Episode 45
Paul From Prison Part 2: The Letters That Sound Like Goodbye
What if you could read someone’s final words, knowing they were written from a cold, Roman dungeon as the world shifted around them? This episode of Seek Go Create explores the last letters of Paul—messages that sound like goodbyes, written to those who would carry his mission beyond his life. Discover the human side of leadership, faith under persecution, and the turning point when movements must survive without their founders. If you’re curious about resilience, legacy, and how real lives shaped early Christianity, this conversation will challenge what you think you know.
“The gospel is not yours to edit or improve. It is yours to protect and pass on.” - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Episode Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Two Prisons Setup
00:42 Series Intro Context
02:32 Episode Focus Overview
03:52 Between Imprisonments Timeline
08:22 First Timothy Field Manual
15:09 Titus Troubleshooter Mission
20:28 Rome Burns Second Arrest
22:22 Second Timothy Farewell Charge
31:21 Final Names Cloak Scrolls
36:34 Modern Misreads Takeaways
37:57 Grace Legacy Next Episode
Transcript
Two prisons.
Speaker:One man.
Speaker:Three years apart.
Speaker:The first cell had a door that opened.
Speaker:The second did not.
Speaker:In the first, he wrote about joy.
Speaker:In the second, he asked for a coat.
Speaker:In the first, the room was full of friends.
Speaker:In the second, only Luke was left.
Speaker:Same chains, same empire, two letters that do not sound like the same writer.
Speaker:From a dungeon beneath Rome, the letters that sound like goodbye
Speaker:welcome to Seek Go Create.
Speaker:This is Tim Winders, and we're walking through some topics that spun off from
Speaker:my reading of the New Testament that I did in 90 days, and I did it in order,
Speaker:the order that it was written in, not the order that's in our Bible, and also tried
Speaker:to do it in context, the order the letters actually went out to the audiences.
Speaker:And what I found was really cool.
Speaker:This two-episode arc that we're doing here, we'll talk about in just a moment,
Speaker:was one of the many things that spun off and just got me thinking and helped
Speaker:me connect dots and just kinda brought my level of study and understanding of
Speaker:the New Testament to such a new level.
Speaker:You know, surprised me, challenged me, changed the way
Speaker:I think about a lot of things.
Speaker:This series that I'm doing now is really where I share those discoveries with
Speaker:you, and some of it is discoveries, and I still have questions.
Speaker:These aren't answers.
Speaker:But sometimes I've gained a lotta clarity, and I'm sharing that, and
Speaker:could be right, could be wrong.
Speaker:I'm not trying to present myself as the Bible answer man, just someone who
Speaker:spent a lot of time with it recently.
Speaker:If you wanna do what I did, and boy, I encourage you, challenge you to, the
Speaker:reading plan is free, k2m.foundation/nt90.
Speaker:People are giving us feedback and saying it is changing the way they
Speaker:are studying and looking at the Bible.
Speaker:Some people just writing pages and pages.
Speaker:They're reading it with friends, filling notebooks, and seeing
Speaker:things they've never seen before.
Speaker:The link down in the show notes, wherever you're watching or listening
Speaker:in, you should be able to get that.
Speaker:Okay, this is episode 16, Paul from Prison Part 2, The
Speaker:Letters That Sound Like Goodbye.
Speaker:Now, it could be that our context, we know that this was his last letters
Speaker:that we have, and we're possibly filling in the gaps, but there are
Speaker:things when we really look at them, sounds like he knows that something is
Speaker:about to happen, that his end is near.
Speaker:Last episode, we read four letters that Paul wrote from his first
Speaker:Roman imprisonment, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.
Speaker:He was in a rented house, rented room or a house, chained to a
Speaker:guard, but he was writing about joy, identity, unity, and forgiveness.
Speaker:This episode picks up where that one ended.
Speaker:Paul was released.
Speaker:He went back to work.
Speaker:He wrote field manuals for two young leaders that he was training,
Speaker:and then Rome arrested him again.
Speaker:Some of those letters could've been written while he was
Speaker:under arrest, or in prison.
