2 Timothy 2:3-6
Introduction
The peace of the Lord be with you and with your household. Let us give thanks to the eternal God, the Almighty, for the time He grants us, because it is not for man to direct his own steps, but for the Lord God, who establishes the path that man and woman must walk. He has called us, He has chosen us, and He has gathered us together. And it is necessary to recognize that this time of study is an opportunity to expose ourselves before the power of His word, before the power of His Holy Spirit, and, above all things, before the very presence of the Lord.
To expose ourselves before the presence of the Lord is, in truth, the beginning of all life of faith and of all genuine spiritual life. Not all of us are willing to do so. The book of Genesis offers us an early example of this resistance, when man, after having sinned, confesses:
“I was afraid… and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10, NKJV).
This has been, from the beginning, the attitude, the behavior, and the nature of man and woman: to hide from God, believing that we can truly do so. For this reason, exposing ourselves before the Word, before the power of the Holy Spirit, and before the presence of the Lord is the foundation of all true teaching.
In this chapter we will study the third instruction that the apostle Paul gives to Timothy, contained in the second epistle he addresses to him. It is important to remember, and it is worth reemphasizing, that this second epistle is not the same as the first. In the first epistle, Paul gives Timothy instructions of an operational nature: how a minister should behave, how he should conduct himself, what a minister must do — instructions that, by extension, also reach the man and woman of faith in general, since these words are not directed exclusively to ministers, but to everyone who has confessed Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life.
The second epistle, on the other hand, although it also contains instructions, is of a different nature: these are formative instructions. The apostle confesses in this letter that he is about to conclude his ministerial career on the face of the earth. For this reason, his greatest concern regarding Timothy is to make sure that, once he has departed, Timothy will continue the labor that has been carried out throughout the entire time of his ministry. This is an extremely important charge, because Paul does not leave Timothy alone, but gives him the instructions necessary so that he may eventually develop all the functions for which he was chosen by the Lord and established within the ministry.
The Third Instruction: Endure Hardship as a Good Soldier
The third instruction is found in chapter 2 of the second epistle to Timothy, verse 3:
“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3, NKJV).
This instruction differs somewhat from the two previous ones the apostle had already given Timothy. The first is found in chapter 1, verse 6:
“Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you” (2 Timothy 1:6, NKJV).
The second is in chapter 2, verse 1:
“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1, NKJV).
Both of these carry a marked doctrinal emphasis — that is, an emphasis on the content of the gospel itself, because doctrine is nothing other than the content of the gospel, not simply teaching in a generic sense.
This third instruction, however, is not directly emphasizing doctrine, although it touches on it indirectly. It is, rather, an instruction concerning Timothy’s personality and character, and by extension, the personality and character of all of us who draw near to this word.
Who Was Timothy? Biblical Background of a Chosen Young Man
In order to understand what this third instruction consists of — and it is extremely important to understand it, as we will see in the course of this chapter — it is worth first briefly studying who Timothy was, and why the apostle had such interest in him, for in that interest we also see God’s care for each one of us, expressed through Timothy’s life.
It is in the book of Acts, chapter 16, that Timothy is first mentioned in Scripture. There we read:
“Then he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go on with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek” (Acts 16:1-3, NKJV).
It is worth highlighting the expression: “Paul wanted to have him go on with him.” This was not the first time Paul had known Timothy. In this passage we find ourselves already in Paul’s second missionary journey, but he had first met Timothy during his first journey, recorded in chapters 13 and 14 of the same book. Although Timothy is not explicitly mentioned in those chapters, we know Paul met him then, because on this second journey the apostle is visiting exactly the same region he visited on the first: Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra are mentioned, precisely where this story unfolds.
Why, then, does Paul take Timothy along on the second journey and not the first? The reason is simple: on his first journey, Timothy was barely a preadolescent, coming out of puberty, and was not prepared to accompany an adult through the demanding agenda Paul carried out on his apostolic journeys. When Paul returns to the same region — Derbe, Iconium, Lystra — Timothy is already a young man between seventeen and twenty years old, an age that coincides, on average, with the age at which the apostle Paul himself began his studies at the feet of Gamaliel, before becoming a Pharisee.
