Be diligent to come to me soon,
Parallel Translations
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Be diligent to come to me soon,
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Make spede to come vnto me at once.
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Make speede to come vnto me at once:
Cross-references (2)
Passages linked to 2 Timothy 4:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Timothy 1:4 longing to see you, remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy;
- 2 Timothy 4:21 Be diligent to come before winter. Eubulus salutes you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9 Make haste, to come to me quickly. As…
9 Make haste, to come to me quickly. As he knew that the time of his death was at hand, there were many subjects — I doubt not — on which he wished to have a personal interview with Timothy for the good of the Church; and therefore he does not hesitate to desire him to come from a country beyond the sea. Undoubtedly there must have been no trivial reason why he called him away from a church over which he presided, and at so great a distance. Hence we may infer how highly important are conferences between such persons; for what Timothy had learned in a short space of time would be profitable, for a long period, to all the churches; so that the loss of half a year, or even of a whole year, was trivial compared with the compensation gained. And yet it appears from what follows, that Paul called Timothy with a view to his own individual benefit likewise; although his own personal matters were not preferred by him to the advantage of the Church, but it was because it involved the cause of the gospel, which was common to all believers; for as he defended it from a prison, so he needed the labors of others to aid in that defense.
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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The last part of the Epistle, setting forth grievous…
The last part of the Epistle, setting forth grievous complaints against certain, and examples of singular godliness in every place, and of a mind never wearied.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 9 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:
9 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:
Ver. 9. Do thy diligence, &c.] We want much of our comfort in the want of a friend, Ecc 4:9. Optimum solatium sodalitium. How doth David bemoan the loss of Jonathan! How did Dr Taylor prize the company of his fellow prisoner, that angel of God, as he called him, John Bradford! What a mercy did St Paul count it that sick Epaphroditus recovered! Php 2:27.
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 To Rome, where Paul was at this time a…
To Rome, where Paul was at this time a prisoner. It appears from Phi 2:19, that Timothy did go to Paul at Rome, according to this desire of his, and was with him while a prisoner there.
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 Our apostle comes now, in this second part of…
Our apostle comes now, in this second part of the chapter, to treat of some private and personal affairs.
And first he desires Timothy to come speedily to him, having a great desire to see him, and be comforted by him, before he died. The strongest of Christians may sometimes be helped by the weaker; a Paul may stand in need of a Timothy ; there is not a member in the body, but is some way serviceable to the head.
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Secondly, He assigns a reason why he did thus desire Timothy’s presence, because of Demas’ and others’ absence; Demas had forsaken him, having loved this present world. The best may sometimes be forsaken by their bosom friends; Demas was such to St. Paul, yet left him. For what cause? For the love of the world, This, when it grows inordinate, will cause a man first to forsake his friend, and then his God.
Thirdly, Crescens was gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, Tychicus to Ephesus: all of them, no doubt, to spread the gospel, to plant or water the churches. Good men will be doing good wherever they are, wherever they come or go. Only Luke was with him; nothing could separate that good man from him. A faithful friend loveth at all times; yet friendship (olle amicitia) will vanish in adversity: but true Christian friendship is perpetual, the foundation of it is eternal.
Lastly, he desires Timothy to bring Mark with him; not for rest or recreation, because he wanted a companion for his diversion; no, but to assist him in his work: Bring Mark; for he is profitable to me for the ministry. ’Tis happy when the ministers of God affect the company, and desire the presence, of each other, for spiritual ends and religious purposes.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here are divers particular matters which Paul mentions to…
Here are divers particular matters which Paul mentions to Timothy, now at the closing of the epistle. 1. He bids him hasten to him, if possible (Ti2 4:9): So thy diligence to come shortly to me. For Timothy was an evangelist, one who was not a fixed pastor of any one place, but attended the motions of the apostles, to build upon their foundation. Paul wanted Timothy's company and help; and the reason he gives is because several had left him (Ti2 4:10); one from an ill principle, namely, Demas, who abides under an ill name for it: Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. He quitted Paul and his interest, either for fear of suffering (because Paul was now a prisoner, and he was afraid o coming into trouble upon his account) or being called off from his ministry by secular affairs, in which he entangled himself; his first love to Christ and his gospel was forsaken and forgotten, and he fell in love with the world. Note, Love to this present world is often the cause of apostasy from the truths and ways of Jesus Christ. He has gone off, has departed to Thessalonica, called thither perhaps by trade, or by some other worldly business. Crescens had gone one way and Titus another way. Luke however remained with Paul (Ti2 4:11, Ti2 4:12), and was not this enough? Paul did not think it so; he loved the company of his friends. 2. He speaks respectfully concerning Mark: He is profitable to me for the ministry. It is supposed that this Mark was he about whom Paul and Barnabas had contended, Act 15:39. Paul would not take him with him to the work, because he had once flinched and drawn back: but now, says he, Take Mark, and bring him with thee. By this it appears that Paul was now reconciled to Mark, and had a better opinion of him than he had had formerly. This teaches us to be of a forgiving spirit; we must not therefore disclaim for ever making use of those that are profitable and useful, though they may have done amiss. 3. Paul orders Timothy to come to him, bids him as he came through Troas to bring with him thence those things which he had left behind him there (Ti2 4:13), the cloak he had left there, which, it may be, Paul had the more occasion for in a cold prison. It is probable that it was the habit Paul usually wore, a plain dress. Some read it, the roll of parchment I left at Troas; others, the desk that I left. Paul was guided by divine inspiration, and yet he would have his books with him. Whereas he had exhorted Timothy to give attendance to reading, so he did himself, though he was now ready to be offered. As long as we live, we must be still learning. But especially the parchments, which some think were the originals of his epistles; others think they were the skins of which he made his tents, whereby he obtained a livelihood, working with his own hands. 4. He mentions Alexander, and the mischief that he had done him, Ti2 4:14, Ti2 4:15. This is he who is spoken of Act 19:33. It should seem, he had been a professor of the Christian religion, a forward professor, for he was there particularly maligned by the worshippers of Diana, and yet he did Paul much evil. Paul was in as much danger from false brethren (Co2 11:26) as from open enemies. Paul foretels that God would reckon with him. It is a prophetical denunciation of the just judgment of God that would befall him: The Lord will reward him according to his works. He cautions Timothy to take heed of him: "Of whom be thou aware also, that he do not, under pretence of friendship, betray thee to mischief." It is dangerous having any thing to do with those who would be enemies to such a man as Paul. Observe, (1.) Some who were once Paul's hearers and admirers did not give him reason to remember them with much pleasure; for one forsook him, and another did him much evil, and greatly withstood his words. Yet, (2.) At the same time he mentions some with pleasure; the badness of some did not make him forget the goodness of others; such as Timothy, Titus, Mark, and Luke. (3.) The apostle has left a brand on the names and memory of two persons; the one is Demas, who forsook him, having loved the present world, and the other is Alexander, who greatly withstood his words. (4.) God will reward evil-doers, particularly apostates, according to their works. (5.) Of such as are of Alexander's spirit and temper we should beware; for they will do us no good, but all the mischief that is in their power.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. From…
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. From Ephesus, where Timothy was, to Rome, where the apostle was; and this request did not arise purely from a desire of seeing Timothy, as in Ti2 1:4 but rather because he had some things to say to him, relating to the care of the churches and the good of the interest of Christ, which he chose not to write with ink and paper; and he desires the rather that he would use diligence, and hasten his coming to him; partly because winter was coming on, when travelling would not be so safe and comfortable, Ti2 4:21 and partly because the time of his death was at hand, Ti2 4:7 and also because he was almost alone.
and also because he was almost alone.
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2 Timothy 4:10
ti2 4:10
ti2 4:10
ti2 4:10For Demas hath forsaken me,.... Of this person; see Gill on Col 4:14. It does not appear by what is said in this clause, and in the following, that he entirely apostatized; he might forsake the apostle, and yet not forsake Christ and his interest, or make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience: his faith might be right, though low, and his love sincere, though not fervent; and through a fear of persecution, and loss of life, he might be tempted to leave the apostle, and withdraw from Rome, for his own safety; which though it was far from being commendable in him, yet may be accounted for in this state of frailty and imperfection, consistent with the grace of God; and it should seem that he afterwards was delivered from this temptation, and returned to the apostle, Col 4:14 for when those epistles were written, both Timothy and Mark, who are here wrote for, Ti2 4:9 were with the apostle, Col 1:1 and Plm 1:1 and especially he ought to be thought very well of after all this, if Demas is only a contraction of Demetrius, and he is the same who is so much commended many years after this, in Jo3 1:12,
having loved this present world, not the sins and corruptions of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; such a love is inconsistent with the love of the Father and the grace of God; nor an immoderate love of worldly substance, or of money, which is the root of all evil; but a love of life, or of a longer life in this present world; he was desirous of living longer in this world, and chose not to hazard his life by staying with the apostle, a prisoner at Rome; and therefore left him, and provided for his own safety and security: and is departed unto Thessalonica: which perhaps was his native country; and however he was at a sufficient distance from Rome, where he might judge himself safe; and if he was a worldly and earthly minded man, this was a fit place for him, being a place of trade and business: and this doubtless gave rise to a tradition, that he afterwards became a priest of the idol gods among the Thessalonians. Epiphanius (a) places him among the heretics Ebion and Cerinthus, as if he was one of them.
Crescens to Galatia; he might not depart on the same account as Demas, but might be sent by the apostle to Galatia, to visit the churches there, to set things in order, and establish them in the faith, and bring an account of their state. Epiphanius (b), instead of Galatia, reads Gallia, or France; and so does Eusebius (c) and the Ethiopic version; and Jerom asserts, (d), that Crescens preached in France, and was there buried; though others say he was bishop of Chalcedon in Galatia, and put him among the seventy disciples; See Gill on Luk 10:1. The Syriac version calls him "Crispus", and the Arabic version "Priscus".
Titus to Dalmatia; who Titus was is well known; the place he went to, Dalmatia, is a country in Europe, a part of Illyricum, where the apostle had preached; see Gill on Rom 15:19. Pliny says (e), that part of Pannonia, which lies to the Adriatic sea, was called Dalmatia; it had its name from Dalmius, a city in it. The Alexandrian copy reads "Dermatia". Here the apostle had doubtless been useful for the conversion of souls, and planting of churches, and therefore sent Titus thither, to assist them in their state and condition, and bring him an account of them. For in the "second" and "third" centuries we read of churches in Dalmatia; and likewise in the "fourth" century; for there were bishops from Dalmatia in the synod at Sardica; and in the "fifth" century, Glycerius was bishop of Salo, a city in this country; and in the "sixth" century, one Malchus was bishop of the Dalmatian church (f).
(a) Contra Haeres, Haeres. 51. (b) lbid. (c) Hist. Eccl l. 3. c. 4. (d) Catalog. Script. Eccles. sect. 13. p. 90. (e) Nat. Hist. l. 3. c. 25. (f) Hist. Eccl. Magdeburg, cent. 2. c. 2. p. 4. cent. 3. c. 2. p. 4. cent. 4. c. 2. p. 6. c. 9. p. 425. cent. 5. c. 2. p. 7. cent 6. c. 2. p. 8.
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 Come to me - Both that he might comfort…
Come to me - Both that he might comfort him, and be strengthened by him. Timotheus himself is said to have suffered at Ephesus.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto…
Verse 9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me] He appears to have wished Timothy to be present at his death, that he might have his faith confirmed by seeing how a Christian could die; and, as he had but a short time to live, he begs Timothy to hasten his visit, and particularly so as he had scarcely now any companions.
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 4:9-11. Do thy diligence — Endeavour by all…
2Ti 4:9-11. Do thy diligence — Endeavour by all means; to come shortly unto me — The apostle, now about to leave the world, wished to enjoy Timothy’s company and conversation for a little while, both that that evangelist might comfort him, and might be comforted and strengthened by him, so that he might suffer death courageously when called to do so. Accordingly, it is said by some, that he actually suffered martyrdom at Ephesus. For, &c. — As if he had said, I have the more need of thy company and assistance, because I have been deserted by some who ought to have acted in a very different manner: Demas — Once my fellow- labourer, (Phm 1:24,) hath forsaken me — By calling the departure of Demas to Thessalonica a forsaking him, the apostle intimates that he departed without his permission. Having loved this present world — And gone where his secular views invited him. Crescens — Probably a preacher also, is gone with my consent to Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia — Having now left Crete. These either went with him to Rome, or visited him there. Only Luke — Of my fellow-labourers; is with me — For, from 2Ti 4:21, where the salutations of some of the Roman brethren by name are mentioned, it appears that the apostle had many friends still in Rome, members of the church there, with whom he was allowed to have some intercourse, but his chief support was, that God was with him. Of the character of Luke, see on Col 4:14, and the preface to his gospel, Take Mark and bring him — Who, though he once departed from the work, is now profitable to me for the ministry — Mark, mentioned in this passage, is by some thought to be a different person from the writer of the gospel which bears his name.
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 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me -…
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me - As soon as possible. Timothy had been Paul’s traveling companion, and was his intimate friend. The apostle was now nearly forsaken, and was about to pass through severe trials. It is not certainly known for what purpose he wished him to come to him, but perhaps he desired to give him some parting counsels; perhaps he wished him to be near him when he died. It is evident from this that he did not regard him as the prelatical “bishop of the church of the Ephesians,” or consider that he was so confined to that place in his labors, that he was not also to go to other places if he was called in the providence of God. It is probable that Timothy would obey such a summons, and there is no reason to believe that he ever returned to Ephseus.
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 Demas hath, &c. The Demas here mentioned, is the…
Demas hath, &c. The Demas here mentioned, is the same that was at Rome with St. Paul in his first voyage, in 61 or 62, and of whom he makes mention in his epistle to the Colossians, (iv. 14.) also in that to Philemon, ver. 24. He was perverted in this last voyage, in 65, and abandoned his master in the time of danger. It is not ascertained whether he entirely renounced his faith, or whether God gave his grace to rise from his fall; or whether the love of the world, with which St. Paul here reproaches him, was only a passing fault, and an effect of pure human infirmity. St. Epiphanius (hæres. 51.) presumes that he renounced the faith, and was engaged in the heresies of Cerintus, Ebion, and others, who held Jesus Christ to be no more than a mere man. Many moderns, Grotius, Menochius, Cornel.[Cornelius a Lapide?], &c. believe that he returned with St. Paul: and Estius himself seems to think that he was the same Demas of which St. Ignatius speaks, writing to the Magnesians, calling him a worthy bishop of God. But this is founded on a false supposition, that this letter was written during his first confinement at Rome, or at least before St. Paul wrote his epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. (Calmet) --- Loving this world; i.e. his safety, and to avoid persecutions. (Witham)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Last Wishes, Directions, and Salutations
IX
Last Wishes, Directions, and Salutations
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4:9–22
9Do thy diligence to come shortly after me: 10For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; [,]Crescens to Galatia,9 Titus unto Dalmatia. 11Only Luke is with me. Take Mark , 12 and bring10 him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. AndTychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments.14Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil [laid many evil charges against15me]; the Lord reward11 [will reward?] him according to his12 works: Of whombe thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood13 our words. 16At my first answer no man stood with me,14 but all men forsook me: I pray God that itmay not be laid to their charge. 17Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear15 and I was delivered out of the mouth of the 18lion. And16 the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
19, 20Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. 21Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. 22The Lord Jesus17 Christ be with thy spirit Grace be with you. Amen.18
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Ti_4:9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. After the glance into future glory, the eye of the Apostle reverts once more to the present, with its comparatively petty cares and concerns. He has yet a great number of little commissions and wishes as a last testament, which meanwhile open to us a deep insight into the heart of the testator. First, he desires to see Timothy with him (comp. 2Ti_1:4; 2Ti_4:21). Perhaps Tychicus had already (2Ti_4:12) conveyed to him the same wish. The occasion of this was in the absence of so many who had been at Rome, but who had now gone away (2Ti_4:10). It is a genuine human feeling in the Apostle which awakens his desire to have near him, at the approach of the last conflict, his best-beloved friends. The Lord himself had likewise expressed the same need (Mat_26:38).
2Ti_4:10. For Demas hath forsaken me. Literally, left in the lurch (comp. 2Ti_4:16 and 2Co_4:9). The aorist participle ἀγαπήσας gives the reason of the apparently strange conduct, but contains also, at the same time, an indirect warning to Timothy.—Having loved this present world, τὸν νῦν αἰῶνα; i.e., the earthly, visible world, with its good things, in opposition to the invisible, still future kingdom of Christ, which was the object of the highest love of Paul, and for the sake of which he endured willingly the heaviest affliction.—And is departed unto Thessalonica. According to some, to carry on trade there; according to others, because it was his native town. According to Col_4:14; Phil. 24, he was with the Apostle as colaborer at the time of his first imprisonment, and seems also to have accompanied him again just after his release. But now the prospect of the approaching death of Paul appears to have awakened in him again the desire of earthly comfort. According to the tradition (Dorotheus, Synopt.), he became an idol’s-priest in Thessalonica; which, however, is not very probable. The text, at least, gives no sort of occasion for supposing an immediate falling away from Christianity. It could not have been difficult, moreover, for men like Demas to hold on to their easy Christianity in such way that they ran no risk either of being troubled by persecution, or of being compelled to offer too great sacrifice.—Crescens—otherwise wholly unknown—to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia (comp. Rom_15:19), a province of Roman Illyricum, on the Adriatic, southerly of Liburnia (see Winer, Real Wört., on this place). It may be that these last journeys were made in consequence of an apostolic order, at least with Paul’s knowledge and approval. From the brevity of the expression, it is not possible to determine anything here with certainty.