Speaker:This time, no rented house, though.
Speaker:There were three letters.
Speaker:Two were written while he was free, and then we think the third
Speaker:one was written from the dungeon.
Speaker:So let's get into it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Let's talk about the years in between.
Speaker:Let's fill in some gaps here as best we can.
Speaker:Acts ends pretty abruptly.
Speaker:Chapter 28 of Acts, Paul is under house arrest in Rome, proclaiming
Speaker:the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with
Speaker:all boldness and without hindrance.
Speaker:Then it just stops.
Speaker:It's done.
Speaker:Luke does not record what happened next.
Speaker:there's speculation.
Speaker:I talked about this back in, in, when we were going through the
Speaker:books of the Bible in the NT 90 plan when I recorded those episodes.
Speaker:There's some that speculate Luke almost wrote it as a defense for Paul.
Speaker:His gospel, the Gospel of Luke, was part of it, but then combined with Acts, which
Speaker:is sort of about Paul and other things, it sort of is like Luke making a case.
Speaker:We don't know that exactly, but it could read like that.
Speaker:But Luke just stops.
Speaker:So when he gets out of prison, it's almost like he's done.
Speaker:He doesn't need to keep going because he may have done what he needed to do.
Speaker:He might have, proved Paul's innocence.
Speaker:But Paul's own letters kind of fill in the gaps.
Speaker:The language in Philippians suggests that he expected release.
Speaker:"I know that I will remain and continue with you all." Philippians 1:25.
Speaker:In Philemon, he asked Philemon to prepare a guest room.
Speaker:"I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously
Speaker:given back to you," Philemon 22.
Speaker:And we know that he planned to visit Spain, going back to what he
Speaker:wrote in the late 50s, Romans 15:24.
Speaker:Most scholars who accept a second imprisonment believe that Paul was
Speaker:released around AD 62 the first time.
Speaker:Some believe, there are some out there that believe he was in prison
Speaker:during the entire 60s, that he wrote all of these in the same situation.
Speaker:It seems to me, and I think we're sort of proving it with these two episodes,
Speaker:that Paul was released around AD 62.
Speaker:Then he traveled again, visited churches, organized leadership, and
Speaker:during this period, he wrote two letters that read differently from
Speaker:anything that he had written before.
Speaker:Not really letters to churches, letters to individuals.
Speaker:All three of these final letters of Paul were to individuals.
Speaker:two of them to Timothy and, another one to Titus.
Speaker:Field manuals for the next generation.
Speaker:The founders were disappearing.
Speaker:James, the Lord's brother, he had been martyred around AD 62 in Jerusalem around
Speaker:the time that Paul had been released.
Speaker:Peter would be executed in Rome within a few years.
Speaker:The movement that had been carried by eyewitnesses was about to lose all of
Speaker:those that had witnessed Christ, that had been there at that significant event
Speaker:of the cross and then the resurrection.
Speaker:Someone had to be ready to carry the message.
Speaker:Paul chose Timothy and Titus Okay, so with all that, with that background,
Speaker:let's now look at this letter that he wrote, this first letter that he
Speaker:wrote to Timothy, and just kind of keep maybe going into some background.
Speaker:Some early sources suggest that Paul even made it to Spain during those three
Speaker:years, those three or four years there.
Speaker:Clement of Rome, writing around AD 96, said that Paul reached the farthest
Speaker:limits of the West, and from Rome, that would have been considered Spain.
Speaker:Why does that matter?
Speaker:Because Paul told the Romans he was going there in Romans 15:24,
Speaker:and some scholars believe the Gospel reaching Spain fulfilled
Speaker:what Jesus said in Matthew 24:14.
Speaker:And this is a quote, "This Gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed through the
Speaker:whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
Speaker:Within a few years of Paul's execution, Jerusalem fell.
Speaker:Whether or not he made it to Spain, he came back east, back
Speaker:to the churches he already knew.
Speaker:He left Timothy in Ephesus, and somewhere on the road, probably from Macedonia,
Speaker:he wrote back Not a cosmic letter this time, not blueprints for the universe.