There is something else worth understanding clearly: Paul does not choose Timothy, at first, with the intention of introducing him to the ministry. This is essential for understanding why the apostle later gives him this third instruction in his second epistle. Paul chooses Timothy because he wants to leave the region he had already visited on his first apostolic journey and venture into territories he did not know. The account itself confirms this:
“Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6, NKJV).
The apostle attempts to enter another region, but he is prevented; and the account continues:
“After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them” (Acts 16:7, NKJV).
If we locate these places on a map, we see that the apostle is leaving the region of Lycaonia, where Timothy lived, in order to move into other regions. Timothy had knowledge of Hebrew, since his mother and grandmother were Jewish, and knowledge of Greek, since his father was Greek. But in that region another language was also spoken, the Lycaonian language, which Paul did not know, although Greek was fairly widely understood. Timothy did know these languages, having lived, been raised, and become notable in that very region.
The principal reason, then, why Paul decided that Timothy would accompany him, despite not yet being twenty years old, was precisely so that Timothy could help him communicate in the languages spoken in those regions. This is important to understand, because whenever we read about Timothy, we tend to assume that Paul chose him from the beginning to prepare him for the ministry. It is true that Timothy did enter the ministry, but he did so precisely through his involvement in the regions Paul was reaching; that was not the original reason Paul took him along.
Knowledge Is Not Enough: The Lesson of the Parable of the Talents
With this background, we return to 2 Timothy 2:3:
“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
In this teaching we discover that it is not enough to have knowledge of doctrine or knowledge of revelation; it is also necessary to have the character that validates the word, or the doctrinal content, that we accept.
Jesus Himself taught this in the following way:
“No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62, NKJV).
In this passage it becomes evident that doctrinal knowledge is not enough, doctrinal content is not enough, knowing revelation is not enough; it is necessary that the man of faith and the woman of faith have a character that validates the word they are accepting.
To illustrate this more clearly, it is helpful to recall the parable of the talents, in Matthew 25, beginning at verse 15. In it, a master entrusts three servants with different amounts: to one, five talents; to another, two talents; and to the third, a single talent. When the master returns from his journey and calls his servants to give an account, the one who had received five talents says:
“Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them” (Matthew 25:20, NKJV).
The one who had received two responds in similar fashion, presenting four. But the one who had received one talent declares:
“Lord, I knew you to be a hard man… And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground” (Matthew 25:24-25, NKJV).
In this third servant we observe something revealing: he had knowledge. He knew how his master acted; he knew what his master expected of him. Here lies the problem: it is not enough merely to have knowledge of doctrine, not enough merely to have knowledge of revelation, not enough merely to have knowledge of the gospel. The servant himself confesses: “I was afraid.” He did not have the character necessary to validate the word that was in his favor.
The life of faith, therefore, consists in having knowledge, having revelation, having doctrinal content, but necessarily and complementarily, it also consists in having the character to validate the word we uphold. A person may say: “I believe in divine healing; I have firm conviction in divine healing, because He bore on the cross of Calvary all our sicknesses and all our afflictions; because the Word says that by His stripes we are healed” (see Isaiah 53:5). But at the first pain, the first symptom, or the first ache, we often act in a completely different way. It was not the doctrinal content that failed; what failed was character. We did not have the character necessary to validate the word we were affirming.
In the same way, a person may say: “I believe that the Lord is my keeper, that the Lord protects me; the Word of the Lord declares that no weapon formed against me shall prosper” (see Isaiah 54:17). But when we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where there is a weapon pointed at us, we immediately falter. The life of faith does not consist merely in having knowledge, does not consist merely in having conviction, does not consist merely in knowing Bible texts by memory. The life of faith consists in knowing, but also in having the character sufficient and necessary to validate the word we are accepting.
