small things may lead to its discomfort and injury. Let but the ordinary laws of nature be broken; let but the ordinary operations of life be suspended; let there be but a little accident, a slight mistake, a temporary forgetfulness; and how bitterly are we made to feel the pressure and responsibility of our material charge! We cannot afford to trifle with or ignore it. The most spiritual and independent must remember the mislaid or forgotten dress.
II. The social. When thou comest. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. Man is a social being--made to feel for and with his fellow-men. He is revealed, regaled, renewed by fellowship. It is a lamp, a feast, a buttress of his being. It is everything whereby he can be ministered unto, or help to minister. Fellowship in woe, in joy, in work, in thought, is a rich delight, and in most cases a great necessity.
III. The spiritual. The books, especially the parchments. We know not what these were, but are sure they were books tending to cultivation of mind and heart. What a field of thought is opened up by these words I See the ministry of minds; see their working and results preserved and propagated by the use of letters; see the labours and rewards of some made the inheritance of others; and all this beyond the sphere Of personal presence and immediate influence see it done for men and ages unborn. What a debt we owe to books! What information and stimulus! what means of growth! what instruments of knowledge, joy, and power! Especially the parchments. Some think these were a kind of commonplace book, in which the apostle put his own reflections and precious passages met with in his reading. If so, we have an important thought. That is most a mans own which he has originated, or thoroughly appropriated by meditation. Books are nothing but as they are read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested. Lessons:
1. The subject teaches humility.
2. Gratitude.
3. Benevolence.
4. Self-interest. (A. J. Morris.)
The cloak at Troas
It appears to us that Pauls request for his cloak left at Troas affords an undesigned proof of a striking feature in his character--viz., that sobriety of mind which, on the one hand, never separates the things of earth from the things of heaven; nor, on the other hand, ever esteems spiritual-mindedness, and the ardent contemplation of unseen things, to be inconsistent with attention to the ordinary ongoings, the common duties, and little details of every-day life. Paul was not further removed from the worldliness which never seeks to ascend in heart to heaven, than from the fanaticism and morbid pietism we sometimes witness, which only condescends to visit earth. The light of life which he enjoyed filled and blended into one common glory the things of earth and heaven, of time and of eternity! At one moment, for instance, we hear him exclaim (2Ti_4:6-8). Yet, when his course was being finished, his death near, his reward sure, and while he sees the glories of heaven opening before his enraptured eye, it is even then that he expresses his anxiety to obtain his cloak from Treas. What evidence does this coincidence afford of calmness, peace, and sobriety of mind! Such we have sometimes witnessed, too, in aged Christians of long experience, who, on their deathbeds, could gaze upon the unseen world of everlasting rest, on which they were entering with perfect peace and full assured hope, while, at the same time, they attended with cheerful spirit to those common household duties and family arrangements from which, in person, they were soon to be for ever severed. (Edinburgh Christian Magazine.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 13. The cloke. If his imprisonment is prolonged he…
13. The cloke. If his imprisonment is prolonged he will need it. Carpus. Probably his host at Troas. The books. Manuscripts. Especially the parchments. Papyrus and parchment were both used for books, and he wishes particularly the latter.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain 2 Timothy
2 Timothy
PAUL’S DYING CONFIDENCE
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2Ti 4:13.
If we leave out of notice for a moment the two or three salutations and personal messages which follow, these are the last words of Paul’s last letter. So he disappears from history with this ringing cry of confidence upon his lips. There was enough in his circumstances to breed the very opposite disposition. He was half-way through his trial before Nero, and suspense, we all know, gnaws at the very roots of courage. He was all but absolutely certain that death was near, as he had said a minute before: ‘I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is’ nothing but the crown to look for. His heart was wrung by the desertion of friends; Demas had forsaken him, and when the pinch of his trial came, and his head was, as it were, in the lion’s open mouth, none of his friends plucked up heart of grace to stand beside him. But in spite of all, indomitable courage and a bright flame of hope, that nothing could blow or batter out, burned in the Apostle’s heart still Therefore he rays, even while facing the block, ‘the Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and preserve me unto His everlasting Kingdom.’ He is so sure of this that he beings his thanks beforehand - ‘to whom be glory for ever and ever. The thing is as good as done; and so I render my praise.’
Note here a very striking trace and echo of -
I. Christ’s words. I suppose you will often have observed that my text is a variation on the theme of the Lord’s Prayer.
That said, ‘Deliver us from evil’; Paul says, ‘The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work.’ That, according to one form of Matthew’s version, ends with the doxology: ‘Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen’ Paul echoes that ascription of praise with his ‘to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.’ So we have here a little window through which we can see a wide prospect. For the gospels are later in date than Paul’s letters, and the text shows that long before they were in existence the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ was familiar, so that allusions to it were made tacitly, and would be recognised. This allusion is interesting in another point of view, in so far as it seems to prove that, in Paul’s time, at any rate, the doxology was appended to the Lord’s Prayer; and that, therefore, the fuller form of that prayer with the doxology is more original than the truncated form without it.