Speaker:A field manual for one man who had to hold the church together in a city full
Speaker:of false teachers and competing gods.
Speaker:Timothy was Paul's protege, half Jewish, half Greek.
Speaker:His mother Eunice and grandmother Lois raised him in the faith.
Speaker:Paul found him in Lystra 15 years before this time and brought him along
Speaker:on the second missionary journey.
Speaker:Fifteen years of traveling together, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks,
Speaker:church plantings across the empire.
Speaker:By the time Paul writes this letter, Timothy is leading the church in Ephesus.
Speaker:Probably in his early 30s would be a good guess.
Speaker:Paul had spent three years in Ephesus, longer than anywhere else, teaching
Speaker:daily in the Hall of Tyrannus, watching the gospel spread through all of Asia.
Speaker:A riot in the theater when the silversmiths realized their Artemis
Speaker:shrine business was threatened.
Speaker:But Paul, you know what?
Speaker:Took it all in stride, or at least he took it, and it appears that he just moved
Speaker:on, and he left Timothy behind there.
Speaker:Ephesus was not an easy assignment for Timothy.
Speaker:The Artemis cult dominated the skyline.
Speaker:The imperial cult demanded loyalty.
Speaker:False teachers had already infiltrated the church, promoting myths, food
Speaker:restrictions, and marriage bans that treated the physical world as corrupt.
Speaker:Paul calls their teaching unsound.
Speaker:The Greek word means unhealthy.
Speaker:Bad teaching is not just a disagreement, it is sickness in the body.
Speaker:He pushes back with Genesis.
Speaker:"Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if
Speaker:it is received with thanksgiving." That's in 1 Timothy 4:4.
Speaker:The body is not the enemy.
Speaker:Food is not the problem.
Speaker:Then a line that would have stopped the room Paul tells Timothy to
Speaker:pray for kings and all who are in high positions, 1 Timothy 2:1-2.
Speaker:Nero is the emperor at this time, we believe, and man, he's rough.
Speaker:He is that 666 beast that we'll hear about in Revelations that's
Speaker:written just a few years after this.
Speaker:Tensions between Rome and the Christian movement are rising.
Speaker:Within months, Rome will burn and Nero will blame the believers.
Speaker:Paul does not know that yet, but he tells Timothy to pray for the emperor anyway,
Speaker:not because the empire deserves it, because God desires all people to be saved
Speaker:and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Speaker:That's in 2:4.
Speaker:That instruction is about to get much harder.
Speaker:And then King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God in 1:17 In a
Speaker:city with dozens of active cults and an emperor claiming divine titles,
Speaker:those words drew a line in the sand.
Speaker:"Let no one despise you for your youth," Paul said, "but set the believers an
Speaker:example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity," 1 Timothy 4:12.
Speaker:Paul does not tell Timothy to demand respect.
Speaker:He tells him to earn it.
Speaker:"Train yourself for godliness." That's in 4:7.
Speaker:The Greek is a gymnasium word.
Speaker:Every Greek city had one.
Speaker:They were all throughout Greek, and really throughout Rome also.
Speaker:Apply the discipline of the training floor to your character,
Speaker:your doctrine, your life.
Speaker:That first century audience would have really understood that example.
Speaker:Paul spends more space on widows than almost anything else.
Speaker:A widow without family had no safety net.
Speaker:Some families were offloading their responsibility onto the church.
Speaker:Paul's response is blunt, very practical.
Speaker:"If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for
Speaker:members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than
Speaker:an unbeliever," 1 Timothy 5:8.
Speaker:Then the money warning, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation,
Speaker:into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into
Speaker:ruin and destruction," 1 Timothy 6:9.
Speaker:And right next to it, "Let the elders who rule well be considered
Speaker:worthy of double honor," 5:17.
Speaker:Some people want that double honor, but they miss that first part, rule well.
Speaker:Support the labor, but do not love the money.
Speaker:The principle is mutual faithfulness, not institutional payroll.