This is precisely the lesson left to us by the apostle Paul’s third instruction: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” In the first instruction, Paul had already told Timothy not to be ashamed of the testimony (see 2 Timothy 1:8) — that is, not to allow the pressures, the comments, the insinuations, or the circumstances around him to be so great as to demotivate him, depress him, or embitter him, to the point of causing him to abandon the labor for which he was chosen.
This third instruction teaches us something of great importance: in most cases, we devote ourselves solely to the task of knowing. We say: “I have read the Bible so many times, I have studied at a Bible institute, I have theological studies, I have bought several versions of the Holy Scriptures, I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I have a great deal of knowledge.” But the question we must answer is: do we have the character to sustain what we confess?
The apostle Paul himself declared:
“I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content… I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Philippians 4:11-12, NKJV).
In fact, for the apostle there were more days of scarcity than days of abundance.
The life of faith consists in complementing, with a firm, tempered, and well-developed character, what we declare. Otherwise, the enemy finds occasion to bring disorder into our lives. This is what happened with the apostle Peter, as Paul recounts in the letter to the Galatians: before certain Jews arrived from Jerusalem, Peter was openly sharing with the Gentiles; but as soon as those Jews arrived, he began to show pretense, for which the apostle Paul had to rebuke him (see Galatians 2:11-14). The life of faith consists in having knowledge, but, above all things, in developing the character necessary to sustain and validate the word we declare.
This is the very case the apostle presents to Timothy. In the same chapter 1, verse 5, Paul reminds him:
“When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5, NKJV).
A little further on, the apostle reminds him that from childhood he has known the Holy Scriptures (see 2 Timothy 3:15). Timothy, then, had a solid foundation of knowledge. But there was a part of his life that needed to be reinforced, because, if not reinforced, the enemy would take the occasion to bring destruction into the life of this young man who had been chosen by God — although Paul, at first, had seen him with other intentions, God had seen him from the beginning as a minister of the gospel. Without the character necessary to sustain the word, that entire foundation could be spoiled.
This is, by extension, the lesson this instruction leaves us: the reason why many lives of genuine faith are lost is, precisely, the lack of character. Oppression comes, comments come, persecution comes, scarcity comes, and the person immediately slows down, becomes depressed, grows bitter, and ends up abandoning everything they had begun. There are many people today who find themselves precisely in that condition, because they have not developed the character necessary to sustain and validate the word the Lord has given them.
Three Keys to Developing Character
Someone might reasonably ask: how do I develop character now, at over twenty years of age, or whatever our own age might be? The apostle Paul presents three concrete keys, contained in verses 4, 5, and 6 of chapter 2.
First Key: Define Yourself as a Soldier of Jesus Christ
The apostle begins by saying in verse 4:
“No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4, NKJV).
And returning to verse 3: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
The first key to developing character has to do with definition: what are we? In the Old Testament, in the book of Psalms, David asks a similar question:
“What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:4, NKJV).
What are we? This is the first question we must answer, and the answer must correctly ground us. According to verse 3, the answer is clear: we are soldiers, we are soldiers of Jesus Christ.
The problem in the life of faith for many people is that they have not defined themselves according to this truth. Many are only looking for comfort, only looking for blessing, only looking for accomplishments, recognition, diplomas, or seminars. This is the greatest problem for a large majority of men and women of faith: they have not defined themselves. The correct answer to the question “what are you?” is not a general description of identity, but the concrete declaration: “I am a soldier.”
And if we are soldiers, why then do we complain about the blows that come to knock us down, to demoralize us, to diminish our sense of worth? Why do we complain when a comment comes along that depresses us? It is because we have not defined ourselves. A soldier has not been called to constant comfort. A soldier will go into battle, will take fire, will receive insults, will engage in hand-to-hand combat. If tonight we acknowledge: “All right, I am a soldier,” then, from that acknowledgment forward, we should not complain, because a soldier knows beforehand what battle entails.