2Ti_4:11. Only Luke is with me. Assuredly no other than the author of the gospel, and of the Acts of the Apostles (comp. Col_4:14; Phil. 24.). The question (De Wette) where Aristarchus was then, disappears when we distinguish correctly between the Apostle’s companions during his first and his second imprisonment. “The Apostle’s helpers did not come to him at Rome to remain with him, but to depart again from him, and execute his orders;” Otto.—Take Mark, and bring him with thee. He also, according to Col_4:10, had been with Paul at Rome during the first imprisonment: where he was then, is unknown; probably near Timothy. According to the almost generally received view, we have here John Mark, who formerly (Act_13:13) had not shown enough constancy, and upon this account was thought by Paul to be unfit to accompany him upon his second journey, but afterwards, not only in the estimation of Barnabas, but of Paul also, had shown himself far more trustworthy, so that now his presence has become properly more desirable to the Apostle than that of others.—For he is profitable to me for the ministry, εἰς διακονίαν. The absence of the article must not be disregarded. The ministering of the gospel in general is not meant here, but service to be done personally to Paul (πρεσβύτης, Phil. 9); certainly in his high calling, in so far as he could carry this on in prison.
2Ti_4:12. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. Tychicus, co-worker with Paul (comp. Act_20:5; Tit_3:12). According to Col_4:7; Eph_6:21, during Paul’s first imprisonment at Rome, a commission to Ephesus was entrusted to him, which must have been distinct from this. That Tychicus was the bearer of the Epistle before us (Wieseler), we consider not probable; rather, we might conjecture that he was sent by Paul to Ephesus in advance of the latter, to take the place of Timothy during his absence, so that the latter could leave his post for an indefinite time, all the more easily, according to the wish of the Apostle, and betake himself as soon as possible to Rome. Other conjectures see in De Wette.
2Ti_4:13. The cloke that I left … bring (with thee). Τὸν φελόνην (according to other MSS, (φαιλώνην, φαιλόνην, φελώνην), pænulam. According to some interpreters, a travelling cloak in the strict sense of the term; according to others, a portmanteau, portfolio, bookcase. The grammatical grounds for both views are about equal. Against the first, it is urged that it is not probable Paul would have left behind a travelling cloak at the outset, or during the progress of a missionary journey; against the second, that he means especially the βιβλία. Besides (Calvin): “Quæret hic quispiam, quid sibi velit Paulus vestem petendo, si mortem sibi instare sentiebat. Hæc quoque difficultas me movet, ut de arcana accipiam,” although he adds, by way of precaution: “Potuit tamen aliquis esse tunc usus vestis, qui hodie nos latet” If Paul hoped to live through the winter (2Ti_4:21), it could well be that such an article of clothing might be wished for. [Is it not true in fact, and psychologically worth noting, that even when men know they must die soon, and are entirely resigned to death, nevertheless they frequently speak of things, and of their affairs, as if they expected life to move on as usual? And is not this the true solution of St. Paul’s words in this passage, which have moved not only the great Calvin, but many lesser lights and plain people?—E. H.] Of more moment is the account that he had left the φελόνηνwith Carpus (beyond this not known), at Troas. It is very improbable that the same sojourn at Troas is here meant of which there is mention in Act_20:6, since this happened years before, and the effects here named could readily have been conveyed upon the ship in which they were then carried from Troas to Assos (2Ti_4:13). Paul, consequently, must have been once again at Troas, later; and here, consequently, we have a new proof of the probability of a second imprisonment.—And the books; uncertain whether sacred or secular writings, which were written upon papyrus (but) especially the parchments, μάλιστα τὰς μεμβράνας; naturally, written parchments, the content of which was dear to him; since unwritten parchment was readily enough to be obtained in Rome.
2Ti_4:14. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. [“ἐνεδείξατο=fecit publicè;” Wordsworth. The same writer thinks the Apostle is speaking here not of the first law-suit at Rome, “but of some more recent peril in Asia.”—E. H.] Wherefore, we cannot believe this to have been the same Alexander mentioned in 1Ti_1:20 (see upon this place). Were he the same mentioned in Act_19:33, we might conjecture that he had been summoned to Rome in the matter of Paul’s law-suit, that in his first apology (2Ti_4:15) had appeared against him, and now had returned again to Ephesus, in the immediate neighborhood of Timothy (Wieseler). Other opinions see in De Wette upon this place. In any event, the bitter mortification experienced by Paul at his hands must have been of formidable, serious sort, and consisted in a withstanding (contradiction) of his words (2Ti_4:16).—The Lord reward him according to his works, ἀποδώῃ. The effort to free the Apostle here from the appearance of excessive harshness, has given occasion to an alteration of the reading. A. C. D.1 E. P. G., as well as many translators and church-fathers, read ἀποδώσει, the Lord will requite him according to his works. How weighty soever this number of witnesses be, observation has justly called forth some complaint nevertheless that there has been here designedly a softening of the sense of the word, so that the Recepta in the end, has more inner probability. The Apostle utters here no vindictive judgment, but an imprecation which springs from his Christian feeling for right and righteousness, where, under no circumstances, must it be forgotten that he has to deal, not with a personal enemy, but with an opponent of his word (2Ti_4:15), and of the cause of the gospel, as in Act_13:9-10.
2Ti_4:15. Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words. The soberness of this advice and the resoluteness of this accusation is the best evidence that Paul, in the foregoing words, had been in no degree blinded by personal revenge. The connection with the statements in 2Ti_4:15-16 strengthens the conjecture that Alexander withstood (ἀνθέστηκε) the words of the Apostle, not during any previous ministerial activity, but on the occasion of his recently delivered defence, when Paul was defending not only his personal cause, but assuredly, for the most part, the cause of the gospel.
2Ti_4:16. At my first answer no man stood with me, Οὐδείς μοι συμπαραγένετο. Wolf: “Συμπαραγίνεσθαιindicat patronos et amicos, qui alios, ad causam dicendam, vocatos, nunc præsentia sua, nunc etiam oratione adjuvare solebant” (comp. Schömann, Att. Recht, p. 708). According to Roman law, such assistance was perfectly legal, and allowed the accused. Even Roman emperors were accustomed not to shun their friends when arraigned. Lucian (De Morte Peregrini, § 13) derided the zeal of the early Christians who availed themselves of this right. If any one, surely Paul might have expected that, upon the bench of the advocate, friends would not have been wanting who would freely have raised their voices in his behalf. To be sure, some had gone away (2Ti_4:11); but he was at Rome then for the second time, and he had various, and, amongst them, distinguished friends (see Php_1:13; Php_4:22), consequently others could not have been wanting to him. But here, likewise, human weakness, and fear of becoming involved in the probably unfavorable issue of his suit, had prevailed in full force. It is hence likewise clear that his condition now was entirely different from that during his former imprisonment.—(I pray God) that it may not be laid to their charge, adds the Apostle, in the consciousness, on the one hand, that an actual sin had been committed, which certainly needed forgiveness; and, on the other side, that here no deliberate wickedness, like that of Alexander (2Ti_4:14-15), had been at work, but only weakness of the flesh. In this his gentle judgment, moreover, he exhibits likeness of the Master (Mat_26:41), whom he resembles in this, that, upon his entrance at the path of death, he found himself forsaken of his dearest friends, and yet was not alone (comp. Joh_16:32).
2Ti_4:17. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. After the mention of the dark side, the Apostle exhibits the bright side of his situation in that critical moment The Lord—viz., Christ—stood by me (παρέστη)—with the help of the Holy Ghost (comp. Mat_10:19-20)—and (this the result of the assistance) strengthened me (ἐνεδυνάμωσε με, comp. Php_4:13; 1Ti_1:12), in that he endued me with courage and παῤῥησια. The Lord has not only done what the Apostle might have expected from his friends, but more yet.—The immediately following states the object of this benefit: That by me the preaching might be fully known (sc. of the gospel), πληροφορηθῇ, comp. 2Ti_4:5 (without adequate grounds, some Cod. read πληρωθῇ), not only, that the preaching of the gospel through me should gain fuller confirmation and recognition, but that it should thereby reach, as it were, its culmination, since upon this occasion it was rung forth impressively in the capital of the world, in the ears of the corona populi, and (that) all the Gentiles might hear. The Apostle regards the witness delivered upon this occasion as the keystone of his apostolic message, and all within its reach as the core and representation of all heathen peoples (comp. Rom_10:18; Col_1:6).—And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. “Multi sub nomine Leonis Nerorum intelligunt. Ego hac locutione potius generaliter periculam designari existimo, ac si diceret: ex præsenti incendio, vel ex faucibus mortis;” Calvin. The explanation, that there is reference here to the punishment of being thrown to raging lions, is insipid (Mosheim). Whether, again, Alexander the coppersmith, or a certain Æilus Cæsareanus, a deputy of the Emperor, or also the chief accuser in the lawsuit, is here designated, is a matter wholly undecided. It must not be overlooked that here the statement is not of the lion himself, but of the mouth of the lion, and that hereby, in a figurative manner, the sum total of the dangers which, at the moment, surrounded the Apostle, can be expressed (comp. Psa_22:22).
2Ti_4:18. And the Lord shall deliver me, &c. The Apostle foresees that the issue of the decisive final hearing, now imminent, might not be comparatively as favorable as that of the first hearing, from which he had gone forth unharmed; but he does not lose courage upon that account. He who has delivered him thus far out of all dangers, will do it yet again. ̔Ο κύριος ῥύσεταί με ἀπὸ πάντος ἔργου πονηροῦ. In and by itself, it were possible that he here refers to ἔργα πονηρά which he himself might perhaps do, in reference to which he now, nevertheless, hopes in the Lord to be graciously delivered from (Grotius: “Liberabit me, ne quid agam, Christiano, ne quid Apostolo indignum”). At this high level of his spiritual development, and with death immediately before him, it is not probable that the Apostle could have felt and expressed fear in this respect, and hence the view is far more acceptable that Paul was thinking here of the ἔργα πονηρά of his enemies (so to say, further openings of the lion’s mouth). That he nevertheless, as would appear from the tone of the words, expected no deliverance from the real danger of death, or a restoration of his former freedom, is evident from what follows immediately: and will preserve (me) unto his heavenly kingdom; in that kingdom which, although it be founded upon earth, and will, at the Parousia, be revealed in all its glory, is, nevertheless, here considered decidedly as in the beyond: σώσει εἰς = σώζων ἄξει με εἰς (Heydenreich). The heavenly kingdom is the receptaculum in which Paul will find complete deliverance, after, through death naturally, he shall have been transported thither. We have here consequently no other idea than in Php_1:23.—To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Here, too, as in Rom_9:5, the doxology is dedicated to Christ, through whom he enjoys this deliverance. A worthy conclusion of this entire passus of the whole Epistle, to which, moreover, only a few more particulars of less importance will be further added. “Doxologiam parit spes, quanto majorem res;” Bengel.
2Ti_4:19. Salute Prisca and Aquila (see Act_18:2; Rom_16:3; 1Co_16:19). Here also, as it often occurs, Prisca is named before her husband. It may perhaps be considered a proof that she was his superior, either as regards character or in respect of the development of her spiritual life.—And the household of Onesiphorus (see 2Ti_1:16-18).
2Ti_4:20. Erastus abode at Corinth, &c.—Besides here, Erastus is also mentioned in Act_19:22 and in Rom_16:23, as chamberlain of the city of Corinth (arcarius civitatis, or financial administrator). Yet it is a question whether the person here alluded to is the same as the one last mentioned. The very saying that he abode at Corinth speaks against it, since from οἰκονόμος this would surely have been self-evident, unless, indeed, he had already resigned his office, or, perhaps, had been deposed for his avowal of Christianity.—But Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. From Act_20:4; Act_21:29, we are acquainted with Trophimus as a Christian from among the heathen, also an occasional travelling companion of Paul, and the innocent cause of that storm which then arose against the Apostle. This time, also, he had wished to accompany Paul on his journey, but had been left by him sick at Miletus, a city on the seacoast of Caria (not the Miletus in Crete). A statement again, which remains inexplicable if we assume that this Epistle was written during the Apostle’s first imprisonment at Rome, since it is surely impossible to place this incident in that last journey to Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 20, 21. (see Act_21:29). Well says De Wette: “The idea of leaving refers to a prior companionship.”
2Ti_4:21. Do thy diligence to come before winter (see 2Ti_4:9). “Ipsa hieme navigatio olim fere nulla, et imminebat martyrium Pauli;” Bengel.—Eubulus greeteth thee … and all thy brethren. Names of certain Christians of Rome, of whom we know nothing.—Linus, according to some writers, is the same person whom Eusebius and Irenæus name the first Bishop of Rome. [The tradition was generally received.—E. H.]
2Ti_4:22. The Lord … be with thy spirit. A blessing differing somewhat in form from the conclusion usual to the Apostle. In the knowledge that it is his last Epistle, he has purposely so divided the blessing that the former part concerns Timothy alone (μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματός σου), but the latter, all the believers with him who would read it (μεθ̓ ὑμῶν). See 1Ti_6:21.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. We are now at the end of the last Epistle which the Apostle Paul wrote, and are therefore of necessity urged to cast a glance upon his end. It is uncertain whether his last wish was fulfilled, and whether Timothy did come to him before the winter. Nero died in the June of 68 A. D.; so that, if we assume, with the tradition, that Paul suffered martyrdom under his reign, we have then in this date the extremest terminus ad quem. His rank as Roman citizen saved him from crucifixion, which, according to the prophecy (Joh_21:18), fell to Peter’s lot. By the testimony of Clem. Rom., Tertullian, Eusebius, and others, Paul was beheaded with the sword. Jerome (Catal. Script.) relates: “Hic ergo decimo quarto Neronis anno, eodem die, quo Petrus, Romæ pro Christo capite truncatus sepultusque est in via Ostiensi.” [Comp. Conybeare and Howson on St. Paul’s death, vol. 2. pp. 486–490.—E. H.] The sentence last added is by no means improbable, if we reflect that death-warrants were often executed without the city when extensive popular tumults arising from them were feared, although, otherwise, execution without the city was thought especially shameful. Those legends need in this place no criticism, which report that milk instead of blood flowed from the neck of the Apostle; nor those others, that from the spot where the head, in falling, touched three times the ground, there leaped up springs of water.
2. The last wishes, regulations, and blessings of the Apostle before his death are of double importance. In the first place, they show that we do not stand here upon the soil of abstract ideas, but of the soberest historical reality; and, secondly, they contain, just in the seeming unimportance of many of the notices, one indirect proof more of the genuineness of the Epistle. How could a forger have devised an order like the one concerning, for instance, the cloak, the books, and the parchments? But he who wishes in any case to find straightway, in the innocent name “Linus”—only mentioned here by the way—a sign of the second century, and makes this salutation a basis for groundless hypotheses and hypercritical combinations (Baur), must certainly cling very closely to his once-assumed fixed idea. It is to be hoped, too, that the opinion (Wieseler, Chron. Syn., p. 428) will find no general support, that in deciding upon the composition and arrangement of the apostolic Epistles, the personal references are of no importance.
3. Just that genuinely human trait which appears in Paul’s longing for his friends before death, and is expressed in his sorrow for the faithlessness of certain ones, shows us that the state of his mind (2Ti_4:6-8) can in no way be called a fruit of enthusiasm and exaggeration.
4. The little we know of Demas gives us no right to use him, as he already has been, as evidence against the evangelical precept of the perseverantia sanctorum. The word of the Apostle, 1Jn_2:19, is rather of weight in this case. The use Bunyan has made of this character in his “Christian Pilgrim,” is ingenious. We may say, in fine, that when in us, or in others, only feeble germs even of spiritual activity are found, the consideration of Demas stimulates our vigilance; while a glance at Mark (2Ti_4:11; compare with this his earlier history) quickens our courage. The former reminds us of the saying: “Many who are first shall be last;” and the latter: “and the last shall be first.”
5. Upon the difficulty which has been found in 2Ti_4:13, against the Theopneusty of the Apostle, compare what has been said on 1Ti_5:23, in “Doctrinal and Ethical.”
6. The account that Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus, is, in the first place, an internal proof of the genuineness of the Epistle; for no wonder-loving forger would ever have written thus, in the Apostle’s name; but secondly, also, it is a remarkable aid to a true judgment of the Apostle’s power to perform miracles, which was just as little unlimited on the one hand as wholly arbitrary on the other. “We may herein also notice the wonder-working power of the Apostles, namely, that its use lay not in their own will, but in that of God; and that when miracles were to occur, they were especially urged thereto by God; and that they were used, too, only as introductory to the preaching of the gospel, and as confirmatory of it, but, for the rest, not in rivalry with the mystery of the Cross and its passion, so that this might be dispensed with at will, by means of miracles wrought upon our enemies;” Starke.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Demas, in the New Testament, is like Lot’s wife in the Old.—Even when beginning to give ourselves up to Christ, return to the present world is (1) possible; (2) criminal; (3) disastrous.—The faithlessness of earthly friends compared with the fidelity of the heavenly friend.—Moreover, timely regulations at the approach of death are by no means unworthy of the Christian, of whom the greatest things are demanded.—Paul was as far removed from a spiritless materialism as from a sickly spiritualism.—The spirit of order should animate the Christian even in little things.—The thought of an approaching end should not weaken, but, on the contrary, strengthen our zeal to “work while it is yet day.”—“The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (Joh_2:17).—How a Christian can be angry, and yet not sin (Eph_4:26).—The consolation arising from belief in God’s justice notwithstanding every wrong man does us.—Alone, and yet not alone. At our last account also, no one will stand by us except the Lord.—The Lord can redeem His children through death, if he does not redeem them from death.—The last closing note of the Christian life a doxology always.—The association of the saints should be more intimate the shorter the lifetime becomes.—Aquila and Priscilla the model of Christian wedlock: (1) Closely bound together; (2) zealous in labor; (3) richly blessed (Traurede).—The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in its all-surpassing value.
“How joyous am I here below!
My treasure is the A and O,
Beginning and conclusion.”
