Final Charge To Timothy – A Man Of God.
Verses 11-16
Pursue – chase after – personal godly virtues and eternal values. Contrast of ‘flee’ and ‘follow after’. Verse 11. 2nd Tim. 2:22. Titus 2:12. Patience is a rarer quality than meekness: gentleness.
Verse 12 – ‘Fight’. Gk. ‘agonizo’ – contend for a prize – Olympic Games. Verse 12 might also refer to Timothy’s baptism.
Verse 14 – Keep your teaching pure by godly living supporting his teaching, until Christ’s appearing. 2nd Tim. 1:10; Ch. 4:1 and 8; should He come in their lifetime. This is still true for us, with regard to the IMMINENCY of His coming for His Church and Bride.
Verses 15 – 16 – Magnificent doxology. Future too, (15a). See Rev. 17:14 & 19:16. The Lord Jesus Christ deserves awesome reverence.
Verses 17 – 19 – Advice to wealthy men. Trust in God, not their wealth. Be a good steward of wealth and be generous. God has trusted them with wealth – what a responsibility! Lay real, lasting treasure up in Heaven, verse 19. READ Matt. 6:19-21. Do good with what God has entrusted you with. Eternal treasure becomes a firm foundation for the future that cannot be lost.
Jim Elliot said, ‘he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose’.
As we give away we take hold of ‘life that is truly life’ – literal translation of the Gk. ‘tes ontos zoes’. This is the contrast with life lived by the ‘earth-dwellers’, propped up by so uncertain a support as riches – which are so easily lost – plastic substitutes for what is real life abundantly given by Christ to His own. READ John 10:10.
Verses 20 – 21 – Final encouragement to remain faithful. Guard and keep THE Faith as a fixed deposit from God to man – precious Truth which encourages others to ‘ come to a knowledge of the Truth’. Turn away from falsehood – profane babble, empty chatter. False teachers have defected away from true doctrine – probably they never knew the Truth. 1st John 2:19. ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be shown up (manifest) that they were not all of us ’. Such false teachers have opposing teaching (6:20); Gk. ‘antitheseis’ means ‘counter assertions’, falsely called ‘knowledge’, in other words – Gnostic mystery religion.
Avoid the teaching of those who have wandered away from THE Faith and THE Truth. They missed the way for that. Some Believers may have been persuaded to turn to false teaching. READ 2nd Tim. 3:25-26.
Paul has now come full circle from where he began in 1st Tim. 1:3 – 6.