Speaker:The letter closes with a charge, "O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted
Speaker:to you." That's 1 Timothy 6:20.
Speaker:The word deposit is a banking term.
Speaker:Most of us have heard it.
Speaker:Something valuable handed to you for safekeeping.
Speaker:The gospel is not Timothy's to edit or improve.
Speaker:It is his to protect and pass on.
Speaker:And a hymn the church was already singing I'll quote Paul here.
Speaker:"He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen
Speaker:by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world,
Speaker:taken up in glory." That's in 3:16.
Speaker:For a church wondering if it could survive Nero, those six lines were a declaration.
Speaker:The story is bigger than Rome.
Speaker:Paul writes like a man packing a toolbox for someone who will have to build
Speaker:without him All right, next is Titus, sometimes called the troubleshooter.
Speaker:Titus was Paul's other key leader, a Gentile convert, never circumcised.
Speaker:When the church in Corinth nearly tore itself apart with division and
Speaker:false teaching, Paul sent Titus.
Speaker:He went into that mess, and he brought peace.
Speaker:He earned Paul's trust the hard way.
Speaker:Now, Paul has left Titus in Crete with one job.
Speaker:"The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put what remained
Speaker:into order." He was a fixer.
Speaker:And then Paul says, "Appoint elders in every town as I directed you," Titus 1:5.
Speaker:The churches in Crete needed structure.
Speaker:They need leaders, and they need them fast.
Speaker:They need a fixer like Titus.
Speaker:Crete has its own problems.
Speaker:Paul quotes a local proverb, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and
Speaker:lazy gluttons." That's in Titus 1:12.
Speaker:The churches were under pressure from false teachers, especially
Speaker:from the circumcision party.
Speaker:That's in Titus 1:10.
Speaker:People that were pushing the Jewish ceremony requirements
Speaker:on Gentile believers.
Speaker:That was the same group, the same battle that Paul had fought in Galatians
Speaker:really a decade or more earlier.
Speaker:Maybe in the late 40s is when we heard Paul talking about it in Galatians,
Speaker:and it was still being fought.
Speaker:They were still around.
Speaker:Hate to tell you, there's still people in the circumcised party
Speaker:today trying to bring requirements into our modern-day churches.
Speaker:Still going on.
Speaker:Paul had to deal with it.
Speaker:We have to deal with it, too.
Speaker:These people were upsetting whole families, teaching for shameful
Speaker:gain what they ought not to teach.
Speaker:The elder qualifications, they mirror kind of what he had given
Speaker:Timothy that he gives to Titus.
Speaker:Same portrait, same standard, being above reproach, hospitable,
Speaker:self-controlled, able to teach sound doctrine, not driven by greed or anger.
Speaker:Paul is building an immune system for the churches and really
Speaker:giving a great leadership model in these two letters that he sent.
Speaker:It seems like it was on his mind to begin preparing more leaders
Speaker:that could take this message and continue sharing the Kingdom of God.
Speaker:Then one of the most beautiful summaries of the gospel in all of Paul's
Speaker:letters For we, I quote Paul here, "For we ourselves were once foolish,
Speaker:disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing
Speaker:our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another."
Speaker:But when the goodness and loving kindness of our God, our Savior
Speaker:appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,
Speaker:but according to His own mercy.
Speaker:That's Titus 3:3-7.
Speaker:Notice the past tense.
Speaker:We were, but God appeared.
Speaker:The grace is not a theory, it is a memory.
Speaker:Paul and Titus both remember who they were before.
Speaker:And the line that ties it together, "For the grace of God has appeared,
Speaker:bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness
Speaker:and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly
Speaker:lives in the present age." Titus 2:11-12.
Speaker:Grace is not just forgiveness.
Speaker:Grace trains us.
Speaker:It teaches you how to live.
Speaker:Not rules enforced from outside, but the Spirit renewing from within.
Speaker:Paul closes with personal instructions.
Speaker:When he sends Artemas or Tychicus, Titus should come to him at Nicopolis.
Speaker:Paul has decided to spend the winter there.