Starke: Hedinger: How many brothers Demas has, who love the world better than God (Luk_8:13)!—Cramer: Not he who has begun well, but he that shall endure to the end, shall be saved (Mat_24:13).—Osiander: Many a one is at first weak in his charge, but afterwards zealous in the work of the Lord. Hence we should not straightway despise the weak, but hope for improvement (Rom_14:1).—Preachers must have books and paper; reading and writing is their labor. Without these they can hardly exist (1Ti_4:13).—Hedinger: A coppersmith withstands Paul, God, Christ’s kingdom and word. Thus the enemy can work by means of insignificant people. One fly defiles much ointment, one mangy sheep many others (Ecc_9:18; Ecc_10:1). One bad man, when subject to the devil, can prevent much good by word and deed. May God reprove Satan, that he hold his peace!—Imperfections and faults occur even among saints; wherefore we should edify and improve each other in common (Gal_6:1; Mat_26:56).—When all our friends, when father and mother forsake us, our God will not forsake us (Psa_27:10).—Experience brings hope with it; he who has been so often in peril, and has been saved—who feels, too, every day the saving help, can surely be of good hope that the Lord will always save him.—A blessed death shuts the door on every suffering.—Remember your benefactor, and, if you can do no more, wish him a thousand different benefits forever and ever.—To be blessed by the holy, is honor and benefit.—Jesus Christ all in all. Where He is not, we can accomplish no good.
Heubner: If even a Paul experienced bad faith from his friends, how much easier for us to find consolation!—Hints on the value and use of books, on lectures, and scientific occupations.—There is a holy longing to see evil punished for the sake of good.—It is often wise to turn aside from your path.—Let us be considerate and gentle with human weaknesses.—The aid of God is assured to the witnesses of truth.—The godly need not fear even the cruelest violence.—The final redemption of the godly is not here, but will be there.—Even with the dignity of an apostle, intimate friendship is compatible.—“Not to strange means, but to yield to God’s law” (see 20 b).
Lisco: Paul’s trust in God in his last extremity.—The Lord our guard and aid: (1) He stays when men leave us; (2) He protects us; (3) He redeems us in the end.—Want of love, and love in its origin and action.
Footnotes:
[9]2Ti_4:10.—[Cod. Sin. is peculiar here—γαλλίαν; so, too, C—E. H.]
[10]2Ti_4:11.—[Tischendorf reads ἄγαγε, after A. Lachmann, ἄγε; so Cod. Sin.—E. H.]
[11]2Ti_4:14.—[See our Author’s exposition. He adheres, with Tischendorf, to the Recepta, ἀποδῷη. Lachmann, after weighty authorities and Greek Fathers, reads ἀποδώσει; so the Cod. Sin. and Wordsworth.—E. H.]
[12]2Ti_4:14.—[αὐτοῦ; left out of the Cod. Sin.—E. H.]
[13]2Ti_4:15.—[ἀνθέστηκε. Lachmann, after A. C., and others, ἀντἐστη; so Cod. Sin., Wordsworth, and is adopted by Huther.—E. H.]
[14]2Ti_4:16.—[συμπαρεγένετο. The weight of testimony is in favor of παρεγένετο; so Lachmann and Cod. Sin.—E. H.]
[15]2Ti_4:17.—[Modem critical editors have adopted the plural form, ἀκούσωσιν, instead of the singular, as in the Recepta.—E. H.]
[16]2Ti_4:18.—[καί in this place to he omitted.]
[17]2Ti_4:22.—[Instead of the reading of the Recepta, ὁ κύρ. ̓Ιησ. Χριστός, Lachmann has, ὁ κύρ. ̓Ιησοῦς, which Huther defends. Tischendorf, ὁ κυριος simply; so, too, the Cod. Sin. Wordsworth retains the reading of the Recepta.—E. H.]
[18]2Ti_4:22.—[ἀμήν not genuine.—E. H.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain (Ti2 4:21; Ti2 1:4, Ti2 1:8.) Timothy is asked…
(Ti2 4:21; Ti2 1:4, Ti2 1:8.) Timothy is asked to come to be a comfort to Paul, and also to be strengthened by Paul, for carrying on the Gospel work after Paul's decease.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. Do thy diligence] The same verb as in…
9. Do thy diligence] The same verb as in Tit_3:12 and below 2Ti_4:21. ‘Make an earnest effort,’ ‘do thy best.’ Compare the use in Gal_2:10, ‘this was my own heartfelt desire.’
shortly] Further defined 2Ti_4:21.
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9–18. The scattering of friends. Entreaty for Timothy’s presence. Assurance of the Lord’s present help
The connexion is: ‘Do your best to come to me—to come with all speed—to come before the winter stops you—lest it be too late. But for Luke, I am all alone. One by one they of Asia have left me. Yet I am not alone. I can still do all things through Him that enables me.’
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 (9) Do thy diligence to come shortly.—Such a request…
(9) Do thy diligence to come shortly.—Such a request as this would—had we no other arguments—tell us that no forger ever wrote this Epistle. Who would ever have dreamed of putting into the letter such a request as this, after those solemn expressions of the last few verses, in which the Apostle spoke of himself as even then tasting the bitterness of death? He had been writing as though the martyr’s death was so imminent that the preparations were already being made for it. This request to Timothy to come to him, after he had written such thoughts down, is at first sight strange, and one certainly which no forger would have appended to the writing. But though the forger would never have thought of such a summons, St. Paul might. He still lived, and the thought of life and the hope of life even in that brave Christ-loving heart still burned; after all, the martyrdom which seemed so close at hand might be delayed. Days, months, might drag on their slow, weary length, and still find the old man languishing and solitary in his chains in that dreary prison. He longed to see some of his faithful companions once more, and for the last time to bid them with his own mouth to be faithful and brave. So, as it were, hoping against hope, he dictates on the last pages of the letter, “Do thy diligence,” or better, “earnestly endeavour to come shortly to me.” His loving wish to see Timothy again appears from the words of 2Ti_1:4 : “greatly desiring to see thee;” and again from 2Ti_4:21. “Do thy diligence to come before winter.” And some have seen in the expression, “being mindful of thy tears,” in 2Ti_1:4 (to which we have given, however, a different interpretation), a reciprocal anxiety on the part of Timothy to see and speak again with his old master. But St. Paul, though he begged him to hasten his journey as much as possible, and still, though all seemed so dark around him, hoped to see him again, framed the charge of the last letter in such a way that Timothy, if when he reached Rome, should find that all was over, might know what were his master’s last wishes and directions. On the natural human longing for sympathy in the supreme hour, compare our blessed Lord’s words to Peter, James, and John (Mat_26:38): “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me.”
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 Do thy diligence (spoudason); see ch. 2:15, note. St.…
Do thy diligence (spoudason); see ch. 2:15, note. St. Paul"s affectionate longing for Timothy"s company in present danger and desertion is very touching. (For the chronological bearing of this passage, see Introduction.)
Vers. 9-22.
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Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her.
In this little social incident of some three thousand years ago, which may have passed at the time with little observation, we have a pithy and pregnant example set before us, with the usual searching wisdom of Holy Scripture, of the difference between friendship and friendship, religion and religion, according as they lie deep in the roots of the heart or merely lie on the surface. The contrast between Demas and Luke affords another example of this important difference. We may believe that Demas had faith in Christ, and also that he had a measure of friendship for St. Paul. We need not suppose that, when he was a "fellow worker" with St. Paul in the good work of evangelizing the world, when he was his companion with Luke and others during his first imprisonment at Rome, and travelled with him again Romewards, he was playing the hypocrite, and that he was either false in his profession of faith to the Lord Jesus or of attachment to his apostle. But neither his faith nor his friendship had been put to a severe test. The force of St. Paul"s character had hitherto borne him along like an impetuous torrent, he had confidence in his star; he felt sure, perhaps, that the cause which Paul espoused would triumph; and no difficulties had arisen sufficient to make him waver in his purpose. But suddenly all was changed. This second imprisonment, with its ominous trial, with the defection of the Asiatic Christians, and the desertion of friends, had altered the whole aspect of affairs. Instead of the triumphs of the faith and the supremacy of the great apostle, he saw the probability of a cruel death for St. Paul and his nearest companions. The trial was too great for his weak faith and his superficial friendship. Without denying Christ, and without withdrawing from his outward attachment to St. Paul, we can fancy him, perhaps, with protestations of undiminished love, and regrets at the necessity which called him away, hurrying off to Thessalonica, his native place. But Paul felt it to be, what it was, a desertion. "Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her." In the words, "Only Luke is with me," we see the different stamp both of his faith and of his friendship. Luke the physician was as loving as he was loved. With admirable fidelity and unshaken constancy, he had followed his great master from Philippi to Troas, and from Troas to Jerusalem. In the graphic narratives of St. Paul"s trials before the Sanhedrim, before Felix, before Festus and Agrippa; in his account of the shipwreck and of the arrival at Rome, we trace his presence at all those eventful scenes. Through the two whole years of imprisonment he had never left him. And now that the end of that great career was drawing nigh, and the clouds were gathering up and darkening the evening of that glorious life, and various sorrows were thickening around that noble spirit, we read still, not in the inferences of Luke"s modest narratives, but in the testimony of St. Paul himself, "Only Luke is with me." "Ruth clave unto her." "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part me and thee." We see, too, how he who had recorded in such graphic words "all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up," had imbibed the spirit of his Divine Master. He had not taught others to know Jesus Christ, without coming to the knowledge of him himself. And so his faith was firm in that day of shaking. He was ready to lose his life that he might gain it; and he stands before us, not only as the evangelist who teaches and delights us, but as the strong believer and the faithful friend, whose example is as persuasive as his words.
Vers. 9-22.
Personal.
I TIMOTHY.
1. Requested to come to Rome. "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me." His formerly expressed longing to see him (2Ti_1:4) is now turned into a formal request to come, and to come shortly, unto him. In the diligence he was to show in this there is not the idea of pure haste, but of the utmost haste that was compatible with the interests of Christ at Ephesus. Certain arrangements would require to be made, not merely for his journey, but for the carrying on of the work after his departure. But as soon as these arrangements could be made he was to hasten to him at Rome.
1. Special reason in Pauls isolation. "For Demas forsook me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me." The fundamental reason for the request was the apostle"s approaching martyrdom; but there was an additional and special reason in his isolation at Rome. This should not have been the case; for Demas, who had been his trusted assistant, had been there, and if he had done his duty would still have been with him. But he forsook him in his hour of distress, which may probably be associated with his first defence (ver. 16). The reason for desertion was that he loved the present world. We are not to understand world in the ethical sense in which it is sometimes used; the world as it has become by the entrance of sin, in
2. opposition to the world as it was intended to be. He loved the good things of the world absence from the scene of peril, ease in his own home in preference to what would have advantaged him in the future world bravely standing by Paul and lovingly ministering to his sufferings. The conduct of Demas was dastardly and cruel, calculated to destroy his influence as a Christian teacher. We are not warranted in saying that it excluded after penitence and wrecked his destiny. It has been his earthly destiny to be associated with a black act done to one of the noblest of men at a time when his nobility shone forth most clearly. In explanation of his isolation, Paul mentions without comment the departure of Crescens to Galatia, and of Titus to Dalmatia. In their case we may understand that there was not desertion of Paul, but pressure of Christian work and a mission from Paul. The only one of Paul"s assistants who was with him was Luke, so often mentioned in connection with Paul. In connection with the mention of his name here, it is remarkable that he who was with Paul during his second imprisonment in Rome only brings down the apostolic history to the period of the first imprisonment there. With the exception of Luke there were no Christian workers with Paul who could enter intelligently and sympathetically into his plans and render assistance on the spot.
3. Requested to take Mark, and bring him with him. "Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for ministering. But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus." After what had happened, the honourable mention of Mark in Col_4:10 and again here is honourable to Paul. His opinion of him had undergone great change. He had made a firm stand against him as an unsuitable companion in labour; now he bases his request for the presence of the evangelist at Rome on his being useful for ministering. Tychicus, who is warmly commended in Eph_6:21, had been thus useful; but he had been under the necessity of sending him on a mission to Ephesus. The ministering to be thought of was not so much to Paul the prisoner as to Paul in his imprisonment planning for the future of Christianity. These, then, we are to think of as the three workers who surrounded the apostle in Rome as he neared his martyrdom Timothy, Mark, Luke. They were men of like spirit, to whom he could freely communicate his plans and also the enthusiasm necessary for carrying them out. All three had the evangelistic faculty. If Timothy had more of the administrative faculty, marking him out as, more than the other two, the successor of Paul, they had more of the literary faculty, marking them out for service to future generations.
1. Requested to bring belongings of the apostle with him from Troas. "The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments." The apostle had not lived to accumulate property; and none would be much the richer by what he left behind. He possessed a cloke, which some friend may have gifted to him a large warm cloke for winter, when lately at Troas since the previous winter, we may suppose he had not been able to bring it with him, but had left it with Carpus. As Timothy would pass Troas on his way to Rome, he is requested to bring it with him. Paul did not, in the spirit of modern monasticism, court suffering; he provides against the coming winter, even when that winter was to bring his martyrdom. He also possessed books, which are a necessity for the preacher. He who has influenced so many by his books was himself influenced by the books of others. He also possessed parchments, on which he laid greater stress as his own compositions, containing records and statements of truth in which he was deeply, interested, as fitted to keep the current of Christianity clear and pure. Timothy, who in the First Epistle is charged to attend to reading, would find in these books and parchments good pabulum and companionship on his journey from Troas to Rome.
II ALEXANDER.
1. His injurious conduct. "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil." The fact of his being styled the coppersmith seems to point to his being distinguished from others of the same name. We would not, therefore, identify him with the Alexander of the First Epistle, or the Alexander of the Acts of the Apostles. We may conclude, from the language, that he bore personal animosity to Paul.
2. The Righter in heaven. "The Lord will render to him according to his works." This is very different from invoking a curse on Alexander. He found it in his heart to make matters much worse for Paul. The Lord would judge between them. This would issue in evil to Alexander, unless his present spiteful works were followed by repentance.
3. No confidence to be placed in him. "Of whom be thou ware also; for he greatly withstood our words." Paul had good reason to be on his guard against him. We can understand his having a certain connection with Christianity, which would give him all the more power to injure Paul. But he had not the spirit of Christianity, when on the occasion, we may suppose, of the first defence, he made injurious statements against the great champion of Christianity. If he still professed to be a friend of Christianity at a distance from Rome, he was to be regarded with suspicion.
III PAUL.
1. First defence. "At my first defence." This first defence was in connection with a second imprisonment, of which there can be no doubt. The account of Eusebius is that "after defending himself successfully, it is currently reported that the apostle again went forth to proclaim the gospel, and afterwards came to Rome a second time, and was martyred under Nero." Some would place an interval of five years between the first and second imprisonments. We have not the means of knowing the precise charge against which he had to defend himself on this second occasion. There is apparently this fact to go upon, that, after the conflagration of Rome which was attributed by Nero to the Christians, Paul as their leader was liable at any moment to be arrested. The supposition is adopted by some that on this ground he was arrested at Nicopolis, where Titus was to join him, (Tit_3:12) and taken across the Adriatic to Rome. His trial, which does not seem this time to have been long delayed, was yet recent; for Timothy had not been informed of it. The trial would probably take place, not before Nero, as on the previous occasion, but before the city prefect, who, as more the emperor"s creation, was supplanting the regular judges. The scene of the trial would probably be in one of the basilicas in the Roman forum, where a large audience could be accommodated. "A dense ring," says Pliny, "many circles deep, surrounded the scene of trial. They crowded close to the judgment seat itself, and even in the upper part of the basilica both men and women pressed close in the eager desire to see (which was easy) and to hear (which was difficult)." We may conclude, from the language here (first defence), and also from his being still in bonds as a malefactor, (2Ti_2:9) that the trial resulted neither in his condemnation nor in his full acquittal. Some imagine that he was acquitted on a first charge; but that there was a second charge on which he was yet to be tried. The more probable supposition is that there was a postponement in consequence of the case not being clear, and that the apostle was looking forward to a second trial when, on the whole case, be would have to make a second defence.
1. Assistance at his trial. "No one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not he laid to their account. But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me; that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear." He had not the assistance which was usually enjoyed
2. by the accused on his trial. No stress need be laid on the absence of a professional advocate; for Paul was well able to defend himself. But there was no one beside him to give him countenance. There was no one which would have rendered great assistance to come forward and testify that his relation to the Roman law, in his conduct and teaching, had been all that Romans could have desired. It was his fortune to be put in the position in which his Master had been put before him. "All," he says, "forsook me." The resemblance extended not merely to his position, but to his gentleness of spirit. The Master had said on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." The servant echoes this sentiment when he says, "May it not be laid to their account." The absence of earthly friends was, however, more than made up by the presence of a heavenly Friend. This was the Lord Jesus Christ, who stood by him, not merely as his Friend, but as his Advocate, and strengthened him as such. That is to say, he supplied him, in matter and spirit, with all that was necessary for his defence. This was according to the Master"s own promise, "And when they bring you before the synagogues, and the rulers, and the authorities, be not anxious how or what ye shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say." We learn that the defence of himself was adroitly turned into a defence of the gospel. If there was a charge of arson, it would be open to him to show that the gospel did not encourage crime or resistance to the powers that be. It would also fall naturally to him to give a statement of the points on which he laid greatest stress in his teaching. The assistance he received was of the highest avail; for it brought his life work to its culmination. He had been proclaiming the gospel in many places, and in many places the Gentiles had heard. Now, when his opportunity had come before Roman officials and before a Roman multitude, as apparently it had not come before, he could say that, as far as his instrumentality was concerned, his proclamation had reached its climax, and the last of the Gentiles had heard.
1. His description of the restart of the trial. "And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." The ancient opinion, that the lion here was Nero, may be taken as substantially correct. We are not to understand that Paul had become personally obnoxious to Nero since his acquittal by him. Away from Rome, he may not have attracted the attention of the tyrant. But it suited Nero, according to the testimony of Tacitus, to avert the rage of the populace from himself to the Christians. As the result of that rage, Paul, as the ringleader of the Christians, was apprehended, and put on his trial. In the state of feeling which prevailed, it would be very difficult for Paul to get a calm hearing. He was more likely to meet with fierceness than with
2. justice. The Roman power, of which Nero was the fit embodiment, was like a lion opening its mouth to devour him. That he was not instantly devoured was nothing less than a miracle. The Lord standing by him, he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. We must not put more meaning into this than it will bear. It simply means that he got a respite. Roman fierceness was not then gratified; the lion did not. get him then between its teeth. But Roman fierceness, consequent on the conflagration, had not died out; the lion might again open its mouth on him.
