2 Timothy 1.2-Paul Identifies Timothy as the Recipient of the Epistle and Greets Him
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday February 3, 2015
Second Timothy: Second Timothy 1:2-Paul Identifies Timothy as the Recipient of the Epistle and Greets Him
Lesson # 5
2 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, 2 to Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (NASB95)
“To Timothy, my beloved son” is composed of the following: (1) dative masculine singular form of the proper name Timotheos (Τιμόθεος), “To Timothy” (2) dative masculine singular form of the adjective agapētos (ἀγαπητός), “beloved” (3) dative neuter singular form of the noun teknon (τέκνον), “son.”
The proper name Timotheos means “one who honors God” since it is composed of the noun time, “honor” and the noun theos, “God” and refers to Paul’s disciple.
The noun teknon means “spiritual child” which describes Timothy as Paul’s spiritual child emphasizing the spiritual relationship that Paul had with Timothy.
This word denotes spiritual paternity since Timothy was saved through Paul’s missionary activities.
The adjective agapetos means “beloved” and is modifying the noun teknon indicating the close personal relationship that existed between Paul and Timothy and describes Paul’s personal love and affection for Timothy indicating that he was a dear friend of Paul’s.
“Grace, mercy and peace to you”: (1) nominative feminine singular form of the noun charis (χάρις), “grace” (2) nominative neuter singular form of the noun eleos (ἒλεος), “mercy” (3) nominative feminine singular form of the noun eirene (εἰρήνη), “peace.”
The noun charis, “grace” contains the figure of speech called metonymy meaning the effect is put for the cause or in other words, the thing effected for the instrument which effects it.
Here grace is put for the Word of God which effects grace and so therefore, the Spirit of God speaking through the communication of the Word of God to the believer’s human spirit regarding the will of the Father is the means by which grace is received by the believer.
The noun eleos appears only twice in the salutations of Paul’s epistles, namely, 1 Timothy 1:2 and 2 Timothy 1:2.
Usually only charis, “grace” and eirene, “peace” appear together in the greetings of Paul’s epistles but in 1 Timothy 1:2 and 2 Timothy 1:2, the noun eleos is inserted between the two words and so these three words together are unique in the Pauline letters.
In both of these passages, the noun eleos depicts a heartfelt response by Paul who has something to give to Timothy, who has a need, namely Spirit inspired instruction as to how to handle the situation in Ephesus.
The noun eirēnē refers to the peace of God that is produced by the Spirit in and among believers and this is accomplished when believers obey the commands and prohibitions that He guides Paul in issuing them in this epistle.
“From God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord”: (1) preposition apo (ἀπό), “from” (2) genitive masculine singular form of the noun theos (θεός), “God” (3) genitive masculine singular form of the noun pater (πατήρ), “Father” (4) genitive first person plural form of the personal pronoun ego (ἐγώ), “our” (5) conjunction kai (καί), (6) genitive masculine singular form of the proper name Christos (Χριστός), “Christ” and the genitive masculine singular form of the proper noun Iesous (Ἰησοῦς), “Jesus” (7) articular genitive masculine singular form of the noun kurios (κύριος), “Lord” and the genitive first person plural form of the personal pronoun ego (ἐγώ), “our.”
The noun theos means “God” referring to the Father and is the object of the preposition apo, “from,” which functions as a marker of source indicating that God the Father is the “source” of this grace, compassion and peace.
The noun pater means “Father” referring to the first member of the Trinity and emphasizing the church age believer’s familial relationship to God through regeneration.
The noun kurios is applied to Jesus Christ and indicates the following: (1) His equality with the Father and the Spirit. (2) His joint-rulership with the Father over the entire cosmos. (3) His highest ranking position as Chief Administrator in the divine government. (4) His absolute sovereign authority as Ruler over all creation and every creature. (5) His victory over the sin nature and Satan and His kingdom.
In His deity, Jesus Christ is “Lord” (See Luke 20:42) but in His human nature He received this title as a result of His obedience to the Father’s will, which called for Him to suffer a spiritual and physical death on the cross as a substitute for every member of the human race-past, present and future (See Philippians 2:5-11).
The noun kurios emphasizes the victory that Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, accomplished for the believer through His spiritual and physical deaths and resurrection.
His spiritual death solved the problem of personal sins, which are produced by the sin nature through the function of human volition and His physical death solved the problem of the sin nature, which resides in the genetic structure of the human body.
His resurrection guarantees the believer that he or she will receive a resurrection body at the rapture of the church, which will be immortal and minus the sin nature.