Speaker:He is still deploying people, moving them around, strategizing,
Speaker:organizing, still building.
Speaker:Both letters, 1 Timothy and Titus, read the same way.
Speaker:They're very similar.
Speaker:That's why reading this together in context, in order, it is so powerful.
Speaker:A man who knows his time is limited is writing instructions
Speaker:that need to outlast him.
Speaker:He's not building a denomination.
Speaker:He is building people who can carry the deposit when the hands
Speaker:that first held it are gone.
Speaker:All right, now somewhere along the way, around AD 64, Rome burned.
Speaker:We don't know if it was right around the time these letters
Speaker:were written or right before it.
Speaker:But anyway, during that timeframe, for six days, fire
Speaker:consumed two-thirds of the city.
Speaker:Nero needed someone to blame.
Speaker:He picked the Christians.
Speaker:The Roman historian Tacitus records what happened next.
Speaker:Believers were arrested, covered in animal skins, and torn apart by dogs,
Speaker:crucified, and set on fire to serve as torches in Nero's gardens Peter
Speaker:was executed in Rome around that time.
Speaker:Tradition says he was crucified upside down because he did not consider himself
Speaker:worthy to die the way his Lord died.
Speaker:The persecution that had been sporadic and local became systematic and imperial.
Speaker:Being a Christian in Rome was no longer a social inconvenience.
Speaker:It became a death sentence.
Speaker:Paul, somewhere during that timeframe, was arrested again.
Speaker:We don't know exactly when or where, but by around AD 66 or 67,
Speaker:he is back in a Roman prison, and this time there is no house arrest,
Speaker:no rented quarters, no stream of visitors, no expectation of release.
Speaker:This is a dungeon, and Paul seems to know how it ends.
Speaker:From that cell, he writes one more letter, his last.
Speaker:The last that we have.
Speaker:There may have been others, but this is the last letter that we have.
Speaker:Let's look at 2 Timothy, what we'll call the farewell.
Speaker:The letter opens formally, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by
Speaker:the will of God," 2 Timothy 1:1.
Speaker:That sounds stiff for a letter to someone he calls, "My beloved child."
Speaker:But this letter was not private.
Speaker:It would be read aloud in the Ephesian church.
Speaker:Timothy already knows who Paul is.
Speaker:The congregation needs the reminder that this chained and imprisoned
Speaker:prisoner still carries authority.
Speaker:Then the tone shifts, "I long to see you that I may be filled
Speaker:with joy," 2 Timothy 1:4.
Speaker:He remembers Timothy's tears.
Speaker:This is a man facing death, thinking about the people he loves.
Speaker:"Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying
Speaker:on of my hands," 2 Timothy 1:6.
Speaker:You were called.
Speaker:You were set apart.
Speaker:Do not shrink back now.
Speaker:Then the harder instruction, "Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord,
Speaker:nor of me, His prisoner," 2 Timothy 1:8.
Speaker:Associating with a condemned Roman prisoner could get you arrested or killed.
Speaker:Some believers were already walking away.
Speaker:"You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are
Speaker:Phygelus and Hermogenes," 2 Timothy 1:15.
Speaker:We know nothing else about those two other than that statement.
Speaker:They disappear from history right there.
Speaker:They walked away from Paul and vanished, but one man went the other direction
Speaker:"Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.
Speaker:But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found
Speaker:me." That's in 2 Timothy 1:16-17.
Speaker:Some people fold under pressure.
Speaker:Some show up.
Speaker:Paul is telling Timothy, "Be an Onesiphorus." Then the hand-off line,
Speaker:four generations in one sentence.
Speaker:"What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust
Speaker:to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also," 2 Timothy 2:2.
Speaker:Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful people, faithful people to others.
Speaker:No institutions, no seminaries, no denominations, just trusted
Speaker:people teaching trusted people.
Speaker:That was the entire strategy for the survival of the faith.
Speaker:We would use the word discipleship, but unfortunately, in our world
Speaker:today, we may not use it correctly because it doesn't come with the power
Speaker:that was discussed in this letter.