3. Confident hope of future and everlasting deliverance. "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom." His respite gave him this confidence. It did not make him self-confident; but, mindful of the source whence his respite had come, his confidence was in the Lord, that he would deliver him still. It was not a deliverance from death that he expected, as appears from the second clause. But it was deliverance from all that would intimidate him or unfit him for bearing a worthy testimony on the occasion of his second trial. A wicked attempt might be made to damage Christianity in him, as may have been made by Alexander on the occasion of the first trial. The Lord would not allow that attempt to succeed. Christianity would come forth out of the trial untarnished. The issue, so far as he was concerned, would be his being placed safely in Christ"s heavenly kingdom. This would be his receptacle after and through death. For Christ"s kingdom is already commenced in heaven. The safe placing of Paul in it meant, on the one side, removal from the sphere of all evil, and, on the other side, the coming under the highest conditions of happiness in the enjoyment of Christ barring what is associated with the completing of the number of the elect and the reunion of soul and body.
1. Doxology. "To whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." Doxology is an accompaniment of the highest spiritual mood. It is offered here to the Son, as elsewhere to the Father. For it was the Lord"s assistance that he had enjoyed, and still expected, and into whose kingdom in heaven he was, by the same assistance, to be safely brought, it would take the ages of ages to declare all that Christ had been and was still to be to him.
IV SALUTATIONS.
1. The distant to whom salutations are sent. "Salute Prison and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus." Prisca and Aquila were workers with Paul, who for his life had laid down their own necks. Prisca being mentioned before her husband would seem to point to her characteristics being more
2. remarkable. The house of Onesiphorus is saluted, apparently for the reason that Onesiphorus himself was dead. Appended notices. "Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus I left at Miletus sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter." Erastus and Trophimus, who were associated with Ephesus, he did not salute, because they were not at the time there, as far as he knew. His feeling with regard to Timothy himself was to have his immediate fellowship. Let not winter come on and prevent his coming; for his martyrdom was imminent.
3. The near who send their salutations. "Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren." The brethren in Rome all sent their salutations. They were numerous enough to be known as Christian,s by Nero. The members of the Roman Church whose names are given would be specially interested in Timothy.
V BENEDICTION. "The Lord be with thy spirit. Grace be with you." The peculiarity of the benediction is that it is twofold first to Timothy separately, and then to Timothy and those with him. What Timothy is to have separately is the presence of the Lord with his nobler part; what he is to have along with others is undeserved favour. R.F.
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 Come shortly unto me.
2Ti_4:9-11
Come shortly unto me.
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Companionship
I. Human companionships are very necessary. The ear thirsts for a friends voice; the heart hungers for a friends love.
II. Human companionships are very changing. Changes are caused by distance, death, depravity.
III. Human companionships are often great blessings. Luke was with Paul. Mark was to be brought to him. Timothy was coming to him.
IV. Human companionships sometimes prove great afflictions. Demas, Alexander. Men suffer most when wounded in the house of their friends.
V. Human companionships must sometimes fail us. Friends are sometimes scared by poverty, failure, shame. Besides, companionship can do little in our intense bodily pain, mental anguish, spiritual conflict, throes of death. (U. R. Thomas.)
The society of good men desirable
1. Personal presence is to be preferred before writing.
2. The society and help of good men is much to be desired. There is much comfort and good to be gained thereby.
3. The strongest Christians sometimes may be helped by weaker. A Paul may stand in need of a Timothy.
4. A minister upon weighty and just occasions may lawfully be absent from his flock for a time.
5. We may love one friend more than another. Timothy was Pauls beloved son in the faith (1Ti_1:2). (T. Hall, B. D.)
Best men--lessons from their life
I. The best men, in the presence of death, are not disregardful of human sympathy. Even Christ took three disciples with Him to Gethsemane.
II. The best men are sometimes exposed to great social trials. All of us are constantly losing friends, from one cause or another.
III. The best men are subject to common needs. Men, if they are to be clothed, must procure their own garments; if they are to be educated and informed, must use their own faculties.
IV. The best men are sometimes troubled by their inferiors. Alexander the coppersmith. It requires no greatness to do mischief. The most contemptible characters are always the most successful in this work. Lessons--
1. Value true friends.
2. Anticipate social desertions.
3. Do not look for miraculous interpositions to supply your needs. Do not be painfully surprised if you have enemies. (Homilist.)
Friends in adversity
To-day Colonel C. came to dine with us, and in the midst of our meal we were entertained with a most agreeable sight. It was a shark, about the length of a man, which followed our ship, attended with five smaller fishes, called pilot-fish, much like our mackerel, but larger. These, I am told, always keep the shark company, and, what is more surprising, though the shark is so ravenous a creature, yet, let it be never so hungry, it will not touch one of them. Nor are they less faithful to him; for, as I am informed, if the shark is hooked, very often these little creatures will cleave close to his fins, and are often taken up with him.
Go to the pilot-fish, thou that forsakest a friend in adversity, consider his ways, and be ashamed. (G. Whitefield.)
Mans craving for society
Man is a social being. He is made to feel for, and with, his fellow-men. Sociality is a joy, a strength, a light to him. He is revealed, regaled, renewed, by fellowship. When there is community of views, sympathy of feelings, it causes a wonderful development of his nature, and gives it wonderful power. It is a lamp, a feast, a buttress of his being. It is everything whereby he can be ministered unto, or help to minister. God is social: The God of the spirits of all flesh. Christ is social: The Head of the body, the Church. Christianity is social: The fellowship of the gospel. Man is social: Come shortly unto Me. (A. J. Morris.)
Isolation undesirable
One man is no man. True, there are some cold, misanthropic souls that shun their fellows, like some plants that shrink and shrivel at a touch, and that even take an awful pride in solitude and isolation; but this is disease, or sin, or both. The finest natures are furthest removed from it. (A. J. Morris.)
Demas hath forsaken me.--
Demas
I. His previous history. (See Phm_1:24; Col_4:14). You see from this noted instance of unfaithfulness how far a man may go in the profession of Christianity, how richly he may seem to be partaking of its privileges, and how highly he may be honoured by its most de voted friends, and yet have no part or lot in it at last. Trust not in mere professions, however loud--in mere external privileges, however distinguishing--in mere intellectual gifts, however excellent--in mere occasional impressions, however lively, in mere outward services to the cause of Christ, however zealous. You may be a fellow-labourer with Paul, and yet a castaway.
II. His subsequent faithlessness. He refused to stand by the apostle in his hour of trial, withheld from him his former sympathy, withdrew from those Christian labours in which he had once been noted as a sharer with him, and shunned to be any longer seen in his society. He was not prepared to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. That want or weakness of faith which he had hitherto concealed from others, and, probably, from himself also, could not be any longer disguised. That world which he had long loved secretly, without perhaps being aware of the strength of his attachment to it, he now openly clung to and embraced.
III. The cause. Preferring his temporal interests to his Christian duties, he went back and walked no more with the apostle. To love the world, and the things that are in the world, is one of the chief sources of danger to our souls welfare--of which we are taught in Scripture to beware. It is true there is no reason why a Christian should not engage as industriously as other men in the necessary business of life, and avail himself as thankfully of its varied blessings. It is one thing, however, to use this world in due subordination to religion, and it is quite another thing to serve if as our master, or to rest in it as our chosen portion. Even with those who do not thus love the world, its influence is hostile in many things to their spiritual welfare. Countless are the hindrances it places in their way--wily and ensnaring the allurements which it spreads for them. By its fair looks, and winning smiles, and flattering and crosses, entices them to sin; while, on the other hand, its frowns, and threats, promises, it and hardships, deter them from duty. Now, if such be the influence of the world even over those who do not set their hearts upon it, how much more powerful must its influence be on such as have yielded up to it their full affection! In them, alas! the wicked world without is fatally, seconded by the wicked heart within. The world no sooner knocks, than the kindred spirit is ready to open a wide and effectual door for its admission. Temptations to vanity meeting with a vain heart find it not only a sure but an easy conquest. So was it in the case of Demas. His worldliness of spirit led him to forsake the Christian cause, when he saw that he could not longer adhere to it without endangering or prejudicing his temporal interests. How many a fair promise has it blighted! how many a hopeful beginning has it checked! how often, when the good seed was ready to spring up, have the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, checked the rising plant, and rendered it unfruitful! (T. J. Crawford, D. D.)
Demas
I. Many of you are young men who have been religiously educated in some distant home, and have been sent here, or have come here, for the pursuits of business.
II. Consider, dear friends, whose consciences declare you to belong to this class, what it is you have forsaken, or are forsaking.
1. You are forsaking honour and conscience.
2. You are forsaking the company of those you most respect.
3. And not only so, but you are forsaking the pursuits which will most ennoble your natures.
4. But worst of all, in forsaking religion, you are forsaking you God and Saviour.
III. To complete this subject, let us ask for what, considered at its very best, you leave all that is best and noblest and highest? Demas had forsaken Paul, because he loved the then present world. I suppose that, in some shape or other, is the reason why you have forsaken religion to the extent to which you have forsaken it. It is really Satans trap into which you have gone; but the bait has been this present world. You do not love penury, disease, privation, remorse, anguish, death. Oh, not at all I you love pleasure, success, money-getting, if you can get it easily. All the other things, the dark sides of this present world, drunkenness, debauchery, covetousness, immorality, over-reaching, you are net in love with these. No! You are lovers of pleasure, according to your idea of pleasure. Suppose you could gain the world, the whole world (and at best it will be an utterly unnoticeable and infinitesimal portion of it you will ever get), and in the chase should lose your own soul! (R. T. Verrall, B. A.)
The apostasy of Demas
Now, whatever may have been the circumstances under which Demas first made profession of Christianity, it is very clear that that profession must have exposed him to hardship and danger, for he became a companion of St. Paul at the very time when that apostle was hunted down by persecution. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that, in embracing Christianity, Demas was conscious of acting with any insincerity. He must have considered himself a firm believer in Christ, and must have been so considered by those who had the best power of judging. Ah! it is in this that the case of Demas is full of melancholy warning. We do not find that he was scared by the perils which encompassed the profession of Christianity. It was love of the world which caused this promising disciple to make shipwreck of faith, and of a good conscience. He who could scorn danger or endure hardship could not withstand the blandishments of the world, which plied him with its pleasures. We have no security but in constant prayer, in constant war and it should make you more diligent than ever in supplication, more vehement than ever in resistance, to hear St. Paul say of Demas--Demas who ministered to him in prison, Demas whom he called his fellow-labourer--that Demas had forsaken him, having loved this present world. And now we would turn your thoughts from the progress which Demas must have made in Christianity to the advantages which he enjoyed. We wish you to observe him, not merely as forsaking St. Paul, but as forsaking him when that apostle was on the very eve of martyrdom. Who can question that there came to him, in the solitude of his prison, glorious visitations from the invisible world, that the consolations of God abounded towards him, and that, whilst the fetters were on the body, the spirit soared as with an eagles wing, and gazed upon the inheritance that fadeth not away. Oh! to have been with him as he had to tell of the comforts and satisfactions thus vouchsafed, to have stood by him as the soul came back from its sublime expatiations, laden as it were with the riches of Paradise! Who could have doubted the truth of Christianity--who could have refused to adhere to its profession--who could have hesitated between its promises and any present advantage--with the prisoner Paul for his preacher, with the prisoner Paul for his evidence? Ah, be not too confident! It was the prisoner Paul whom Demas forsook. Forsook? Why, one would have thought the common feelings of humanity would have kept him constant! To desert the old man in his hour of trial--to leave him without a friend as the day of his martyrdom approached--who could be so ungenerous? Ah! pronounce not a hasty judgment. Demas did this--Demas who had for a long time been assiduous in ministering to the apostle--and Demas did this only because, like many--too many--amongst ourselves, he loved this present world. Learn ye, then, how weak are those extraordinary advantages when the heart is inclined to yield to the fascinations of the world--how these fascinations may be said to steal away the heart, so that he who is enslaved by them loses, to all appearance, the best sensibilities of his nature. And let no hearer henceforward think, that because he may have delight in hearkening to the pathetic or powerful speech of a favourite minister, he must be rooted in attachment to Christ and His religion. Let no minister henceforward think, that because he has gained an influence over mens minds, he must have gained a hold on their hearts. And in what mode may Christians hope to deliver themselves from love of the world? This is an important question. It is useless to show how fatal is the love, if we cannot show also how it may be subdued. There is no denying that the world addresses itself very strongly to our affections, and that the correspondence which subsists between its objects and our natural desires, gives to its temptations a force which can hardly be exaggerated; and we are sure that these temptations are not to be withstood, unless love of the world is dispossessed by love of something better than the world. You will not cease to love the world, you will not grow weaker in attachment to the world, through the influence of any proof, however elaborate, that the world is not worth loving. It is only by fixing the affections on things above, that they can be drawn from things below. There may be weariness, there may be dissatisfaction, there may be even disgust with the vanities of earth, but nevertheless these vanities will occupy the heart, unless displaced by the realities of heaven. You see, then, what you have to do. You have to meditate upon God and upon heaven, striving to acquire higher and higher thoughts of Divine majesty. There is not one of you who will become a Demas, if you keep this in mind. This is what you may call a recipe against apostasy. It is not a recipe composed upon abstract and speculative opinions, but drawn from the known workings and pleadings of the heart. The heart will attach itself to what it feels to be a greater good in preference to a lesser. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The apostasy of Demas
In the long line of the Doges, in the grand old palace in Venice, one space is empty, and the black curtain which covers it attracts more attention than any one of the fine portraits of the merchant kings. From that panel, now so unsightly, once smiled the sallow face of Marine Falieri, afterwards found guilty of treason against the state, and blotted out, so far as might be, from remembrance. The text reveals the fate of one who had filled a much more honoured place, and who, yielding to temptation, sank to still lower depths. Poor, foolish Demas has gained for himself a most unenviable notoriety. Once he was not only a Church-member, but he was accounted as no ordinary man among his brethren. Twice in the friendly salutations with which St. Paul usually closes his epistles he mentions Demas with honour (Phm_1:24; Col_4:14). Two years later he wrote in sorrow of heart, Demas hath forsaken me, etc. It was neither cowardice nor self-indulgence which had caused his ruin, but simply the love of the world; the very danger to which so many are exposed in our own day, when the beguiling blandishments of sin, rather than the terrors of persecution, are the devils most successful devices. There is no shadow of a reason to suppose that Demas had not devoted himself at the outset in downright sincerity and earnestness to Gods service; but his weakness was such as might prove the ruin of any one who does not keep every avenue to his heart diligently guarded, lest an inordinate love of temporal things force an entrance there. It is recorded of the King of Navarre, then claiming to be a good Protestant, that being urged by Beza to behave himself in a more manly way for the cause of God, he made answer, that he was really the friend of the reformers, but that he was resolved to put out no further to sea than he might get safely back to shore in case a storm should unexpectedly arise. In other words, he would not hazard his hopes of the crown of France for the sake of his religion. You know the sequel of his story. Like Demas, he loved this present world better than he loved God. He proved a traitor to his religion, and bartered his heavenly crown for a fading one of earth. Some years ago, a young woman was hanged in England for murder, who had been tempted to commit the awful deed for the sake of a five pound note, and this note proved to be a counterfeit! To run such a risk, and to receive such bitter wages! Do those people fare better than this wretched woman who desert Gods service for the worlds poor bribes? Can the possession of hoards of wealth, or the fading memories of past enjoyments, bring peace in a dying hour? An Arab lost his way in a desert, and was in danger of perishing from hunger, when he was fortunate enough to reach a brackish well, and close by he discovered a little leather bag. Ah! heres just what I need, he cried, with joy; dates, or nuts, to appease my gnawing hunger! He hastily opened the bag, but only to east it away with contempt. It was filled with pearls! What value did they possess for one who was about to die? Just as much as the world will be to those who have sold everything else to gain it. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
Demas the deserter
I was very much affected--as probably you have been affected--by reading the accounts of the punishment of deserters in the army. Nothing in battle is so blood-chilling and horrible. It is so cool, so individual, so premeditated a life-taking. The leading forth of the offender before his whole regiment; the rehearsal of his disgrace to all his comrades; the pinioning of his arms; the bandaging of his eyes that he may not see what comrade takes his life; the open coffin beneath him hungry for its prey; the file of soldiers all aiming at one poor fluttering heart (as if sportsmen should shoot a bird already caged); the ringing volley; the lightning-like death under a dozen wounds--all this is enough to drive the kindred of the deserter to the verge of madness. The mother whose son lies in the sacred mould of Gettysburg or Chattanooga is happy in comparison with her whose hapless boy was blown into eternity from the coffin of a deserter! And why is the deserters doom made so awful? Simply because the crime is so great and the consequences of the crime so fatal to the interests of an army and of the cause for which an army fights. If desertion will destroy an army, then the army must destroy desertion. His crime is punished so fearfully that other men will be deterred from imitating his bad example. Now history has marked to infamy more than one deserter of his country, or of a sacred cause. Benedict Arnold stands already in American history, bandaged, pinioned, shot through with the volleys of a nations abhorrence! In Scripture history hangs Judas the arch-deserter. In our text we read of another. Paul has pilloried the unhappy man. Every man who has ever brought disgrace on his Christian profession, or has fallen out of his church-standing had some secret reason for his fall. He deserted under the seduction of some besetting sin. If we could come at the sad roll of all the backsliders or open apostates we might read over the specifications like these: Deserted from moral cowardice, or Deserted through neglect of prayer, or Deserted from love of the wine-bottle, or Deserted through the enticements of irreligious associates, or Deserted through unbelief. Demass name has the Holy Spirits specification beside his name. He deserted for love of the world! Whoso loveth the world, the love of God is not in him! This is the last we read of poor Demas. Tradition says that he sank so low as to become a priest in an heathen temple! But if this were so or not we need not discuss. We do know that he forsook his Masters cause in its hour of peril, and preferred the world to Christ. Paul encountered the world; went into its thickest, saw its brightest allurements; met its fiercest assaults, and its most attractive lures to his ambition. He never deserted. Why? He never loved it; he so loved Jesus that he could not love the world. Demas loved the world. It would have done him no harm if he had not. It will do you none as long as you keep it out of your heart. But when it works into the soul it eats out the loyalty to Christ and consumes the spirituality of the soul. Do you remember reading in your childhood, in that favourite volume of Oriental stories, about Sinbads voyage into the Indian Ocean? Do you remember that magnetic rock that rose from the surface, surrounded by a placid and a glassy sea? Silently the ship was attracted towards it; silently the bolts were drawn out of the vessels sides one by one, by the magnetic rock! And when the fated vessel drew so near that every bolt and clamp was unloosed, the whole structure of bulwarks and masts and spars tumbled into helpless rubbish on the sea, and the sleeping sailors awoke to their drowning agonies! So stands the magnetic rock of worldly enchantments! Its attraction is silent, slow, but powerful to the soul that floats within its range! Under its spell, bolt after bolt of resolution, clamp after clamp of Christian obligation is drawn out. One neglect of duty paves the way for another. One desertion accustoms the man to the path of evil, until he is used to what a Christian never should get used to--sinning! A backslider gets so accustomed to neglect of secret devotion that he passes by the bolted closet-door with as little concern as he passes by the doors of his neighbours in the street. He becomes habituated to a deserted Bible, a deserted sanctuary, a deserted Sabbath-school, to a neglected heart, to a deserted Saviour. At length he finds that the Friend he has deserted, deserts him. The God whom he has offended withdraws His presence. This is the penalty of sin! No deserter from Jesus escapes unpunished. And a most invariable penalty which the forsaker of God suffers is--a sense of Gods frowns, which sometimes drives the transgressor to recklessness, sometimes to despair. Then does the unfaithful Christian find that it is an evil thing and a bitter to depart from the living God. His by-path meadow leads to Doubting Castle and the dungeons of Giant Despair. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Demas
I. Let us see what is told us concerning this Demas.
1. This man was no hypocrite. He had not turned Christian for some selfish hope of worldly good or gain. There never are many of these. In those days probably there were none.
