Bible Commentaries

2 Timothy 4:7

I. Look at the Christian life under the aspect of a fight. In a sense, this aspect of life is not peculiar to that of the Christian. Indeed, I dare to say, that, so far from the followers of the world being exempt from toil and hardship, it would not take a man half the care and time and trouble to get to heaven, which it takes any man to get rich, and many a man to get to hell. The question, therefore, is not whether we shall fight, but what for, and on whose side—on that of Jesus, whose award is life, or on that of sin, whose wages is death. Now, with regard to the Christian's fight, I remark (1) He has to fight against the world, (2) He has to fight against Satan.

II. The character of the Christian's fight. It is a good fight. (1) Because it is in a good cause. Your enemies are not of your kindred, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh; they are the enemies of God and Christ, of virtue and liberty, of light and peace, of your children, and of your race, of your bodies and of your souls; tyrants that would bind you in chains worse than iron, and burn, not your house above your head, but yourself in hell for ever. (2) Because here victory is unmingled joy. It is not so in other fights. The laurels that are won where groans of suffering mingle with the shouts of battle are steeped in tears; and when cannon roar, and bells ring out a victory, and shouting crowds throng the streets, and illuminations turn night into day, dark is many a home where fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, widows and orphans, weep for the brave who shall never return. There are thorns in victory's proudest crown. He, whom men called the Iron Duke, is reported to have said that there was nothing so dreadful as a battle won, except a battle lost. Thank God, our joy over sins slain, bad passions subdued, Satan defeated, has to suffer no such abatements.

T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 127.

References: 2 Timothy 4:7.—P. Brooks, Sermons, p. 57. 2 Timothy 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:8.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 305; P. Davies, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 35. 2 Timothy 4:8.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 10; H. P. Liddon, Advent Sermons, vol. ii., p. 82; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 12th series, p. 181. 2 Timothy 4:9-17.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ix., p. 287.

2 Timothy 4:10

The Apostate.

I. Consider the history and fall of Demas. Men live after they are dead, some in their good deeds, others in their bad. Many a man would have been unheard of, but for his crimes; living but for these in happy obscurity, and going down to his grave unnoticed and unknown. But the case of Demas is not that of one who owes the world's only knowledge of him to his crimes, like a felon whom a scaffold raises above the heads of the vulgar crowd who have come to see him die. This is not the first time we hear of Demas, and, indeed, had St. Paul written no second letter to Timothy, or had God in His providence been pleased to allow this epistle to perish with other writings of the Apostles, Demas might have given a name to Protestant churches; he might have been sainted in the Romish calendar, and had devotees soliciting his prayers, while they burned candles and offered gifts at his shrine. The fall of such an one as Demas, like some tall cliff which, undermined by the waves, precipitates itself, with the roar of thunder, headlong into the boiling sea, must have startled the Church at the time, and wakened from their slumber those that slept in Sion; and still, as if its echoes were yet sounding round the world, let us listen to its warning. It teaches the highest of us to take heed lest we fall; the happiest of us to rejoice with trembling, and all of us to watch and pray, that, keeping our garments unspotted from the world, we may not enter into temptation.

II. Consider the cause of Demas' fall—he loved this present world. It is not the world, observe, nor its money, nor its honours, nor its enjoyments, that the Bible condemns, but the love of them.

III. Learn the lesson the case teaches. Give your hands to the world, but keep your heart for God. It is a very good world if kept in its own place; like fire and water, a useful servant, but a bad and most tyrannous master. Love it not, and yet love it. Love it with the love of Him who gave His Son to die for it. You must make the world better, or it will make you worse.

T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 201.

References: 2 Timothy 4:10.—J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 231. 2 Timothy 4:11.—G. Calthrop, Words to my Friends, p. 297; J. A. Carr, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 52; H. C. Nelson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 350; Ibid., vol. xix., p. 381; Preacher's Monthly, vol. vi., p. 317; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. i., p. 211; vol. v., p. 32. 2 Timothy 4:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 542; J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 141; J. Stalker, The New Song, p. 90; Expositor, 1st series, vol. i., p. 286; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 132; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 273. 2 Timothy 4:15.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 195. 2 Timothy 4:16.—A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 3rd series, p. 85. 2 Timothy 4:20.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1453. 2 Timothy 4:22.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 225; W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 168..

2 Timothy 4:11

Physician and Evangelist.

I. St. Paul had been suffering from serious illness in Galatia. Very soon afterwards St. Luke appears with him, for the first time, in Troas. During subsequent years they were frequently associated together in the closest intimacy, and we have the best reasons for believing that St. Paul's health was always delicate. What so natural as to suppose that the first acquaintance at Troas was marked by the exercise of St. Luke's medical skill, and that the same skill was on many subsequent occasions available for the alleviation of suffering and fatigue?

II. It is no fancy which detects in St. Luke's Gospel the traces of a professional feeling in various incidental passages, as well as in allusions to subjects which may properly be called medical. The main feature, however, of the collect for St. Luke's Day, is that it lays hold of that fact concerning him which has been noted above, and turns it to a spiritual use—that is, sets before us this Evangelist and Physician of the soul, and offers up the supplication that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed. Those who are suffering deeply from sorrow or sin do often find in St. Luke's Gospel a special consolation. We could not find anywhere a more wholesome medicine in all times of sin and weakness and temptation, than in those passages concerning prayer, which St. Luke's Gospel, and his Gospel alone, contains for us. If in other places the doctrine delivered by him is soothing and consoling in sorrow, these are medicinal and remedial for the worst diseases of the soul.

J. S. Howson, Our Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, p. 144.

References: 2 Timothy 4:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 989; W. J. Knox Little, Manchester Sermons, p. 259; P. Brooks, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 300; H. Simon, Ibid., p. 36; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 341; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 275; Homilist, vol. v., p. 194. 2 Timothy 4:6-8.—Homilist, vol. v., p. 337; 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 617; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. viii., p. 87; A. Maclaren, The Secret of Power, p. 313.