Speaker:Paul stacks three images: a soldier who stays focused, an athlete who
Speaker:competes by the rules, and a farmer who does the work and eats first.
Speaker:All three say the same thing, "Stay in your lane. Do the work. Do not get
Speaker:distracted." Then he quotes a hymn.
Speaker:He does that a lot in these letters, a hymn the churches were already singing.
Speaker:"If we have died with him, we will also live with him.
Speaker:If we endure, we will also reign with him.
Speaker:If we deny him, he also will deny us.
Speaker:If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny
Speaker:himself," 2 Timothy 2:11-13.
Speaker:That last line is extraordinary.
Speaker:It's not a free pass.
Speaker:It is a statement about the character of God.
Speaker:God's faithfulness does not depend on ours.
Speaker:He warns about false teachers.
Speaker:Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching that the resurrection had already happened.
Speaker:Greeks found bodily resurrection repulsive.
Speaker:These teachers spiritualized it into a metaphor.
Speaker:Paul calls their teaching gangrene.
Speaker:It was gutting the Gospel.
Speaker:He compares them to Jannes and Jambres, the Egyptian magicians who imitated
Speaker:Moses' signs in Pharaoh's court.
Speaker:The names never appear in the Old Testament.
Speaker:They come from Jewish oral tradition.
Speaker:The point?
Speaker:Counterfeit teachers can imitate the real thing for a while, but their folly
Speaker:will be plain to all, 2 Timothy 3:9.
Speaker:Fraud- has an expiration date.
Speaker:Then Paul puts his own life on the table.
Speaker:"You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life,
Speaker:my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and
Speaker:sufferings," 2 Timothy 3:10-11.
Speaker:He's not boasting.
Speaker:He's saying, "You watched my life. You were there." And the hard truth,
Speaker:all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted in 3:12.
Speaker:That was not a warning about a distant age.
Speaker:That was the daily experience of first century believers.
Speaker:Paul warns Timothy that in the last days, there will come times
Speaker:of difficulty, 2 Timothy 3:1.
Speaker:Modern readers try to project that into a distant future,
Speaker:but it was real time for them.
Speaker:Paul was writing about what Timothy was already dealing with
Speaker:and what was about to happen.
Speaker:Lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, brutal, lovers
Speaker:of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of
Speaker:godliness but denying its power.
Speaker:That's in 3:2-5.
Speaker:I've recently on social media seen someone post that as if it was
Speaker:something that means something today.
Speaker:It might, but it was taken way out of context.
Speaker:It was written to Timothy about specific things going on in
Speaker:the late 60s in those areas.
Speaker:That last phrase is the key.
Speaker:These are not outsizers.
Speaker:They look religious, they talk religious, but there's no transformation underneath.
Speaker:All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof,
Speaker:for correction, and for training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16.
Speaker:When Paul wrote this, the scripture Timothy had known from childhood
Speaker:was the Torah, the prophets, and the writings, the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker:There was no collected New Testament yet.
Speaker:Paul is saying the scriptures your grandmother Lois and your
Speaker:mother Eunice taught you, they're sufficient, and those scriptures
Speaker:point to the time that you're in.
Speaker:Then the charge, the most solemn words Paul ever wrote, "I charge you in the
Speaker:presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead,
Speaker:and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be ready in season
Speaker:and out of season," 2 Timothy 4:1-2.
Speaker:Do this work now.
Speaker:The moment demands it.
Speaker:"The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having
Speaker:itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit
Speaker:their own passions," 2 Timothy 4:3.
Speaker:Sounds like that could be going on today, but this was specific to that time.
Speaker:People choosing teachers based on what they want to hear rather
Speaker:than what they need to hear.
Speaker:That was a first century problem, has not gone away.
Speaker:Still happens today.
Speaker:People are looking for that person, mostly men, that will say what
Speaker:they really want them to say.
Speaker:And then Paul says it, "I am already being poured out as a drink offering,
Speaker:and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight,
Speaker:I have finished the race, I have kept the faith," 2 Timothy 4:6-7.