2. Nor was he a timid follower of Jesus. It was rather bleak and stormy for Mr. Facing both ways to show himself, who is usually a very dainty and delicate fellow and cannot stand much exposure. Like the cuckoos and the swallows his season is the summer, and the first touch of frost is enough to send him away.
3. Nor was he moved only by a passing glow of enthusiasm. It is not unlikely that some were--the devotion of an impulsive nature to the noble and the good, especially to the noble and the good in persecution. They receive the seed of the Word with joy, but anon the sun is up and it is withered, for it has no root.
4. And further, it was not that Demas had no religious opportunities and fellowship. That little company, knit together as it was by such bonds of sympathy and fellowship constantly met in Pauls house. Think how the soul of Demas was stirred by the great utterances of St. Paul.
II. What was it that ruined him? Having loved this present world.
1. Was it avarice?--the cursed love of gold?--That vice that grows with the years and fattens on its gains: that creeps from prudence to saving, from saving to scraping, from scraping to grubbing, from grubbing to gripping the gold more than life. So clutching his money-bags does Demas go forth, leaving Paul the aged forsaken. The love of money makes many a Demas still. If that was it, pity him. Of all pitiable, ill-tempered, miserable people in the world, this is the worst. Of all fools hell laughs most loudly at the miser, who could not use it when he had it and then left it behind. But how can we warn him? Alas, Demas is the first to sigh and shake his head, and say how dreadful it is, and never suspect that you mean him. The miser never thinks himself rich.
2. Was it love of pleasure, of the worlds ways and the worlds approbation? The world kills more men with its smiles than with its frowns. Samson can kill the young lion that roars against him, but is himself coaxed to death by Delilah.
3. And yet again, it may have been neither avarice nor worldliness that killed him, but a gradual process of spiritual neglect. So away on the coast I have seen some projecting crag, bold and mighty, joined, as it seemed, and rooted with all the solid continent: one with the ground that stretched down through the round world and away under the seas to the shores of the far west, and inland bound to the hills that were topped and crested with the granite crags--there it stood facing the blasts of the Atlantic, defying them and looking proudly forth on the wild seas that stormed and tossed below it. Yes, winds and waves would never have fetched it down. But within were hollow places, tiny streams that washed the deepening water-courses: then came the silent frosts that gnawed at it, crumbling underneath it; so hollowed out within; then came some day the crash and din of thunder and clouds of dust that darkened heaven and the proud headland was hurled far down below, dashed by the tumbling seas and swept triumphantly by the wild waves. Oh, are you the man, whose prayers were once fervent pleadings with God, and now they are an empty round of phrases? Thy danger is great. A little longer--only that, a little longer, and of thee too it must be spoken--he hath forsaken me.
4. Here is the record of the basest ingratitude. A black ingratitude that rouses our indignation. St. Paul had most likely been the means of bringing him to the knowledge of the truth. He could not have failed to lead him to the richer enjoyment of the truth. Now when his company would have cheered the apostle in his dungeon loneliness we find the record--Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. Ah, thou Demas of to-day, think how the Lord Jesus Christ hath come down from His glory in very love to thee. He sighs--He saith, Thou hast forsaken Me. Oh, Demas, thou hast made a bad bargain. Thirsty ambition in place of quietness and rest. The devil as thy master in place of the loving Lord. The bondage instead of the life of goodness. And for wages at the last heaven given up for hell. Thou hast a thorn in thy pillow. Thy religion is dead, buried; but its ghost haunts thee still and will haunt thee. It meets thee in still and lonely places and whispers of what used to be. Thy religion gone and thyself spoiled for this world, and undone for the world which is to come. (M. G. Pearse.)
The damager of backsliding
I. It is the lot of Gods dearest children to be oftentimes forsaken of those that have been most near unto them (Mat_26:56; Psa_119:87; Psa_27:10; 1Ki_19:10).
1. That they may be made conformable to their head, Christ Jesus, who was left alone of His beloved disciples, and had none to comfort Him.
2. That they may fly to Christ, in whom all true comfort lies.
II. Those that have gone far in religion may yet, notwithstanding, fall away, and become apostates.
1. Because they rest on their own strength, and there is no support in man to uphold himself.
2. Because Satan, that grand apostate, is fallen from the truth himself, and he labours to draw others to fall back with him.
III. How shall we persevere in goodness?
1. Labour for a true grace.
2. Get a strong resolution against all oppositions.
3. Labour to know the truth, and to practise what thou knowest.
4. Get the love of God in thy heart.
5. Strive to grow daily in a denial of thyself.
6. Labour to have Divine truths engrafted in thee, that so they may spring forth in thy life.
7. Grow deeper and deeper in humiliation.
IV. The love of christ and the world cannot lodge together in one heart. They are two masters, ruling by contrary laws. (R. Sibbes.)
The falling away of Demas
1. The expression, Demas hath forsaken me, etc., probably means, in the first instance, that he loved his life too well to risk it by farther companionship with one, all but condemned, and whose martyrdom might be the signal for his own.
2. But the expression involves something more. That love of this present world, which assaulted Demas under the lone roof of the apostle, is what we can all understand, and a snare which is more or less laid for us all. It was the result of not having counted the cost of what might be required of him; a perilous looking back, after having put his hand to the plough, and therefore being unfit for the kingdom of God. In his former home at Thessalonica there might be a comparative security to be obtained. There he might find a comparative easement from a confessors labour; a retirement from the responsibility of a more marked and active disciple. There, at all events, he might not be called upon to defend his faith; to sustain it against the onset of impiety and false doctrine; but might indulge the illusion of adhering to it in what the world calls peace. There, in short, freed from the severer claims of an appointed trial, he might live as seemed best in his own eyes; and cling to the vain hope of reconciling the duty of a Christian with the divers conflicting habits and temptations, which beset the man of this present world. (Canon Puckle.)
Demas
Observations:
1. It is lawful (in some cases) to name men. The apostle, to make others fear apostasy, names this backslider. Our application must be as a garment fitted for the body it is made for: a garment that is fit for everybody, is fit for nobody. What is spoken in general to all, few will apply to themselves. The only way to benefit our people is to apply the plaster to their particular sores. This made Ahab to put on sackcloth (1Ki_21:20), and brought in so many thousand converts (Act_2:37). One preacher that thus faithfully applieth the Word to his people, shall do more good in one year than another that preaeheth in a general way, and never cometh home to the consciences of the people, shall do in many.
2. The godly must look sometimes to be forsaken by their bosom friend. Demas was Pauls intimate acquaintance and coadjutor, yet Demas bath forsaken me. True friend ship is like a well-built arch which standeth at first at a greater distance, and thence leisurely groweth up into a greater closure at the top, and so it will stand the better for weight.
3. Eminent professors may become grand apostates. Demas is a preacher of the gospel, Pauls coadjutor, and is joined with Luke the evangelist (Col_4:14), yet for all this Demas hath forsaken me. Nothing but sincerity can pre serve us from apostasy. Let us therefore, especially at our first setting forth, dig deep, lay a good foundation, consider what the truth may cost us, and ask ourselves whether we can deny ourselves universally for Christ. If we cannot, or will not, we are not fit to be Christs disciples, we shall shrink in the wetting, and start aside like a broken bow when a temptation comes (2Th_2:10-11).
4. The inordinate love of this present world is the highway to apostasy. It is not the world or the creatures which are good in themselves, but the excessive and inordinate love of them, which ruins men.
5. This world shall have an end and all things in it, it is not an everlasting world, it is but this present world, whose pomp and pleasures soon vanish away (1Co_7:29-31).
6. Sin blotteth a mans name, and blemisheth his reputation. Demas, for his worldliness, had a brand set on his name to the end of the world.
7. It is an aggravation of a mans sin to sin deliberately against light and conviction. Demas doth not sin here through passion or fear, but deliberately.
(1) He sinned against great light, he being a professor, yea, a preacher of the gospel, could not offend (in this kind especially) through ignorance.
(2) Demas sinned against great love. God had enlightened him, and made him a preacher of the gospel, gave him a room in the affections of his chosen vessel Paul, who made him his coadjutor.
(3) He sinned against the light of good example. Paul went before him in doing and suffering, and glories in all as comfortable and honourable, yet Demas deserts him, and is not this our sin?
(4) To sin upon a light temptation aggravateth a sin. Now Demas had no just ground for flinching. If he feared suffering for Christ, he knew the promise, That he who forsaketh father, or mother, or lands, or life, for Christ, shall have a hundred fold in this present world, and could he have brought his life and estate to a better market? If he loved the world and found sweetness in that, is there not more sweetness in Him that made the world?
(5) To draw others into sin, aggravateth sin. Demas, by his evil example, brought an evil report on the gospel, and did tacitly and interpretatively say there is much more sweetness in the world than in Christ, and so drew others from the truth.
(6) The greater the person that sins the greater is his sin. Theft in a judge is worse than in an inferior person; for Demas, a teacher of others, to teach apostasy, draws men into sin. Such cedars fall not alone, but crush the shrubs that be under them. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Demas
I. The Christian life according to demas. Chrysostom, assuming that Demas left Paul in order to go back to his friends, expressively describes his purpose by saying, He chose to luxuriate at home. If that was so, he did only what most Christian people are doing now. He still believed in Jesus as the Saviour of sinners, and hoped to be accepted for His sake; he purposed to abstain from the things forbidden by the law; and, this done, he thought himself at liberty to seek and enjoy the full measure of worldly good which he was able to obtain. In other words, he wished to lead a Christian life, but with the least possible quantity of self-denial. He wished, in the selfish acceptation of the phrase, to make the best of both worlds. His Christian ideal was a negative one, and consisted in not breaking the gospel commandments, rather than in laboriously doing, or being, anything great or good. It may often happen--in our case it will generally happen--that the best service we can render to others and to Christ is to be done at home; yet it is possible, it is common, to remain at home, and not to render it, but simply to luxuriate there, our lives regulated by that love of this present world which Demas showed. Indeed, whatever the sphere may be in which we are best able to serve others and Christ--whether the home circle, or the wider arena of social life, or the haunts of business, or the Sabbath-school, or the sick, or the poor--are we not tempted to occupy it after the manner of Demas?
II. The christian life according to Paul. Not, how little can I do, but, how much, was the ruling principle with Paul. Not, what would be easiest for me, but, what most acceptable to Christ. Not a cold calculation in the interest of self, but a warm devotion to the welfare of all. Loyalty, gratitude, generous enthusiasm, are its features; and, surely, they are among the noblest qualities of human character. Cold and grudging selfishness marks the other conception. They hardly deserve to be called two forms of the Christian life, for only one has the Spirit of Christ at all. Yes, let us remember even the nobleness of Paul was but a reflection of the nobleness of Christ. It was at that source the flame of his soul was kindled: The love of Christ constrained him.
III. the Christian life begun with paul and ended with Demas. The Spirit which founded the Christian Church was the spirit of Paul; but, as soon as the days of its freshness and persecution were over, the spirit of Demas prevailed. And the history of individuals is apt to be similar. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
Demas
In old times your London Bridge and our Netherbrow Port in Edinburgh were garnished with human heads; and in days when tyrants and persecutors were on the throne, alongside those of many notorious criminals, many a good and patriotic head hung there to bake and wither in the sun. That may appear to you a barbarous custom; in a sense it Was; notwithstanding, it came down, in a way, almost to our own times. Years ago, yet in our time, in sailing down your Thames, you saw certain strange and fearful objects standing up within tide-mark on the shore, between you and the sky; they were gibbets, with dead men hung in chains. Contrary as such a custom is to the feelings and sentiments of the present day, the object of those who observed that custom was a good one. They had a better end in view than merely the frightening of those who, happening to pass that way by night, heard the wind whistle though the holes in the empty skull, or the rusty chains creak as the body swept round and round. Piracy, with all its awful atrocities on men and women, was a much more common crime in those days than it is now; and the sailors who dropped down the river and passed these frightful objects, carried away with them a salutary lesson. They were pirates who were hung in chains, and they who looked saw in them the abhorrence with which society regarded, and the vengeance with which justice would pursue the perpetrators of so great a crime. Rebuke before all, said the apostle, that others may fear; and these men were thus hung in chains that others might see and be afraid. Nevertheless, these monuments of sin and of justice, however offensive they may be to our taste, or however suitable they might be to the ruder customs of ruder times, were not perpetual. The work of decay went on, and bone dropping away from bone left empty the chains; mother earth received into her bosom the last relic of her guilty child, and the crime and the criminal were soon forgotten. More enduring monuments of sin and its punishment than these have perished in the wreck of all things. For long ages the stony figure of a woman stood, with her cold, grey eyes turned on the sea that had buried the sinners, but not the saints, of Sodom. Lonely and awful form--the travellers that skirted the shores Of the Dead Sea, and the shepherds that tended their flocks on the neighbouring mountains, regarded her with all horror and terror; and never did living creature deliver such a sermon on the words, Whoso putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back, is not worthy of the kingdom of God, as did that dumb statue! But time that destroys all things destroyed that, and now travellers have sought in vain for even the vestige of a relic that, were it found, would be far more interesting and far more impressive than all your Greek and Roman marbles, anything dug out of quarry or carved by sculptors chisel. She who, loving the world too well, looked back on Sodom, has ceased to exist in stone: she lives, however, in story, and we would do well, in and amid the temptations of this world, often to remember Lots wife. The purpose our fore fathers had in hanging pirates in chains, and the purpose God Himself had in turning that woman into a pillar of salt, the Apostle Paul had in his treatment of this man whom he holds up here as a beacon to all future ages. He did not write this of Demas to revenge himself on Demas; he was above that. He did not write, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved the present world, out of spleen or anger against this poor and pitiable apostate. Nothing of the kind. Nor was Demas the only man that at one time forsook Paul. There were others stricken with such panic, as will sometimes seize the bravest troops. All his friends deserted him. Ah! but even then there was an essential, and now there is an eternal difference between them. I donor deny that others fled, but then they returned, they rallied; they washed out with martyrs blood the stains of their disgrace. They fled, I grant; they fled the field, but only for a time--Demas for ever; they abandoned the fight--Demas the faith. Theirs was the failing of the disciples for whom our Lord pled the kind apology, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Demass was the sin and crime of Judas. He abandoned for aye and for ever the cause of Jesus.
I. Demass history and Demass fall. Men live after they are dead, I do not mean merely that they live in another world after they are dead, but that, in a sense, alter they are dead they live here--some in their good works, and others in their bad. Many a man would never have been heard of in this world at all but for his crimes. His crimes are the salt, wherewith his memory is salted; he lives in them. But for them he had passed a happy life, obscure, no doubt, but happy; and when he died had gone down to his grave unnoticed and unknown. Now that is not the case of Demas. The truth is, if this Second Epistle to Timothy had never been written, or if it had pleased God to have let this Second Epistle to Timothy perish, like some other writings of the apostles, perhaps you might have called this church after Demas; Demas might have had his name in the calendar of saints. This man fell from a height which few of us have reached or ever will reach, and all the more impressive, therefore, is the story of his fall. He was indeed a fallen star! The reverse of Paul, who fell a persecutor and rose an apostle, this man was an apostle, but is an apostate now; he was a professor, but he is a renegade now; he was a brave soldier of the cross, but he is a base deserter and traitor now, having deserted and abandoned all for which a man should live. What a fall was there! Scripture drops the curtain on Demas just where we see him here, like a dishonoured knight from whose heels the spurs he has won have been hacked--just where we see him as a soldier who, his facings plucked from his breast, is dismissed as a deserter. No other word in Scripture about Demas after that; the curtain drops, and he vanishes. But let tradition lift her curtain, and if she speaks the truth--and there is no reason to doubt her story--it happened that Demas, as I could have prophesied, or you or any one else--went from bad to worse, down and down, and lower still, from one depth of infamy to another, till in the last sight we get of Demas, there he is yonder, a priest in a heathen temple, offering sacrifices to dead stocks and stones! Unhappy, miserable man, whether he died, as he might have died, with a recollection of better days, stung with remorse, howling in despair, or whether he died defiant of Christ, like Julian the royal apostate, who, when vanquished by the Christian hosts, caught the sword from his mortal wound, and tossed it up to heaven, and cried, expiring in the effort, The Nazarene has conquered! Unhappy man, whether he died one way or the other!