Second Timothy 1:1 From Paul, an apostle owned by Christ who is Jesus by the will of God for the purpose of communicating the promise of life which is by means of union with the Christ who is Jesus, 2 to Timothy, beloved spiritual child: Grace, compassion, peace from God the Father as well as the Christ, who is Jesus, our Lord. (My translation)
Paul identifies Timothy as the recipient of this epistle.
However, he is not the only recipient of this epistle and the greeting to follow but also the Ephesian church as well as indicated by the second person plural form of the personal pronoun su, which means “all of you” that appears in the benediction in 2 Timothy 4:22.
First and Second Timothy and Titus while private in form, are public in intention, speaking through Paul’s delegates to the churches.
On his second missionary journey Paul met Timothy at Lystra (Acts 16:1-5), who may have been converted as the result of Paul’s first visit to Lystra, was highly regarded by the royal family at Lystra and Iconium.
His Jewish mother had become a believer with his grandmother (2 Tm. 1:5) but yet his father is described as a Greek (Acts 16:1) and thus would have belonged to the small elite class of Lystra who had been educated in the Greek language and culture.
Acts 16 indicates that Timothy’s mother was a Jewish woman who was a believer and who had married a Greek whose name is unknown.
This mixed marriage would have been viewed by Jewish law as illegal.
The marriage thus took place while his mother was not strictly observing Judaism and before she became a Christian, thus the church would not have opposed it.
This “mixed” marriage between a Jew and a Gentile would place their offspring (Timothy) on all but the lowest step in the Jewish scale of precedence, yet this was not uncommon in the later periods of Jewish history.
Even though Timothy’s mother married a Gentile he was considered a Jew by the Jews and was therefore liable to be circumcised.
In Jewish law, a child takes the religion of its mother; so Timothy should have been circumcised and raised a Jew but in Greek law the father dominates the home but apparently the Jewish community at Lystra was too weak or lax to interfere with Greek custom.
The absence of any personal allusion to the father in Acts or the Epistles suggests the inference that he must have died or disappeared during his son’s infancy.
The care of the boy thus devolved upon his mother Eunice and her grandmother Lois (2 Tm. 1:5).
The fact that he had not been circumcised implies either that his mother was not a practicing Jew or that his Gentile father had refused to allow the sign of the covenant to be performed on his son but under the training of Eunice and Lois, Timothy’s education was emphatically Jewish.
2 Timothy 1:5 speaks of the sincere Jewish faith of Timothy’s grandmother Lois and of his mother Eunice, and 2 Timothy 3:15 speaks of Timothy’s early instruction in the Hebrew Scriptures.
His mother Eunice is identified as a Jewess as well as a Christian believer in Acts 16:1 who had probably believed on the Lord Jesus Christ during Paul and Barnabas’ first visit to Lystra (Acts 14:20-23).
Timothy became an associate and traveling companion of the apostle Paul who links Timothy’s name with his own in saluting the churches in: (1) Corinth (2 Cor. 1:1). (2) Philippi (Phlp. 1:1). (3) Colossae (Col. 1:1). (4) Thessalonica (1 Th. 1:1; 2 Th. 1:1).
This indicates either that Timothy served with Paul in each of these churches, or that he had been sent there by the apostle, or that he had come to be known by them because of his close association with Paul (cf. Rm. 16:21).
Paul describes him as: (1) “My fellow-worker” (Rm. 16:21). (2) “God’s fellow-worker” (1 Th. 3:2). (3) “My beloved and faithful student in the Lord” (1 Cor. 4:17). (4) “True child in the faith” (1 Tm. 1:2; Phlp. 2:22). (5) “A Christian gentleman of proven worth” (Phlp. 2:22). (6) “Brother” (2 Cor. 1:1; Col. 1:1). (7) “My son” (1 Tm. 1:18; cf. v. 1; 1 Cor. 4:14). (8) “I have no one like-minded” (Phlp. 2:20). (9) “Slave of Christ Jesus” (Phlp. 1:1). (10) “Seeks the things of Jesus Christ” (Phlp. 2:21). (11) “Loyal” (2 Tm. 3:10). (12) “Doing the Lord’s work” (1 Cor. 16:10).
Apparently the apostle Paul derived special comfort from Timothy’s presence (Phlp. 2:20-22) and his request for Timothy to leave Ephesus and come to him at Rome during his second and last Roman imprisonment demonstrates this (2 Tm. 4:9).
Evidently, Timothy was a young man with exceptional leadership qualities since Paul authorized him to appoint pastor-teachers and to establish order in the churches throughout the Roman Empire.