But passing from such considerations, let us note this word of Paul’s as an instance of how his mind was saturated with the Lord’s utterances. So it should be with us. Christ’s words should have so entered into the very substance of our minds and thoughts as that we give them freely forth again, in other shapes and in other connections; and the sweetness of them, like that of some perfume diffused through else scentless air, shall make all our words and thoughts fragrant, Do you so summer and winter with the Master’s words that they suggest themselves spontaneously to you often when you scarcely know that they are His, and that you speak them, not with formal quotation marks in front and behind, but in that allusive fashion, which indicates familiarity and the free use, in other combinations, of the great truths which He has spoken?
Notice, too, that Paul turned the prayer into confidence. In the prayer his Master had taught him to say, ‘Deliver us from evil.’ He had offered the petition, and therefore he had no more doubt than he had of his own existence or of Timothy’s, that, having asked, he would receive. Therefore he is sure that ‘the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work.’ Is that how you treat your prayers? Are they worth treating so? Are they offered with such confidence as that you have any right to be sure that they will be answered? Are they offered with such submission as that you may well be certain of it; and do you wait, as this Apostle did, quietly expecting to have the answers? And are your eyes anointed to see the answers in things that some people might take to be the contradictions of them? Unless we have so moulded our petitions into assurances there is something wrong with them. If we pray aright, ‘Deliver us from evil,’ there will rise up in our hearts the quiet confidence, ‘the Lord will deliver me from every evil work.’
Here we have a beautiful illustration of the true use of -
II. Past experience.
Paul links two clauses together. He says, describing how these faint-hearted if not faithless friends had run away from him when the pinch of peril came, ‘They all forsook me, but the Lord stood with me; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.’ He looks back to that recent instance of Christ’s protecting care and delivering might, and so he changes his tenses, and brings the light of the past to flood the darkness of the present, and to flash into the obscurity of the future, and he says, ‘I was delivered.., and the Lord will deliver me, from every evil.’
He has the same collocation of thoughts, as you may remember in another place where, speaking of other kinds of deliverances, he says that the Lord ‘delivered him from so great a death’ - that was in the past - ‘and doth deliver’ - that is the thrilling consciousness that the same power is in the present as in the past; that to-day is no more prosaic and devoid of God than any yesterday; and then he adds, ‘In whom we trust that He will deliver us.’ Such is the true attitude for a Christian man. Experience is not meant only, as is too often its sole effect, to throw light upon the past, but also to flash a cheery beam on the else dim. future; just as the eastern sky will sometimes throw a hint of its own glory upon the western heaven. To a Christian, every yesterday is a prophecy of a to-morrow that will be like it, and God’s past is a pledge for God’s future.
If we, if we are truly trusting in Him, may have the prerogative which belongs to His children alone, of being absolutely certain that ‘to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant,’ For there is nothing in the past, nothing in the miracles of former generations, nothing in the great deeds by which God has vindicated HIS protecting care over His people in the days that are gone, and nothing in the mercies and blessings and deliverances and immunities which we ourselves have received that is not available for to-morrow’s consumption. The psalmist said, ‘As we have heard so have we seen, in the City of our God.’ The deeds of ancient days were repeated in the prosaic present.
And that is as true about the individual life as it is about the corporate life of the community. All of us, looking back to what God has done for us, may find therein the basis of the surest confidence that all that is but a specimen and pledge of what He will do. Nobody else but a Christian has the right to say, ‘I have had this, that, and the other good; therefore I shall have it.’ Rather, alas! a man that has wrenched himself away from God has to say sadly, ‘I have had; therefore the likelihood is that I shall not have any more.’
Have you ever thought that the belief which we all have, and cannot get rid of, in the uniformity of nature, has no scientific basis? Everybody expects that the sun will rise to-morrow, and for a great many millions of years, perhaps the expectation is right; but there is coming a day when it will not rise. There is a last time - ‘positively the very last’ - for everything in the world, and in the order of nature, and the expectation of permanence by which we guide our lives is, at bottom, absolutely unfounded, and yet there it is, and we have to act upon it. But you can give no rational explanation of it, and it will not always serve., There was once made a calculating machine. You turned a handle, and ground out a succession of numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc., each increasing on the preceding by one. And after that had gone on for a long series the sequence was broken, and there came out a number which did not stand in the series at all. That is how God has made nature; grinding away for millions of years, and everything going in regular sequence; but then there comes a break, and the old order changeth. A day will come which is the last day. The sun will set and not rise again, and the world, and all there is in it, shall cease to be.