II. What made Demas fall? what brought him down from his high position? Sailing once on a Highland loch where the crags went sheer down into the water, the boatman called my attention to a very remarkable fragment of rock. There it stood, tilted up on its narrow edge, threatening destruction to every one below it, and to all appearance ready, at the touch of an infants finger, to leap with a sudden plunge into the depths below. What had tilted that enormous table into that upright position? No arms of brawny shepherds had set it there; no earthquake, rolling along the mountains and turning it upward, as earthquakes sometimes do, had turned it, nor had lightning, leaping from a cleft on the mountains summit, struck it, split it, shivered it, or raised it on its narrow edge. The task belonged to a much quieter and less obtrusive agent than these. Borne on the wings of the tempest, or dropped by some passing bird, a seed fell into a crevice of the rock; sleeping the winter through, but finding there a shelter and a congenial soil, it sprang with the spring, fed by rains and by dews it grew, and put up its head and spread out its branches, and struck deep its roots, worming them deep into the crannies of the rock, and wrapping it round and round. That table, as they grew, and thickened, and strengthened, was slowly and silently raised and separated from its bed, and then one clay there came a storm roaring down the glen, and seizing the tree, whose leafy branches caught the wind like sails, turned that tree into a lever, and working upon the rock, raised it and set it where I saw it just on the edge of the dizzy crag, and there it stood, waiting till another storm should come to hurl it over into the mossy waters of that wild mountain lake. Whether that stone has fallen yet I do not know, but it will fall; and just as that shall fall, so fell Demas; so many have fallen, and so you and I, but for preserving grace, would fall too. Do not mistake the Bible. The Bible does not say a word against the world. It is not the world, it is not riches, it is not fame, it is not honour, it is not the innocent enjoyment of the world that the Bible condemns; it is the love of the world. Beware of that! Let it once enter, let it get lodgment in your heart, though it is simply a tiny seed, let it grow there, let it be fed by indulgence, let it strike its roots, let it worm them into the crevices and crannies of your heart, and it will do this so silently that you will never suspect it, and you will never know it, and others will never know it, till one day the storm shall come. What was it that brought on Demass fall? Why was it that persecution destroyed Demas? Why, because persecution acted on Demas just as the storm did on the tree that got its seed into the rock. But that that tree had its seed and its roots round about that rock, the rock had defied all tempests, though they blew their worst; and Demas--persecution might have made him a beggar, persecution might have cast him into the deepest dungeon Rome had, persecution might have brought him to the scaffold, but if Demas had never loved the world, all that persecution had done would have been to destroy his wealth, to destroy his health, and to destroy his life, but it had never destroyed him; and on that day when Paul stood with his grey head before a mighty crowd coming to see him die, Demas had stood at his side; they bad stood together in the battle-field, they had stood together in the pulpit, they had stood together before Jews and heathens, and that day had they stood together again; one chain of love, as of iron, binding them still, they had fought together and they had fallen together, their heads had rolled on the same scaffold, one chariot had borne these brothers to the grave, and over their mangled remains, carried by devout men to burial, a weeping church had raised one monument, and I will tell you what she would have put on it; copying the words of David she might have said, They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. Alas! I have an epitaph for Demas, taken from the same touching lament, but consisting of other words--How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! Such is the epitaph of Demas! He was laid in an apostates grave, and, not excepting a drunkards, there is no grave the grass grows on so hopeless as the apostates. Lessons:
1. Put not your trust in princes, says David. Put not your trust in preachers, says Demas. A blazing star quenched in darkness, oh! how does Demas teach them that stand high to walk humbly, and them that are high-placed not to be high-minded. It is well to carry a low sail, even when the wind blows strong.
2. Have you a pious father or mother, a pious wife or children, pious brothers or sisters--are you a servant in a pious family, or are your friends pious and your associations good? Ah! how does this teach you not to count too much on man! Why, there is Demas; what is your society to his? Demas lived in the holiest society out of heaven; Demas was the bosom friend and associate of one of the holiest, and I will say of one, in point of soul, of the noblest and loftiest men that ever lived--the Apostle Paul. There is no man in this house so little likely to be engrossed with the business, to be entangled with the cares, to be fascinated with the pleasures of this world, as was that man Demas; and yet he fell; he fell, and if he fell, who of us is to stand? Oh! how does his history sound in my ear like that old prophets voice, Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen!
3. Ah, what a lesson is this for you and me, and all those who live under the best religious influences, for us to take care that we do not reckon upon them, but that we watch and pray lest we enter into temptation. The worlds smiles are more to be dreaded than its frowns; its sordid sophistry, than its sharpest sword. Let the love of the world get into a mans heart, and there is no pleader, no counsel, no man that ever made the worse appear the better, so successful as that is; for the world has a tongue to convince the man who has the love of it, that virtue is vice, and vice is virtue. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The relapsed Christian
He reminds us of the piteous spectacle of a man emerging from the watery element in which he has been plunged, and for a moment gaining a footing upon the shore, but caught by the retiring wave, or losing his hold, he is once more carried into deep water with the danger of being finally engulfed in the waves, unless by another strenuous effort he should regain the shore and reach a standing above the power of the surge. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)
Having loved this present world--
The connection between love of the world and apostasy
Love of the world--love of the worlds opinions, and the worlds habits, and the worlds tastes, and the worlds privileges, and the worlds dispositions, for their own sakes, diminish faith, by bringing us more into contact with visible things. It is the privilege of faith to gaze upon the invisible, to behold and to lay hold of those things which the natural eye sees not, which the natural intellect comprehends not, and which the natural powers cannot grasp. But if the love of the world constrains me to grovel in the dust, to be busied and exercised and made careful over much with the things that are seen, soon may the far-scanning sight of faith be impaired and enfeebled, till at length it scarcely deserves the name, and brings not the comfort and imparts not the joy. Do we not know that the natural eye, when engaged upon minute visible objects which have to be brought near to it, accommodates itself to the distance; and the strong and healthful eye at length becomes short-sighted, and cannot gaze upon the distant prospect in its brightness, and looks confusedly on the landscape that woos admiration? And so it is with the spiritual perception. Let me be em ployed in the minute things of this world--the poor trifles after which the men of this world toil--and I may look upwards in vain; the spiritual sun may be shining upon me, in its meridian splendour, but my sight may be so dimmed, that with my purblind spirituality I shall be forced to look up and say--Where is it? The love of the world also diminishes our hope; because it induces us to seek, and in a certain sense enables us to find, satisfaction in present enjoyment. The young heart gazes upon the world and upon its enticements, and is it not constrained to say--How delightful--how attractive? And the grey-headed worldling, who has luxuriated in worldly enjoyments, has no range of hope beyond that which the little limited circle of his present existence gives him. Let me be content with present enjoyment--let me be content with worldly success--let me be satisfied with all I can perceive while passing as a traveller rapidly through this world, and I apprehend I should not be over-much anxious to build up a hope that is full of immortality; I should be inclined to say--I want no better heaven, I do not wish for anything beyond this, I do not desire to hope for more. How it becomes us to entreat you, with all earnestness and affection, to beware of a Christian profession which does not separate you from the world! Nothing is more delusive than to become acquainted with the letter of Gods Word, to feel desires after the experience of its comfort, to make a Christian profession, to join Christian assemblies, to mingle in Christian ordinances, and yet to be still numbered with those who say to the world by their conduct--Thou art my God! But if you find your profession has been genuine--if you have tasted that the Lord is gracious--beware of the first symptoms of decline. (G. Fisk, LL. B.)
The foolish love of the world
Judge in thyself, O Christian! is it meet
To set thine heart on what beasts set their feet?
Tis no hyperbole, if you be told,
You delve for dross with mattocks made of gold.
Affections are too costly to bestow
Upon the fair-faced nothings here below:
The eagle scorns to fall down from on high,
The proverb saith, to pounce a silly fly;
And can a Christian leave the face of God
T embrace the earth, and dost upon a clod!
(John Flavel.)
Worldliness fatal to religion
In Brazil there grows a common plant, which forest dwellers call the matador, or murderer. Its slender stem creeps at first along the ground; but no sooner does it meet a vigorous tree than, with clinging grasp, it cleaves to it, and climbs it, and, as it climbs, keeps at short intervals sending out arm-like tendrils that embrace the tree. As the murderer ascends, these ligatures grow larger and clasp tighter. Up, up, it climbs a hundred feet, nay, two hundred if need be, until the last loftiest spire is gained and fettered. Then, as if in triumph, the parasite shoots a huge, flowery head above the strangled summit, and thence, from the dead trees crown, scatters its seed to do again the work of death. Even thus worldliness has strangled more Churches than ever persecution broke. (S. Coley.)
Danger of the world
As you love your souls, beware of the world; it has slain its thousands and ten thousands. What ruined Lots wife?--the world. What ruined Achan?--the world. What ruined Haman?--the world. What ruined Judas?--the world. What ruined Simon Magnus?--the world. What ruined Demas?--the world. And what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
The world pictured by fancy
In the mirage of the desert, objects are said to become strangely distorted--a mud-bank exhibiting the appearance of a magnificent city with domes and towers, a few stunted bushes are transformed into a forest of stately trees. Is not the world with its hollow, fading distinctions thus transformed in our idle, foolish fancy? We attach an importance to its treasures, praise, ambitions, pleasures, utterly false and exaggerated. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The border-land between Christ and the world
Centuries ago it was dangerous for any one to live on the border-land between England and Scotland. Let us take care not to dwell on the border-land between Christ and the world.
Counteractives to worldliness
Let the declining Christian strive against the deteriorating and retrograding tendency to worldliness. Let him exercise his faith in strong realisations of celestial things, which alone are able to counteract the debasing impressions of terrestrial ones. Let him accustom himself to look upon all things here in the light of eternity. The fascinations of the world will then appear to him as a brilliant bubble, which will soon burst, and its troubles but as a dark vapour that appeareth but for a little while and then vanisheth away. For his warning, let him contemplate the fearful catastrophe threatened to those who draw back from God to the world. He has only to open his eyes to see in what numerous instances this passage of Scripture has been verified: They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, etc., resembling covetous merchants, who overload their vessel with a freight which impedes its course and endangers its safety. What a fatal shipwreck of faith and a good conscience have many suffered from this cause: and who can tell whither it may carry him who surrenders himself to its influence? Upon the principle of a relapse being more difficult to cure than the original disease, let him be doubly on his guard against this tendency. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)
Crescens to Galatia.--
Crescens is gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia
1. Good men will be doing good wherever they are. Paul was now a prisoner, yet he preached constantly in prison, and there converted Onesimus (Phm_1:9).
2. Though some may forsake us and the truth, yet God hath others that are faithful. What if Demas be gone, yet Crescens, Titus, Timothy, Mark, and Luke abide constant; no storms nor tempests can beat them off; if Saul oppose David, yet Jonathan will stick to him. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Only Luke is with me.--
The beloved physician
I. The inducements to remain with St. Paul.
1. There was the power of friendship. From the earlier references to Demas, we may conclude that he had been associated with the apostle in companionship in trial and labour. Intimacy and affection were motives to stay with him.
2. There was the sense of chivalry. However Demas might be tempted to go, a noble spirit would have said, Not now, when it is a time of comparative loneliness, need, and danger.
3. Interest in the faith. From his former relationship with St. Paul we must assume knowledge and admiration for the faith. He had seen Christianity, accepted it, and had been privileged to witness its power in the personal piety and devotedness of St. Paul.
II. The temptations to go.
1. The worlds temptation of Demas was probably not through her seductive glitter of pleasure and pomp, but through her frowns. The apostle was under a cloud. Few seem willing to take him by the hand. Notice how joyously he recognises the courageous kindness of Onesiphorus (2Ti_1:16-17).
2. Perhaps we may hazard a conjecture respecting the character of Demas. May he not have been one of those whose religious life is just strong enough, or rather weak enough, to live in a religious atmosphere, but utterly unable to live when unsupported by Christian society?
3. The way in which such a character would desert. Not openly, but by degrees. Excuses to omit dangerous duties, and even at the last perhaps only leave St. Paul on some plausible pretext to go to Thessalonica. The old apostle saw through it: Having loved this present world.
III. The contrasted conduct of St. Luke.
1. While Demas at Thessalonica, St. Luke at Rome. His helpfulness to St. Paul. The knowledge of the physician, with its frequently induced sympathetic power and insight. The spiritual refreshment of a brotherly heart. Demas lives the life of him who seeks to save life, but loses it in all its nobility and opportunities of doing kindness. Luke is ready to lose life, but saves its true vitality.
2. For the retrospect of Christendom tells us that St. Luke in his devotedness has saved his life, while Demas has lost it. The latter is a beacon-warning; the former a guiding light, a name in the Church--loved where Christ is loved, honoured where the apostle is honoured, for constancy, kindliness, and intrepid faith.
Learn therefore that--
1. Chivalry is not strong enough against the world-spirit.
2. A religion which is only dependent on the personal influence of others will prove faulty in the time of trial.
3. Thus only the inner strength supplied by Christ can keep us strong; not Paul, not Apollos, not the wisdom of men, but Christ. For the difference between St. Luke and Demas was not in outward circumstances. They were equally tried. It is Christ in us which is the hope of glory, a glory the earnest of which is seen in the scorn of earth and the triumph of faith over her frown or her smile. (W. B. Carpenter, M. A.)
St. Luke the Evangelist
We know but very little, historically, of St. Luke. His birthplace appears to have been Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, and, from his profession as a physician, we conclude him to have been, as indeed his writings prove him, a man of liberal education. Antioch was distinguished as the seat of literature; and St. Luke had probably availed himself of the advantages presented by his native place. We have no information in regard to the calling and conversion of St. Luke, and of his becoming a physician of the soul as well as the body. Many suppose him to have been converted by St. Paul at Antioch, and so to have had no acquaintance with Christianity until after the death of its Founder. Others again maintain that Luke was one of the seventy disciples whom Jesus sent forth to publish the gospel. However this may have been, it is in connection with St. Paul that St. Luke is first mentioned in the New Testament. From Act_16:-28, we learn that he accompanied St. Paul in many of his labours and journeyings, and was with him at Rome daring his two years imprisonment. We are wholly without authentic information as to the after life of St. Luke. Various spheres of labour are assigned to him by various writers, and much obscurity rests on the time, place, and manner of his death. The most ancient authors, however, say nothing of his martyrdom; and this would seem to show that he died a natural death; though others, indeed, allege that he went out of life stretched on an olive tree. But whilst so little material is furnished by the biographers of St. Luke, we are in possession of his writings, and by these he, being dead, yet speaketh. There has never been debate in the Church that the Gospel which bears his name, and the Acts of the Apostles, were written by St. Luke. These were his legacies to all after ages, and for these must he be held in honour so long as there is any love for the gospel. And with these writings in our hands, who that has any sense of the worth of revelation will hesitate to describe St. Luke as a brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches? Or who, like St. Paul, if he had no other companion, would not feel that, in having this evangelist, he had books on which to draw that he could never exhaust, and which would continually furnish him with spiritual information, so that he could never be in loneliness, never at a loss for guidance and instruction, even though he should have to say with the apostle in our text--Only Luke is with me. And what we venture to assert is, that the history which he has produced outweighs, in value to ourselves, either of the other three which the New Testament contains. We venture to affirm that, if only one Gospel is to be preserved, that that Gospel should be the Gospel according to St. Luke. The debate must lie between the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew; for neither in the Gospel of St. Mark, nor in that of St. John is any account given of the parentage and birth of Jesus Christ; so that, with no other document in our hands, we should be uninformed upon facts which lay at the very root and foundation of Christianity. We should have no proof of the fulfilment of prophecies declaratory that Christ should be born of a virgin, without taint of original sin; and we could therefore make no way in building up the fabric of our most holy faith. You will admit, then, that if only one Gospel be retained, it must be that of St. Matthew or St. Luke, inasmuch as these contain what is wanting in the others, the account of Christs miraculous nativity, and this account is indispensable to our knowledge of redemption; but if we are to choose between the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, the far fuller manner in which St. Luke gives the circumstances of the birth of our Saviour might of itself determine upon which to decide for the history. And when you add to this that St. Luke is the evangelist who has preserved for us the parables and incidents most adapted to our case, and most comforting to our feelings, and that from his writings we draw a prayer which is the very epitome of petitions, God be merciful to me, a sinner; that it is he who draws for us that most affecting of pictures, the picture of the fathers rushing to meet the prodigal son whilst yet a great way off, folding him in his arms, and giving him his embrace; that in the pages, moreover, of this evangelist it is that we behold the good Samaritan pouring oil and wine into the wounds of the sufferers; that we are warned by the sudden summons to the rich fool, who, within a hairs breadth of death, talked of building larger barns; by the torments of Dives, who exchanged the luxuries of a palace for the plagues of hell; that we are comforted by Christs gracious words to the thief on the cross;--ay, if it be thus true that we turn to the Gospel of St. Luke for whatever is most exquisitely tender, most persuasive, most encouraging, most startling in the registered actions and sayings of the Saviour, then it is not to be doubted that our chief debt of gratitude is due to this evangelist; that if we had lost all the others--Cresceus unto Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia, Matthew, Mark, and John having departed from this present world--it might still be with the tone of those who felt they had kept the one from whom most might be learned, that we took up the language of our text and exclaimed with St. Paul, Only Luke is with me. We now turn to look at the Acts of the Apostles, a work which stands quite by itself, and whose worth, therefore, cannot be measured by comparing it with others. If we had not this book we should have no inspired record whatever of the actions and sayings of the first preachers of Christianity, and consequently its value must be estimated by the injury which would be occasioned by the total want of such a record. The removal of the Acts from the New Testament would be altogether a different thing from the removal of one of the Gospels; in the latter case the deficiency would be at least partially supplied by the remaining writings, whereas in the former there would be left no document to which we could refer. The book of the Acts is to the Holy Spirit what the Gospels are to the Saviour--a record of His entering on His office, and fulfilling His great work in the scheme of human redemption. And can we dispense with one record any more than with the other? Is it not indispensable to the completeness of the evidences of Christianity--the showing how each Person in the ever-blessed Trinity has interposed on our behalf--that we should be able to point to apostles and to apostolic men, receiving supernatural gifts, and going forth with a more than human strength to a warfare with principalities and powers? It is one thing to prove a work valuable, and another to show that its loss would be fatal. It is this that we endeavour to do, by exhibiting the Acts as the Gospel of the Holy Ghost, and as the record of transactions which involve the interest and the permanence of the whole Gentile Church. And when we have shown you that without this book you would be left ignorant of the coming of the Comforter; that you would know nothing of the manifestations by which the seal of Divinity was finally set on Christianity--yea, be unacquainted with redemption as the joint work of the three Persons in the Godhead; and when we have further shown you that, take away this book, and you take away all the register of Gods ordering the removal of the middle wall of partition, so that the Gentiles might be received without submitting themselves to the institutions of Moses, and we think we have shown enough to convince you that you owe St. Luke, at least, as much for his Acts of the Apostles as for his Gospel; and, therefore, we again say--Crescens might have departed to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, and you might be left alone in a prison, almost without associates, almost without books; but could you be lonely? could you be forced to speak as if deprived of high companionship and intercourse with those in whom a Christian has the deepest interest, and access to the best stores of comfort and of knowledge, if you could say of yourself, as St. Paul says in our text--Only Luke is with me? (H. Melvill, B. D.)