Speaker:In the Jewish sacrificial system, a drink offering was poured out
Speaker:alongside the main sacrifice.
Speaker:It was never the main event.
Speaker:It was added to something already on the altar.
Speaker:Paul sees his death the same way.
Speaker:His life is being poured out alongside the greater sacrifice.
Speaker:He is not the point.
Speaker:He never was.
Speaker:Let's talk about one cool thing right towards the end.
Speaker:All of these names, and I will tell you, I'm gonna try to pronounce them,
Speaker:but I recommend that when you're reading 2 Timothy, just read these
Speaker:and don't go quickly through these.
Speaker:The closing lines of 2 Timothy read like a man sort of settling his accounts
Speaker:before he dies, and the contrast with the first imprisonment is devastating.
Speaker:In part one, Paul was surrounded.
Speaker:Tychicus was there to carry letters.
Speaker:Onesimus was there as a new brother.
Speaker:Epaphroditus nearly died getting to him.
Speaker:Epaphras was wrestling in prayer.
Speaker:Aristarchus was imprisoned alongside, and the house seemed like it was full.
Speaker:I mean, it seemed like there was massive amounts of people there.
Speaker:Now, listen to the names Of 2 Timothy.
Speaker:Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone
Speaker:to Thessalonica, 2 Timothy 4:10.
Speaker:Demas, listed as a coworker in Colossians, listed alongside Luke in Philemon.
Speaker:He was in the room during the first imprisonment.
Speaker:He was part of the team.
Speaker:Now he is gone.
Speaker:Paul does not explain why.
Speaker:He just names it and moves on.
Speaker:Crescens went to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.
Speaker:Tychicus was sent to Ephesus.
Speaker:Luke alone is with me, 2 Timothy 4:11.
Speaker:Of all the people Paul had traveled with, taught with, been imprisoned
Speaker:with, only the physician Luke remained.
Speaker:Then a line that's just kind of stops you in your tracks.
Speaker:Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry, 2 Timothy 4:11.
Speaker:This is the same John Mark, we believe, who abandoned the first
Speaker:missionary journey and caused the split between Paul and Barnabas.
Speaker:Years later, let's see, maybe 15, 16, 17 years later is where we're at
Speaker:now, the relationship is restored.
Speaker:Paul wants him there at the end.
Speaker:That is grace in four words.
Speaker:He is useful to me.
Speaker:Maybe that's five words.
Speaker:He is useful.
Speaker:Yeah, five words.
Speaker:When you come, bring the cloak with Carpus at Trelas.
Speaker:Also the books, and above all, the parchments.
Speaker:Almost like Paul's library.
Speaker:He does not have that with him it sounds like.
Speaker:2 Timothy 4:13.
Speaker:A man facing execution wants his coat and his scrolls.
Speaker:The details are almost unbearably human.
Speaker:It is winter, he is cold, and he still wants to read and study.
Speaker:Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm, 2 Timothy 4:14.
Speaker:We do not know the specifics, but the next line may be connected.
Speaker:At my first offense, no one came to stand by me, but all
Speaker:deserted me, 2 Timothy 4:16.
Speaker:Paul stood trial in Rome, and no one showed up to speak on
Speaker:his behalf, not one person.
Speaker:Remember the first imprisonment?
Speaker:I speculated that it's possible that Luke not only spoke on his
Speaker:behalf, but wrote on his behalf.
Speaker:We think that that might have been the Gospel of Luke and Acts.
Speaker:But let's go back to Paul.
Speaker:"But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me," 2 Timothy 4:17.
Speaker:When everyone else left, God did not.
Speaker:He sends greetings to Prisca and Aquila, to Onesiphorus' household.
Speaker:He mentions Erastus stayed in Corinth, and Trophimus was left sick at Miletus.
Speaker:He names four more people sending greetings: Eubulus,
Speaker:Pudens, Linus, and Claudia.
Speaker:Tradition holds that Linus became the first overseer of
Speaker:the Roman church after Peter.
Speaker:The faith was already being passed to the next generation.
