Lesson 6 of 6
In Progress

Bible in the World – 2 Timothy

2 Timothy 4:7 – “I have fought the good fight.” 

This biblical verse has become a standard way for English speakers to reflect on their challenges and faithfulness during a trying time. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Perhaps the highest profile use of the verse was in George H. W. Bush’s concession speech after he lost the US presidency to Bill Clinton. Television viewers may also be familiar with the CBS legal drama, “The Good Fight,” whose title echoes this verse. The verse has come to mean something like, “No matter what was thrown at me, I endured,” which is also what the author of 2 Timothy meant by it. 

2 Timothy 4:21 – “Come before winter.” 

During the Second World War, the German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, opposed the Nazis and was a central figure in a movement within German Lutheranism of the period known as the Confessing Church. In 1939, Bonhoeffer was lecturing in America and faced the decision about whether to return to his home country, now firmly in the grip of the National Socialist party and Adolf Hitler, or to seek refuge in the United States. 

On June 26th of 1939, in the daily list of Scripture that Bonhoeffer used for devotional reading, appeared 2 Timothy 4:21, “Do your best to come before winter.” The verse comes near the end of 2 Timothy. In its context with the letter, the words are either “local color” added by a pseudonymous writer to make the letter sound genuine and personal, or it is Paul’s personal plea to Timothy as he closes this letter. Regardless, Bonhoeffer wrote about the verse, “That follows me around all day. It is as if we were soldiers home on leave, and going back into action…. ‘Do your best to come before winter’–it is not a misuse of Scripture if I apply that to myself.’”

Bonhoeffer would return to Germany, to continue to resist Hitler. He was imprisoned early in 1943 and executed by the Nazis in the spring of 1945.

Female Leaders in 2 Timothy

The Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) are sometimes lumped together as writings that oppose the leadership of women in the church. In fact, 1 Timothy is the only one of the Pastorals that attempts to limit the leadership of women in the Christian movement. The Second Letter to Timothy commends multiple women for their faith and leadership. At the beginning of the letter, the author speaks of Timothy’s grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice, whose sincere faith they have shared with Timothy (see 1:5). Then, as he closes the letter, the author greets Prisca (a female) and Aquila (a male). This couple is well known in the New Testament. They appear in Acts 18, where they privately tutor the evangelist, Apollos. They are also numbered among those whom Paul greets in 1 Corinthians 16:19 and Romans 16:3. Women’s roles in public ministry would come to be increasingly limited as the church grew; when 2 Timothy was written, however, they are still being commended as teachers and leaders. 

2 Timothy 3:14-17 – The Inspiration of Scripture

This letter includes one of two passages (the other is 2 Peter 1:20) to address the inspiration of scripture directly. Although both passages refer to what Christians call the Old Testament (there was not yet a “New Testament” when these letters were written), each has been used to argue for the divine inspiration of both Old and New Testaments. In 2 Timothy, the author commends scripture to Timothy as a source of sound teaching, especially so that Timothy and those he leads can avoid being taken in by false teachers.

In the modern era, when biblical theologians began to interact with the work of Charles Darwin, the matter of scripture’s divine inspiration became a way to argue against evolution and in favor of a scientific reading of Genesis 1-2. The doctrine of the inspiration of scripture came to be discussed in some parts of the church as “verbal inspiration,” with some teachers maintaining that the writers of biblical texts acted as passive recipients and recorders of the divine voice and did not speak at all from their human experience. Other teachers maintain that inspiration is a more complex matter, and that human writers–and readers–of scripture and the communities they are a part of are themselves part of the way God inspires scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16 is often cited in discussions about this topic, although on its own, this verse says only that scripture is inspired by God, and offers nothing about how precisely the process works.