St. Luke an example of trite friendship
Most of that which goes by the name of friendship is as rootless as an aquatic plant that turns its broad leaves and flowers to the summers sun. Men desecrate the holy name of friendship by applying it to alliances, conferences, and leagues. But true friendship is one of the sweetest and best of earthly things, if, indeed, it can be called earthly. Friendship is the best developed fruit of love. It is the escape for the pent-up soul. Friends can do for each other what modesty forbids them to do for themselves. They can keep down each others vanity, and keep up each others courage. Friendship has the physicians skill, the nurses vigilance, the mothers devotion. How may we procure this blessed boon? Friendship cannot be created by the jugglery of oaths and grasped hands. True friendship ought to be grounded in the love of God; it ought to be well chosen, cemented by nature and religion, developed by time, tested by adversity, consecrated by associations. Let such friendship be held at high value. Let no trivial thing imperil it. Let it be cherished by confidence unstinted, by demonstrations of affection, by sincerity and truth, by faith and trust, by mutual forbearance and sacrifice. Such friendship will be an oasis in the arid waste of selfishness, and it will be an anticipation for the life to come. (R. S. Barrett.)
The friendship of St. Luke and St. Paul
That St. Paul should be drawn to St. Luke is no wonder, for there must have been great similarity in their tastes, both being men of highly cultivated minds; but that St. Luke should throw in his lot with St. Paul, the homeless, persecuted man, who was an outcast from his own people, and who went in constant danger of his life--this betokens a strength of mind such as is met with but rarely, and a friendship of no ordinary kind. And we can hardly guess at the value to St. Paul of the friendship of such a man as St. Luke, even if we take it on the low standard of the value of services which he would be able to render to the Apostle. Being an educated man, he would be able to assist in many ways; for instance, as his amanuensis, and as being more competent than others to deal with the more cultivated heathen with whom they were brought in contact. But all this would be as nothing compared with the common bond which would knit their souls together, their love for their risen Lord. The world can show us friendship, and that, too, of a high order; it has done so in past history; it can do so, no doubt even now. Similarity of tastes, the pursuit of a common object, the necessities of daily life, may draw men very closely together, and make them friends in the sense in which the world uses the term. But there is a deeper sense than that; for Christianity has done the same for friendship as it has for whatever else it has touched--it has raised and it has sanctified it. St. Paul and St. Luke were not only friends, but each had a common friend in the Lord Jesus. In Christ Jesus they were knit together by a bond stronger than any which the world could forge, and the secret of St. Lukes devotion to St. Paul was not only community of taste and feeling, but the love of God which was shed abroad in their hearts through Jesus Christ their common Lord and Master. We often hear people speak of others as their friends, or of themselves as being the friends of others; but it would be well if we thought a little more about what a friend might, or what a friend ought to be, before we allowed ourselves to use the word. How can there be true friendship between the Christian and the man of the world? How can there be true friendship between those whose deepest and purest feelings are not in accord? (W. G. Abbott, M. A.)
Luke, the beloved physician
To account for his being alone with Paul at that solemn and trying time we do not need to charge unfaithfulness upon all who had been Pauls companions during his confinement in Rome. Did Paul keep Luke there, perhaps, because he needed his professional care in his old age, after so many toils and hardships and exposures by land and by sea? Did Luke refuse to leave him because his watchful eye saw that Paul needed his professional care more than Paul knew or would willingly acknowledge? Had he the tact to conceal this professional solicitude under the equally true desire to enjoy Pauls company and instruction, and to fill his own mind and memorandum-book with those memories which the Holy Spirit was moving him to write to most excellent Theophilus and to us? If I might not be a minister of the gospel, a pastor taking care of souls, I know not what else I would rather be than a physician, skilled to minister at bedsides and in chambers of the sick, worthy to be looked to by anxious households when the chill shadow of death makes them shudder, worthy to be trusted as a sentry by a community when the pestilence walketh in darkness. The highest skill in medicine is not all that such a trusted and beloved physician must have; or, rather, skill in a physician includes much more than knowledge of anatomy and physiology and the materia mediea. It includes high acquaintance with the human soul in its peculiar powers and in their relations to the body. It involves not merely knowledge of the body, as a thing which it has dissected, a machine whose parts it has taken asunder and handled. It involves reverence for that body as the supreme handiwork of Jehovah, whose infinite skill and care are illustrated in all its joints and members, all its parts and organs, all its processes and powers. It involves tender appreciation of all the liabilities and capabilities of such a soul in such a body. It involves genuine sympathy with sufferers, suffusing and beautifying, not enfeebling nor hindering the business of relieving, making it not less effective and successful business because clothed upon with graces which present it ever as intercourse, conversation, fellowship. (H. A. Nelson, D. D.)
A faithful friend
A faithful friend will not forsake us in our deepest distress. A faithful friend--and such a one was Luke--loves at all times (Pro_17:17). Though Paul be a prisoner and ready to be martyred, yet Luke keeps with him still; though all forsake him, yet he will stick to him. Pot-friendship will vanish, especially in adversity. Job (Job_6:15) complains of his friends that they had deceived him like a brook; they were not like a river which is fed by a spring and hath a perennity of flowing, but like a brook which runs in moist times when there is least need of it, but in a drought it fails; like swallows which fly about us in summer, but in winter they leave us and hide themselves in hollow trees or the like. Such vermin abound which run to full barns, but outrun them when empty. Most worship the rising, few the setting sun. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Take Mark, and bring him with thee.--
The quarrel about John Mark
(see Act_15:36-39):--
I. The sharp quarrel between Paul and Barnabas. They were both good men, both men of cultivated spirit and of fine Christian character, and yet they got into a violent passion about a matter that one would think might have been easily arranged if discussed forbearingly and wisely. The only wise thing about the whole matter was the separation. It is far better for Christian people who cannot work comfortably together to separate than to keep up an endless bickering, or a dull, sulky anger which only reveals the smouldering fire that sooner or later is sure to burst forth.
1. The most godly men are still liable to sharp and sudden falls.
2. Those who are engaged in the same work may have antagonistic views on matters of prudence.
II. The two different stages of Marks life. Sometimes a poor-looking material works out better than we expected. The unpromising youth often surprises us by very superior development in after years. Soldiers who have quailed before the first fire of their first battle have distinguished themselves as brave men in after years. There is really nothing more common than this contradiction of all early promises, both for good and bad, which daily life brings to us. Life and character have so many sharp turnings that you can never calculate what direction they shall ultimately take. This was the case with John Mark. In the former of these passages he is brought before us as a young man. The opinion Paul had of him then was a very contemptible one. He had set his hand to the plough, and looked back. Seventeen years after Paul is in prison at Rome, and writes thence this letter to Timothy. And in it comes this honourable and affectionate mention of the very man who seventeen years before he had held at so cheap a rate, Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. A bright midday to a very unpromising morning! We are constrained to suspect, after all, that, though Paul had prudence and justice on his side, on that former occasion, yet Barnabas had the finer intuition when he kept his faith in his nephew, notwithstanding his disgraceful delinquency. After-events certainly proved that the unpromising youth had in him the making of a strong man. How much of Marks after strength was due, on the one hand, to the paternal faith and protection of Barnabas, and, on the other hand, to the tonic administered to him by Pauls contemptuous refusal, we cannot say. Probably both had a good effect. The scornful glance with which a brave man looks on a delinquent, by inflaming his self-respect, may, while it mortifies his soul, impel him to bolder things. And, on the other hand, to feel that though we have miserably failed, there is one heart that still believes in our capacity, and one hand that never loses its grasp of ours, is heavens good angel to our life. Many a coward life has been made brave by that ministering angel. Many a one-time sinner has been made a saint by the faithfulness with which one hand has continued to hold his in confident love, and not seldom that hand has been the soft hand of a brave and trusting woman. Stick to the coward a little longer, and you may, by Gods grace, make a brave man of him yet! Stick to the sinner a little longer, and you may yet write his name in the roll of the saints! (E. H. Higgins.)
Good men easily reconciled to good men
There was formerly a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas about this Mark, who for fear forsook Paul and left him in Pamphilia (Act_13:13; Act_15:37-39), which made Paul that he would not suffer him to visit the brethren. Superiors in gifts and grace may sometimes have need of the help of inferiors. A Paul may send for u Mark to help him. (T. Hall, B. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 36
Chapter 36
THE PERSONAL DETAILS A GUARANTEE OF GENUINENESS. - 2Ti_4:9-15; 2Ti_4:19-21
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IT would scarcely be exceeding the limits of legitimate hyperbole to say that these two passages prove the authenticity and genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles; that they are sufficient to show that these letters are an authentic account of the matters of which they treat, and that they are genuine letters of the Apostle Paul.
In the first of these expositions it was pointed out how improbable it is that a portion of one of these letters should be genuine, and not the remainder of it; or that one of the three should be genuine, and not the other two; and a fortiori, that two of the three should be genuine and not the remaining one.
The passages before us are among those of which it has been truly said that they "cling so closely to Paul that it is only by tearing the letter to pieces that any part can be dissociated from that Apostle." The internal evidence is here too strong even for those critics who deny the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles as a whole. Thus Renan and Weisse are disposed to admit that we have here embedded in the work of a later writer portions of a genuine letter of the Apostle; while Ewald, Hausrath, and Pfleiderer accept not only these verses, but the earlier passage about Phygelus, Hermogenes, and Onesiphorus as genuine also. Similar views are advocated by Hitzig, Krenkel, and Immer, of whom the two first admit that the Epistle to Titus also contains genuine fragments. And quite recently (1882) we have Lemme contending that only the central portion of 2 Timothy {2Ti. 2:11 - 4:5} is an interpolation.
These concessions amount to a concession of the whole case. It is impossible to stop there. Either much more must be conceded or much less. For
(1) we cannot without very strong evidence indeed accept so improbable a supposition as that a Christian long after the Apostles death was in possession of letters written by him, of which no one else knew anything, that he worked bits of these into writings of his own, which he wished to pass off as Apostolic, and that he then destroyed the genuine letters, or disposed of them in such a way that no one knew that they had ever existed. Such a story is not absolutely impossible, but it is so unlikely to be true that to accept it without clear evidence would be most uncritical. And there is not only no clear evidence; there is no evidence at all. The hypothesis is pure imagination.
(2) The portions of this letter which are allowed by adverse critics to be genuine are precisely those in which a forger would be pretty sure to be caught tripping. They are full of personal details, some of which admit of being tested, and all of which can be criticized, as to whether they are natural and consistent or not. Would a forger be likely to risk detection by venturing on such dangerous ground? He would put into the letter those doctrines for which he wished to appear to have St. Pauls authority; and, if he added anything else, he would take care not to go beyond vague generalities, too indefinite to be caught in the meshes of criticism. But the writer of this letter has done the reverse of all this. He has given an abundance of personal detail, such as can be found in only one other place in the New Testament, and that in the concluding portion of the Epistle to the Romans, one of, the indisputable writings of St. Paul.
And he has not been caught tripping. Hostile writers have subjected these details to the most searching criticism; and the result, as we have seen, is that many of them are constrained to admit that these portions of the letter are genuine productions of the Apostle. That is, those portions of the Epistle which can be subjected to a severe test, are allowed to be by St. Paul, because they stand the test; while those which do not admit of being thus tested are rejected, not because there is any proof of their being spurious, but because critics think that the style is not like the Apostles. Would they not be the first to deride others for such an opinion? Supposing that these details had contained absurdities or contradictions, which could not have been written by St. Paul, would they not have maintained, and reasonably maintained, that it was monstrous to surrender as spurious those sections of the letter which had been tested and found wanting, and to defend as genuine the other sections, which did not admit of being tested?
Let us look at the details a little more closely. Besides St. Paul and Timothy, twenty-three Christians of the Apostolic age are mentioned in this short letter. A considerable number of these are persons of whom we read in the Acts or in St. Pauls other letters; but the majority are new names, and in most of these cases we know nothing about the bearers of the names beyond what is told us here. Would a forger have given us this mixture of known and unknown? If he ventured upon names at all, would he not either have given us imaginary persons, whose names and actions could not be checked by existing records, or else have kept closely to the records, so that the checking might tell in his favor? He has done neither
The new names do not look like those of imaginary persons, and the mention of known persons is by no means a mere reproduction of what is said of them elsewhere. "Demas forsook me, having loved this present world. Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for ministering." A forger with the Acts and the Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon before him would have made Mark forsake Paul, and Demas be commended as useful to him; for in the Acts {Act_15:38} Paul had to condemn Mark for slackness, and in the Epistles to the Colossians {Col_4:14} and to Philemon {Phm_1:24} Demas with Luke is waiting on the Apostle in his imprisonment. And yet how natural that the Apostles condemnation should rouse Mark to greater earnestness, and that the Apostle should recognize that earnestness in this farewell letter? And how consistent with human frailty also that Demas should have courage enough to stand by St. Paul during his first Roman imprisonment and yet should quail before the greater risks of the second! That the Apostles complaint respecting him means more than this is unlikely yet some have exaggerated it into a charge of heresy, or even utter apostasy. We are simply to understand that Demas preferred comfort and security away from Rome to the hardship and danger of a Roman prison; and therefore went to Thessalonica. Why he selected that town we are not told, but there being a Christian community there would be one reason.
"Titus to Dalmatia." Why should a forger send Titus to Dalmatia? The Pastoral Epistles whether a forgery or not, are all by one hand and seem to have been written within a short time of one another. Would not a forger have sent Titus either to Crete, {Tit_1:5} or to Nicopolis? {Tit_3:12} But if Titus went to Nicopolis, and failed to find Paul there, owing to his having been meanwhile arrested, what more probable than that he should go on into Dalmaria? The forger, if he had thought of this would have called attention to it, to ensure that his ingenuity was not overlooked.
"But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus." The meaning of the "but" is not quite clear. Perhaps the most probable supposition is that it indicates the reason why the Apostle needs a useful person like Mark. "I had such a person in Tychicus; but he is gone on a mission for me to Ephesus." How natural all this is! And what could induce a forger to put it in? We are told in the Acts that Tychicus belonged to the Roman province of Asia, {Act_20:4} and that he was with St. Paul at the close of his third missionary journey about nine years before the writing of this letter to Timothy. Three or four years later we find Tychicus once more with St. Paul during the first Roman imprisonment; and he is sent with Onesimus as the bearer of the Epistle to the Colossians {Col_4:7} and to the Ephesians. {Eph_6:21} And we learn from the sentence before us, as well as from Tit_3:12, that he still enjoys the confidence of the Apostle, for he is sent on missions for him to Crete and to Ephesus. All these separate notices of him hang together consistently representing him as "the beloved brother," and also as a "faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord," whom St. Paul was accustomed to entrust with special commissions. If the mission to Ephesus mentioned here is a mere copy of the other missions, would not a forger have taken some pains to ensure that the similarity between his fiction and previous facts should be observed?
"The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments." Here the arguments against the probability of forgery reach a climax; and this verse should be remembered side by side with "Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomachs sake" in the First Epistle. {1Ti_5:23} What writer of a fictitious letter would ever have dreamed of inserting either passage? To an unbiased mind they go a long way towards producing the impression that we are dealing with real letters and not with inventions. And this argument holds good equally well, whatever meaning we give to the word (φελονη) which is rendered "cloke." It probably means a cloak and is a Greek form of the Latin penula. It appears to have been a circular garment without sleeves, but with a hole in the middle for the head. Hence some persons have made the astounding suggestion that it was an eucharistic vestment analogous to a chasuble, and have supposed that the Apostle is here asking, not for warm clothing "before winter," but for a sacerdotal dress for ritualistic purposes. But since Chrysostoms day there has been a more credible suggestion that the word means a bag or case for books. If so, would the Apostle have mentioned both the book-bag and the books, and would he have put the bag before the books? He might naturally have written, "Bring the book-bag,"-of course with the books in it; or, "Bring the books and the bag also." But it seems a strange way of putting the request to say, "The book-bag that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest; the books also, especially the parchments," as if the bag were the chief thing that he thought about.
It seems better to abide by the old rendering "cloke"; and, if this is correct, then it fits in well with "Do thy diligence to come before winter." Yet the writer in no way draws our attention to the connection between the need of the thick cloak and the approach of winter: and the writer of a real letter would have no need to do so. But would a forger have left the connection to chance?