Speaker:Then the final line of the last letter that Paul ever wrote, we
Speaker:believe, the, the last letter that we have, "The Lord be with your spirit.
Speaker:Grace be with you," 2 Timothy 4:22.
Speaker:Not grand theological conclusion, no final system, just grace.
Speaker:From a dungeon facing death, that is the last word.
Speaker:What it meant then was a founder was saying goodbye.
Speaker:James was gone.
Speaker:Peter was gone.
Speaker:Paul was about to be gone.
Speaker:The handoff was not institutional, it was personal.
Speaker:Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful people, faithful people to others.
Speaker:That chain is still unbroken.
Speaker:Now, here's some misreads that we have probably taken in our modern
Speaker:culture, our modern churches.
Speaker:Kinda takes it a little bit out of context.
Speaker:The pastoral letters have really become organizational charts.
Speaker:We've kinda tried to make a big deal of all those titles and charts.
Speaker:Elder qualifications became a job application instead
Speaker:of portrait of character.
Speaker:"I do not permit a woman to teach" got ripped from its Ephesian context, and 2
:16 gets used to proof text a collection that Paul never saw assembled.
:He was talking about the Hebrew Bible that Lois and Eunice taught Timothy as a child.
:What does it still mean for us, though?
:Paul's final letter is a roll call of names, people who showed
:up and people who walked away.
:The question at the end of every life is not what you built, it
:is who was still in the room.
:And guard the deposit was not about protecting a building or a brand.
:It was about truth passed to faithful hands.
:The moment it becomes an institution's property, something has gone wrong.
:Two imprisonments, two sets of letters, one man.
:Rented house in one, dungeon in the other.
:A room full of coworkers, and then Luke, the only one left.
:Letters about joy, and then a letter about finishing.
:A cloak, some books, and one last request: Come before winter.
:And Paul's last word was grace.
:Grace.
:Not a system, not a theology, not some instructions about do this, don't do this.
:Grace.
:The Lord be with your spirit.
:Grace be with you.
:Somewhere in Ephesus, Timothy read those words.
:We do not know if he made it to Rome before winter.
:We do not know if he arrived in time.
:He may have received this letter while Paul was already gone.
:But the gospel did not die with him.
:Timothy guarded the deposit.
:He entrusted it to faithful people.
:They taught others.
:The race continued.
:The fight went on.
:The faith was kept all the way to us.
:And if you have read these letters before, read them again.
:1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy.
:Read them with what we've discussed in this episode.
:Read them knowing what you know now.
:These are not religious management manuals written by a committee.
:They are a father saying goodbye to his sons, written from freedom, then
:from a cold cell with a guard outside the door, to two young men who would
:have to carry everything without him.
:Read them knowing that, and they will not sound the same.
:2,000 years later Nero's throne is rubble.
:The dungeon, dust, doesn't exist.
:And someone, us, we're still reading Paul's last letters.
:Grace be with you.
:Next, we're gonna step back and put two letters side by side, Romans and Hebrews.
:As I was reading through the New Testament in context, I kept thinking, "Man, Romans
:is powerful, and Hebrews is powerful," and I kept drawing those two together.
:They weren't necessarily in order when you read it in context, but they really were
:powerful when you look at the two of them.
:And so what we're gonna do next time is we're gonna kinda
:look at the two together.
:Paul wrote one to a mostly Gentile church in the capital of the empire.
:The other went to Jewish believers who were one step
:from walking back to the temple.
:Two letters, two audiences, one story.
:That is where we're gonna go next.
:Don't forget the reading plan, k2m.foundation/nt90, k2m.foundation/nt90.
:Get this plan.
:Everything that I'm doing here is to encourage you to study this on your own.
:I promise you that if you read the New Testament in this order, we're not
:taking anything away from it, we're not adding to it, we're just rearranging
:it in the order that it went out to the audience to get the full context.
:Get it.
:Read it.
:Trust me, it'll be powerful for you.
:This is Tim Winders.
:Thanks for joining me.
:Thanks for studying.
:Thanks for keeping on digging and seeking.
:We'll see you next week.
