Sermon Tone Analysis

Why study 2 Timothy?

To gain insight into the final thoughts of a die-ing man!

What he values at the end of his life

What his perspective is on life with hindsight (hindsight is 20/20)

How Far will we go Tonight

We will start with vs 1 and will not likely get any further tonight.

After setting some context that will help us understand the rest of the book, we will end on the following question:

How does Paul identify himself and where does his confidence come from?

Background and Setting

At the end of Acts we leave off with Paul arriving in Rome on a type of house arrest awaiting trial because he has appealed to caesar as a roman citizen after the Jews have attempted to kill him over the claim that he spoke against the Jewish law, Jewish temple, and brought a gentile into the temple area.

After Acts and during the house arrest, Paul writes Ephesians, philippians, Colossians, and Philemon where we see a positivity to Paul’s imprisonment.

we can conclude that Paul was set free and won his trial as after those books, In 1 Timothy we are able to see that Paul is free and traveling through Greece when he writes of his plans to spend winter in Nicopolis 200 miles northwest of Athens on the west coast of Greece.

Some tradition even holds that Paul did indeed make it to Spain as he intended to at the end of Romans.

This is based on the writings of Clement to the Corinthians.

Clement in the Roman Catholic faith was the third pope after Peter, for us we simply recognized him as a bishop or leader in the early church.

He is written about and attested too by numerous early church historical writings.

We believe he was a real person, his writings are not inspired by the holy spirit though he is still a faithful believer and at least trustworthy enough to use in our historical setting.

He writes this about Paul sometime before ad 100 in 1 Clement chapter 5:

5 Through jealousy and strife Paul showed the way to the prize of endurance; 6 seven times he was in bonds, he was exiled, he was stoned, he was a herald both in the East and in the West, he gained the noble fame of his faith, 7 he taught righteousness to all the world, and when he had reached the limits of the West he gave his testimony before the rulers, and thus passed from the world and was taken up into the Holy Place,—the greatest example of endurance.

By the time we get to 2 Timothy, Paul is back in prison.

This time the circumstances are different.

Paul does not have any hope of being set free of even of living (based on clement writing Paul has good reason to loose that hope).

He has been on trial and already made one defense of himself before the trial (2 Tim 4:16) Everyone he knew left him with no one to back his story at this defense.

Paul is left standing alone before the Roman Empire.

When he goes back to the second defense he expects God will “pour him out as a drink offering as his time to die is at hand” 2 Tim 4:6

We can date this letter to the late 60’s.

We know based on Clement that Paul is already dead in a earthly sense by 100 AD.

In the second century, an account of Paul is written titled the ACTS of Paul.

This states that Paul was beheaded under the crazy emperor Nero (ruled between 60 to 80 AD).

While I would not trust this book as it is written past the first century and appears to contradict teaching found in the real scriptures, the timeline we are building does seem to match up with Nero’s reign.

Paul would have also been beheaded since a Roman citizen was to have a cleaner death.

So we conclude that Paul is at the end of his life, about to die, roughly 30 years after Jesus has ascended, and the young church is organizing itself under leaders.

One of them being this young man named Timothy.

Paul knows that times are getting worse for these church as he portrays portrays here

He warns that following Jesus in this time will be very difficult

Some of this difficulty is coming from:

Mythical teaching (2 Tim 4:4)

geneologies teaching (1 Tim 1:4)

a concern for the law- teaching (1 tim 1:7)

higher knowledge -teaching(1 Tim 6:20)

controversy, arguments, and speculation (2 Tim 2:14, 16, 23)

deceptiveness (2 Tim 3:13)

immorality (2 tim 2:16,19)

desire for material gain from teaching (2 tim 3:2,4)

forbidding marriage, eating meat, and teaching the resurrection already happened (2 tim 2:18)

These teachings were opposed to the apostolic teaching and to the truth (2 tim 2:18)

These difficulties will progress in persecution

And in light of this difficulty and with his die-ing breath (so to say) he spurs his disciple to dig in harder into the word of God

Now with this setting, we come back to our hope as a college group

1.

That we would be complete by the training of the Scriptures, to do that we must know them.

2. We would value what Paul values

3. We would be confident and equipped to live our faith in spite of the changing world around us.

Paul’s Confidence

In Paul’s simple introduction:

He first identifies himself as

an apostle of Christ Jesus

By the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ

1. Apostle: After resurrection the apostles were commissioned as such by the qualification that they had seen Jesus’ earthly ministry and witnessed his resurrection.

In this sense is how Paul is identifying, one who is a witness of Jesus’ resurrection himself.

2. By the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ

As directed in Acts 2, we live in the legacy of the apostles and follow in their teaching but we can’t identify as one in the sense that Paul can.

In this second piece, Paul clearly and confidently states that he is what he is by the will of God.

Are you confident enough to say “______, I am who I am by the will of God”.

Do you have peace that you are in the will of God right now?

If not how could you have this same confidence as Paul?

Knowing how often this question comes up, I think its fair to jump aside for a moment in this text and talk about this idea, how the Bible portrays it, and therefore how Paul must have viewed it

Three ways we see the “will of God” outside the Bible

Some may argue that God’s will is everything you don’t want to do, everything sad and hard

God’s will is a magical adventure much like the lottery.

You have a chance at winning but your just as likely to accidentally throw it away on accident

God’s will is a specific plan where there is only one clear right way to live your life.

Like a series of dots you have constantly be trying to connect them to find what God wants for you

The Pursuit of God’s will is a healthy and worthy pursuit

Psalm 143:10 (ESV) — 10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God!

Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!

David here is not asking what the will of God is but simply help me to do it!

How did he know what to do?

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Jesus lived for God’s will

Peter lived for the WILL of God

that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God

The Paul that we see in Timothy when writing to the colossians (4:12) believed that all Christians can be fully assured in all the will of God!

The Will of God defined in God’s own words

In God’s own words, he says both that HIS will is unstoppable and always happens no matter what we do as well as HIS will is a desire that he asks us to obey.

At face value, if HIS will is something they we are commanded to obey, that would imply that we can disobey it.

These two views appear to be contradictory?

Let’s see how these two views are shown in the Bible

God’s will of Decree

The world tries to make plans but God makes them look silly!

His plans stands and he will accomplish it every time.

He works everything to HIS own council, all the way down to how many hairs you have and the life span of each and every individual animal for all time.

No detail is spared or missed by Him!

Even with all the possible decissions man can make, God takes that infinite number and in His wisdom works them toward His purposes

Kevin DeYoung phrases this well with:

“Everything comes to pass is according to God’s sovereign decree.

And all that He decrees will ultimately come to pass.

God’s will of decree cannot be thwarted.

It is immutable and fixed” God is sovereign over all things- nature and nations, animals and angels, spirits and Satan, wonderful people and wicked people, even disease and death…God’s will of decree is absolute”

This is God’s will of decree.

With this view we can have confidence like Paul we are in the Will of God simply because His will cannot be stopped.