Whether Alexander the coppersmith is the person of that name who was put forward by the Jews in the riot raised by Demetrius, {Act_19:33} is not more than a possibility. The name Alexander was exceedingly common; and we are not told that the Jew in the riot at Ephesus was a smith, or that Alexander the smith was a Jew. In what way the coppersmith "showed much ill-treatment" to the Apostle we are not told. As St. Paul goes on immediately afterwards to speak of his "first defense," it seems reasonable to conjecture that Alexander had seriously injured the Apostles cause in some way. But this is pure conjecture; and the ill-treatment may refer to general persecution of St. Paul and opposition to his teaching. On the whole the latter hypothesis appears to be safer.
The reading, "The Lord will render to him" (αποδωσει) is shown by an overwhelming balance of evidence to be preferable to "The Lord reward him (αποδωη) according to his works." There is no malediction. Just as in ver. 8 {2Ti_4:8}, the Apostle expresses his conviction that the Lord will render (αποδωσει) a crown of righteousness to all those who love His appearing, so here he expresses a conviction that He will render a just recompense to all those who oppose the work of His kingdom. What follows in the next verse, "may it not be laid to their account," seems to show that the Apostle is in no cursing mood. He writes in sorrow rather than in anger. It is necessary to put Timothy on his guard against a dangerous person; but he leaves the requital of the evil deeds to God.
"Salute Prisca and Aquila." A forger with the Apostles indisputable writings before him, would hardly have inserted this; for he would have concluded from Rom_16:3-4, that these two well-known helpers of St. Paul were in Rome at this very time. Aquila was a Jew of Pontus who had migrated from Pontus to Rome, but had had to leave the capital again when Claudius expelled the Jews from the city. {Act_18:2} He and his wife Prisca, or Priscilla, then settled in Corinth, where St. Paul took up his abode with them, because they were Jews and tent-makers, like himself. And in their workshop the foundations of the Corinthian Church were laid. Thenceforward they became his helpers in preaching the Gospel, and went with him to Ephesus, where they helped forward the conversion of the eloquent Alexandrian Jew Apollos. After much service to the Church they returned once more to Rome, and were there when St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. Either the persecution under Nero, or possibly missionary enterprise, induced them once more to leave Rome and return to Asia. The Apostle naturally puts such faithful friends, "who for his life laid down their necks," {Rom_16:3-4} in the very first place in sending his personal greetings; and they are equally naturally coupled with the household of Onesiphorus, who had done similar service in courageously visiting St. Paul in his imprisonment (2Ti_4:19). The double mention of "the household of Onesiphorus" (not of Onesiphorus himself) has been commented upon in a former exposition.
Of the statements, "Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus I left at Miletus sick," no more need be said than to point out how lifelike and natural they are in a real letter from one friend to another who knows the persons mentioned; how unlikely they are to have occurred to a writer who was inventing a letter in order to advocate his own doctrinal views. That Trophimus is the same person as the Ephesian, who with Tychicus accompanied St. Paul on his third missionary journey, {Act_20:4; Act_21:29} may be safely assumed. Whether Erastus is identical with the treasurer of Corinth, {Rom_16:23} or with the Erastus who was sent by Paul with Timothy to Macedonia, {Act_19:22} must remain uncertain.
"Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia." With this group of names our accumulation of arguments for the genuineness of this portion of the letter, and therefore of the whole letter, and therefore of all three Pastoral Epistles, comes to an end. The argument is a cumulative one, and this last item of the internal evidence is by no means the least important or least convincing. About Eubulus, Pudens, and Claudia we know nothing beyond what this passage implies, viz., that they were members of the Christian Church in Rome; for the very bare possibility that Pudens and Claudia may be the persons of that name who are mentioned by Martial, is not worth more than a passing reference. But Linus is a person about whom something is known. It is unlikely that in the Apostolic age there were two Christians of this name in the Roman Church; and therefore we may safely conclude that the Linus who here sends greeting is identical with the Linus, who, according to very early testimony preserved by Irenaeus ("Haer.," III 3:3), was first among the earliest bishops of the Church of Rome. Irenaeus himself expressly identifies the first Bishop of Rome with the Linus mentioned in the Epistles to Timothy, and that in a passage in which (thanks to Eusebius) we have the original Greek of Irenaeus as well as the Latin translation. From his time ( cir. A.D. 180) to the present day, Linus, Anencletus or Anacletus or Cletus (all three forms of the name are used), and Clement have been commemorated as the three first Bishops of Rome. They must all of them have been contemporaries of the Apostle. Of these three far the most famous was Clement; and a writer at the end of the first century, or beginning of the second, inventing a letter for St. Paul, would be much more likely to put Clement into it than Linus. Again, such a writer would know that Linus, after the Apostles death, became the presiding presbyter of the Church of Rome, and would place him before Eubulus and Pudens. But here Linus is placed after the other two. The obvious inference is, that, at the time when this letter was written, Linus was not yet in any position of authority. Like the other persons here named, he was a leading member of the Church in Rome, otherwise he would hardly have been mentioned at all; but he has not yet been promoted to the chief place, otherwise he would at least have been mentioned first, and probably with some epithet or title. Once more one asks, what writer of fiction would have thought of these niceties? And what writer who thought of them, and elaborated them thus skillfully, would have abstained from all attempt to prevent their being overlooked and unappreciated?
The result of this investigation is greatly to increase our confidence in the genuineness of this letter and of all three Pastoral Epistles. We began by treating them as veritable writings of the great Apostle, and a closer acquaintance with them has justified this treatment. Doubts may be raised about everything; but reasonable doubts have their limits. To dispute the authenticity of the Epistles to the Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians is now considered to be a sure proof that the doubter cannot estimate evidence; and we may look forward to the time when the Second Epistle to Timothy will be ranked with those four great Epistles as indisputable. Meanwhile let no student of this letter doubt that in it he is reading the touching words in which the Apostle of the Gentiles gave his last charge to his beloved disciple, and through him to the Christian Church.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 9–13. Do thy diligence to come. In view of…
9–13. Do thy diligence to come. In view of his speedy departure, in view of Paul's need of him.
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.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain 2Ti_4:9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me.—Make…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
2Ti_4:9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me.—Make all possible speed to arrive, or on earth we shall not meet again. Perhaps, however, it was the loneliness of the apostle that made him yearn for Timothy. Compare 2Ti_4:10-11, with 2Ti_4:21.
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2Ti_4:10. Demas hath forsaken me.—The word means to leave in the lurch, or in evil circumstances. The atmosphere of the prison and close association with Paul in his present circumstances could only be endured by true love and brave devotion.
2Ti_4:11. Mark.—He had left the apostle at Perga, and afterwards the desire of Barnabas to take him along with Paul and himself led to a rupture between the apostles. It is pleasant to see that the old man nearing his end has forgiven Mark and admits his serviceableness.
2Ti_4:13. The cloke that I left at Troas.—The word for “cloke” signifies a cloak with a hood, such as travellers and soldiers used, and which often formed their only shelter from the weather.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Ti_4:9-13
Suffering for the Truth—
I. Has often to be endured with a loneliness that craves for society.—“Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” (2Ti_4:9). There is a beautiful pathos in these words, indicating the apostle’s sense of loneliness. “My end is drawing near; some have forsaken me: I yearn for the comfort and refreshment of a congenial spirit: my beloved Timothy, use all speed in coming to me.” Loneliness is sometimes more difficult to endure than pain.
II. The loneliness of suffering is intensified by the desertion of the timid.—“For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2Ti_4:10). Demas was once an active fellow-labourer (Col_4:14; Phm_1:24). For some time the apostle must have observed the slackening of his zeal, his love of ease and comfort, his growing dislike to the hardships of pioneer work, his shrinking from the peril of being in Rome as a Christian and an associate of Paul; and the climax of his declension was reached when he deserted Paul at a time when he most needed help and companionship. The desertion of a friend always happens at the wrong time.
III. Suffering for the truth does not quench the zeal for its active propagation.—“Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia” (2Ti_4:10). “And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus” (2Ti_4:12). From his Roman prison Paul is the director-general of a world-wide mission, and he is interested in every movement of its messengers. Their engagement in the great work also explained their absence at this critical period. Paul had also seized every opportunity during his imprisonment to preach the gospel. The work of God was always uppermost with him.
IV. Suffering for the truth appreciates the friendship of the faithful.—“Only Luke is with me” (2Ti_4:11). It was a comfort to the noble sufferer to have with him one friend on whom he could rely. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Friendship is more valuable when it is tested, and when it bears the strain. It is in the power of one friend to render valuable service; and a noble nature does not fail to appreciate it.
V. Suffering for the truth recognises the valuable services of the man whose former vacillation had occasioned anxiety and strife.—“Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2Ti_4:11). Mark had been under a cloud for forsaking the work, and was the cause of a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas (Act_15:37-40; Act_13:5; Act_13:13). But Mark had repented, and was now another man, chastened and stimulated by the lesson of his brief relapse. Paul’s sharp censure is wiped out by high praise—another example of the generous nature of the apostle, which even suffering did not sour.
VI. Suffering for the truth does not render us indifferent to the needs of body and mind.—“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee” (2Ti_4:13). The cloak had no doubt been worn by the apostle as a warm wrap in many a cold, exposed journey, and would be known to his friends as an old, familiar article of his clothing. He needed it again, for winter was near (2Ti_4:21). “And the books, but especially the parchments” (2Ti_4:13). The books he needed to carry on his work of translation for the benefit of the Church; and the parchments perhaps contained translations already done, and some of his own inspired epistles. Brief as his life might be, the mind must be fed, and work must not stop. Tyndale, imprisoned in the Castle of Vilvorden, asked for warmer clothing, and above all for his Hebrew Bible, grammar, and dictionary.
Lessons.—
1. True greatness is conspicuous in suffering.
2. The sufferer appreciates genuine sympathy.
3. Suffering for the truth helps to spread it.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ti_4:10. The Defection of Demas.
I. His offence.—
1. He forsook the apostle. When he needed sympathy, comfort, co-operation.
2. He forsook the Christian cause. Fled from the post of duty because it was the post of danger.
3. He forsook the Saviour. Either for a season or permanently. Either as a backslider or as an apostate.
II. The principle by which he was actuated.—
1. It might be the love of ease.
2. It might be the love of honour.
3. It might be the love of wealth.
4. It might be the love of life.
Demas.
I. Demas an apostate after having done and endured much in the cause of Christ.—His profession of Christianity must have exposed him to hardship and danger. There must have been in him tokens of genuine conversion, seeing they could bear the test of hardship incurred in defence of the truth. He had given proof of sincerity in bringing others to Christ. What hardship could not do, what peril could not do, was effected by the allurements of a world whose god is the prince of the power of the air; and the man who had been ready to undergo martyrdom, who would not have flinched from the apparatus of torture, failed in withstanding the blandishments of pleasure, and was conquered by lust after defying persecution.
II. Demas an apostate though he had to quit St. Paul when that apostle was on the point of sealing his confession with his blood.—Demas was for a long time steadfast. He had St. Paul to instruct him, to reprove, exhort, and encourage him; and perhaps he thought, because he felt his bosom glow as this man insisted on noble truths and delivered sublime and noble messages, he was necessarily impregnated with the very spirit of Christianity, and bound too firmly to the cause of the Redeemer to be induced to forsake it by any common temptation. But the world gained an opportunity of plying Demas with its seductions—an opportunity of which we may suppose it to have been partially deprived whilst he was in the dungeons of St. Paul—and thus was it seen what a mere thing of sand is religion which depends upon a preacher for its warmth and strength. St. Paul was most rich in Christian experience when closest in his intercourse with heaven; and when he appealed with his grey hairs to every sensibility, one would have thought desertion impossible. Oh the degrading, deadening tendency of an attachment to time and sense!—H. Melvill.
2Ti_4:11. “Only Luke is with me.” Christian Loneliness.
I. That there are times when the people of God are forsaken and left mainly to themselves.
II. That the good man is never left altogether alone.
III. That Divine helpfulness is afforded to compensate for the lack of human sympathy.
Lessons.—
1. We have here a picture of noble Christian endurance.
2. Of submission.
3. Of fidelity.
2Ti_4:13. Human Means useful to Inspired Persons.
I. The poverty of the first preachers of the gospel.—A cloak and a few books.
II. Even Divinely inspired men did not so wholly depend upon Divine inspiration, but made use of ordinary helps and means.—Bishop Bull.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain A Report Concerning Various Acquaintances and the First Hearing.
A Report Concerning Various Acquaintances and the First Hearing.
Various personal matters:
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v. 9. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me;
v. 10. for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
v. 11. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry.
v. 12. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.
v. 13. The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.
v. 14. Alexander, the coppersmith, did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works;
v. 15. of whom be thou ware also, for he hath greatly withstood our words.
Having completed the body of his letter, the apostle now adds a few words concerning his personal affairs and concerning men in whom Timothy would naturally be interested. The tone of deep sadness is everywhere apparent, especially in the pleading cry: Do thy best to come to me quickly. It is possible that Tychicus, in passing through Ephesus, had expressed to Timothy the desire of the apostle to see him before the end. Apparently matters were in such a condition as to cause this urgent appeal. He begged Timothy to use all diligence, to do his very best, to make his trip to Rome with all speed.
Some of the reasons for this appeal are given by the apostle: For Demas has deserted me, since he loved this present world, and has departed to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. The first words of the apostle express his deep sorrow over his increasing lonesomeness. That very man Demas who, during Paul’s first imprisonment, had remained so faithfully at his side, Col 4:14; Phm 1:24, now yielded to fickleness. The love for this present world, its advantages and lusts, took hold of his heart; he refused to bear the cross which the Lord laid upon him. His deserting the apostle at this time was the first step in his denial of the Lord. Tradition has it that he afterward became priest in a heathen temple in Thessalonica. Thus the love of the world, the desire to enjoy the fruits of this life for a season, has resulted all too often in the denial of the accepted truth and a later enmity against Christ and His Word. The other men mentioned by Paul probably left Rome at his own solicitation. Since his trial took longer than he had anticipated, he very likely urged both Crescens and Titus to continue their work as missionaries; for the work of the Lord must be carried on without intermission. Crescens journeyed to Galatia, undoubtedly the northern part of the province, in order to continue the work of Paul; Titus chose Dalmatia, a province on the Adriatic, the region known at the present time as Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is some basis for the belief that Crescens did missionary work in Gaul, the southern part of what is now France, the word in some manuscripts referring to this province.
Thus, of all the companions of Paul only Luke, the beloved physician, was still with him. No wonder that he desired the companionship of that pupil who had always been nearest to him, and meanwhile wanted at least some other companion for his ministry: Pick up Mark on the way and bring him with thee, for he is of great use to me for service. It seems that John Mark, who on the first missionary journey had deserted the apostle, had meanwhile learned the steadfastness which is so necessary for a servant of the Lord. See Col 4:10-11. Paul here expressly states that he was in need of his services, chiefly for work as his secretary and personal representative. Mark could be of great assistance in transmitting the messages of Paul to the congregation at Rome and otherwise aiding in the work of the Gospel. Since Mark was not at Ephesus, Timothy was to pick him up on the way, Paul’s intention being that they arrive together.
The apostle makes mention of another coworker, saying that he had sent Tychicus to Ephesus, thereby implying that the latter might take the place of Mark, wherever he may have been stationed. But Paul’s main concern was this, that Timothy come to him as speedily as possible. On the way he could attend to a little matter for the apostle: The cloak which I left in Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, also the books, especially the parchments. It seems that Paul, when he was in Troas last, had left his heavy winter overcoat with one of the members by the name of Carpus, not having need of it during the warm season. At the same time he had deposited some books, some writings on papyrus leaves, as well as some valuable parchments, with his friend. Many commentators think that the last-named documents were the apostle’s own copy of the Old Testament canon. This would explain his evident solicitude concerning them and his eager wish to have them as soon as possible. The Christians of our day ought to show just as much love for their Bibles, which they can now carry with them in such handy sizes.
The apostle now sketches his own condition in a few words: Alexander, the smith, has done me much harm; the Lord will reward him according to his works; whom also thou guard against, for too bitterly has he withstood our words. This Alexander, a worker in metal, probably copper, brass, gold, and silver, may have been the same one that is mentioned Act 19:33. Ever since the Ephesian tumult this man had been filled with hatred against the apostle, making every effort to hinder the work of the Gospel. He may have been summoned as a witness in the trial of Paul and made use of the opportunity thus offered in maligning and harming the apostle in every conceivable manner, probably by testifying in such a manner as to harm the cause of his person especially. But Paul, instead of giving way to vindictiveness, placed the entire matter into the hands of God. To God belongs all vengeance, He will repay at His time. This Paul well knew, Rom 12:19, and therefore did not presume to interfere with the Lord’s business. At the same time the apostle’s interest in the work of the Church causes him to warn Timothy against the hateful machinations of this man, bidding him be on his guard and not expose himself and the cause to the attack of Alexander, for the latter took advantage of every opportunity to harm the work of Christ with all bitterness. It may be that he had- meanwhile returned to Ephesus and was endeavoring with all his power to harm Paul and the ministry of the Word. The same unusual hatred is often found in the case of such as believe themselves harmed in some manner by the Christians, especially if their business cannot be recommended to people interested in keeping a good conscience. In that case a similar method of procedure must be followed as that here prescribed by Paul.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul talks of specific people and how they behaved, of God's work for and to him, and then closes with greetings to and from certain people.
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come ... quickly
"come ... as soon as possible"
Demas ... Crescens ... Titus
These are names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)
this present world
Here "world" refers to worldly things as opposed to the things of God. Possible meanings are 1) he loves the temporary comforts of this world or 2) he is afraid he will die if he remains with Paul. (See: Metonymy)
Crescens went ... and Titus went
These two men had left Paul, but Paul is not saying that they also "love this present world" like Demas.
Dalmatia
This is the name of a land region. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
world
Thessalonica
Galatia
Titus
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:9 Paul makes explicit his summons for Timothy to…
4:9 Paul makes explicit his summons for Timothy to come to Rome (see 1:4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.