And as with nature, so with our little lives, and with the men that we trust to. We have no right to say, ‘I have been delivered, and therefore shall be delivered,’ unless we have the Lord, who is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever at the back of our confidence. For men’s resources fail and men’s dispositions change. If I have helped a man a hundred times, that is not a reason for my helping him the hundred and first time. I may get tired, or perhaps I have not the wherewithal, or circumstances alter. Continuity does not guarantee permanence. You can weary out the most patient patience, and chill the warmest love. And so we have to turn from all the limited and changeful grounds of confidence in ourselves, in others, in the order of things about us, and to acknowledge that we do not know what to-morrow is going to do for us. We have had a great many blessings, but the future may be beggared and bankrupt of them all, unless we can say, like Paul, ‘the Lord delivered me, and the Lord will deliver me.’ For His past is the parent and the prophecy of His present, and He does not let His resources be exhausted or His patience wearied or His love disgusted. Thou hast been with me in six troubles, says Job-art Thou tired of being with me? - ‘in the seventh Thou wilt not forsake me.’ Thy past is the revelation of Thine eternal Self, and as Thou bast been so Thou wilt be. Christ, as the Incarnation of Divinity, lives, if I might use such a phrase, in a region that is high above the tenses of our verbs, in one eternal now, far below which, Past, Present, and Future, as we know them, are like the little partitions in our fields, which from the mountain-top melt away into invisibility, and do not divide the far-reaching plain.
Travellers see, in deserted, ancient cities, half-hewn statues, with one part polished and the rest rough, and the block not detached from the native rock. They were meant to be carried by ‘the subjects of some forgotten king to build up some unfinished and never-to-be-finished temple or palace. There are no half-finished works in God’s workshop; no pictures begun and uncompleted in Christ’s studio: and so we can go to Him with the old prayer of the psalmist: ‘The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever; forsake not the work of Thine own hands.’
Lastly, we have here a great lesson of how -
III. A man close to death may think of it, ‘The Lord will deliver me.’
Did He? ‘The Lord will save me... into His everlasting kingdom.’ Was that a mistake on Paul’s part? Very soon after he wrote these words, perhaps even before the winter against the cold of which he asked Timothy to bring his one cloak that he had left at Troas, he was again brought before the Emperor, and then was led outside the walls of Rome, where a gorgeous church now bears his name, and there, according to tradition was decapitated. Yes; that was just what he expected. For, as I have already pointed out, a verse or two before my text says, ‘I have finished my course.’ And yet, with the certainty that Death was close by him, he lifts up this ringing song Of triumph, ‘The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me into His heavenly Kingdom,’ He expected that deliverance and saving into the Kingdom to be accomplished precisely by the fact of his death.
A man who has a firm grip of Christ’s hand sees all things differently from him who has no such stay. If Jesus is standing by us, and strengthening us, we can look with a smile at the worst that Nero can do, and can tell even the executioner: You do not mean it; do you know what you are doing? You think you are inflicting evil upon me. You are delivering me from every evil.’ Death is the great emancipator from all manner of evil, be it the evil of sorrows or the evil of their parent sins. And he who rightly understands the operation of that, the last of earthly incidents, understands that it is, in the fullest sense, the smiting off of his chains, and the lifting of him up high into a region where no malaria of evil can ever rise.
Death is not merely to be looked at on the side of what it takes a man away from, but on the side of what it introduces him to. ‘He shall deliver me from every evil’; that is much, but it might be effected by crushing the man’s consciousness and annihilating him. Bare exemption and escape from the ills that flesh is heir to are not all the choice gifts with which Death-comes laden. In his bony left hand is the gift of deliverance from all evil. In his right there is the positive gift of participation in all good. ‘He shall deliver me from evil, and shall save me into His everlasting Kingdom.’ And so that grim form is the porter at the gate, who ushers the man who has hoped in Christ into the royalty of His presence.
Mark that here, for the only time in Scripture, we have the expression, the ‘heavenly Kingdom.’ Why? Because Paul knew and felt that he was in the Kingdom already, and so he could not say barely that Christ through death was going to save him into the Kingdom. He was already there, but just because he was, therefore the last enemy assumed this friendly and familiar form to him, and was sure to bring him into the heavenly form of the Kingdom, of whose earthly form he was already a subject. If - and only if - you are in the Kingdom here, can you quietly look forward and be sure that the Lord, when He sends His messenger, will send Him to do the double work of delivering you out of all evil, and ushering you into all glory of good.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:13 Paul’s arrest and transfer to Rome apparently did…
4:13 Paul’s arrest and transfer to Rome apparently did not allow him to gather his things. • the coat: Winter was coming (4:21). • Carpus might have been Paul’s host in Troas. The reference to Troas implies that Timothy was still in Ephesus and would travel through Troas, a port town. • my books . . . my papers: These writings may have included Scriptures, personal notes, letters addressed to Paul, copies of Paul’s own letters, and other Christian and Jewish materials.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.