All too often, at the first offense we run away; at the first comment against us, we become demoralized; the first time no one greets us, we become depressed. In order to develop character, it is necessary to understand clearly: “I am a soldier of Jesus Christ.” This involves a confession, a declaration, but, above all things, a deep understanding of the purpose for which the Lord called us.
Verse 4 also adds what the mission of every soldier is: “that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” Our mission, then, is to please the One who enlisted us as soldiers. Both the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter teach that we should not be surprised when people insult us, despise us, marginalize us, or set us aside, because they did the same to Jesus. On one occasion Jesus Himself declared:
“For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?” (Luke 23:31, NKJV).
He said this referring to what awaited Him and, by extension, to those who follow Him.
The mature, strong life of faith does not consist merely in having knowledge. It is easy to sit at a desk, reading the Holy Scriptures with worship music playing in the background. But God did not call us only for that. When Jesus was transfigured, the apostle Peter said to Him, “Let us stay here” (see Matthew 17:4; Luke 9:33). But we were not called to remain in that ecstasy; we were called to establish, with our life and with our character, the word the Lord gives us each day.
Second Key: Compete According to the Rules
The second key is found in verse 5:
“And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules” (2 Timothy 2:5, NKJV).
To compete according to the rules means that it is not a matter of doing for the sake of doing. The life of faith does not consist in filling our schedule with activities simply because we have developed the idea that the one who is always moving, working, and staying busy is the one truly used by the Lord. That idea is not supported by the Word of God. Rather, it is about doing what God wants us to do.
In the same way, it is not a matter of speaking for the sake of speaking, but of saying what God wants us to say. Many times we end up saying things God never told us to say, simply because someone else said it, because everyone is saying it, because it has become popular, a trend, a way of identifying ourselves. But we have not been called to establish trends or social norms, nor to imitate what everyone else does or says. We have been called to do what the Lord wants us to do, and to say what the Lord wants us to say — legitimately, no more and no less.
Many times we fail to develop this character because we seek to be accepted, applauded, and recognized by people. But God did not call us for that. One of the greatest evils facing the church today is precisely the pursuit of a place within society, which has brought about great collapse — not only at a political, economic, and social level, but also at a spiritual level, in congregations that pursue this goal.
To compete according to the rules is to do what God wants us to do and to say what God wants us to say, without adding anything more. Many times, even what God sends us to say is not accepted by others. The case of the prophet Jonah illustrates this clearly. When he finally preached in Nineveh, Jonah sat down to watch for the city’s destruction, sheltered from the sun by a plant that God had caused to grow to give him shade, in a desert region. But afterward God sent a worm that attacked the plant, and Jonah became angry (see Jonah 4:5-9). Why did he react this way? Because, according to Old Testament understanding, the only way to prove that a man who had spoken in God’s name was a true prophet was for what he had announced to come to pass. Jonah had announced destruction, but it did not happen at the expected time; therefore, in the eyes of everyone, Jonah was left looking like a false prophet, although years after his departure the word he had spoken did indeed come to pass.
It is not, then, a matter of our merit, our word, our honor, or our reputation; it is a matter of acting on God’s terms. Many times we will not be accepted; on the contrary, we will be despised, discredited, and rejected. But the apostle’s counsel is clear: if we want to develop character, we must not seek the acceptance of others; we must grow accustomed to being rejected, to being spoken against, to being ridiculed, because character, when it receives resistance and knows how to stand firm, grows strong. On the other hand, character that only receives encouragement, pats on the back, flattery, and praise is a weak character, because it will always need those external affirmations to sustain itself.
Third Key: The Farmer Must Work First, Without Guarantees
The third key is found in verse 6:
“The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops” (2 Timothy 2:6, NKJV).
The counsel here is direct: work, make the effort, just as the apostle had already told him in the previous instruction, in verse 1: “be strong.” Many times we say: “I tried, but it did not work out for me.” And when asked how many attempts were made, the answer is usually only one. But with a single attempt, we cannot truly say we have made an effort. Making an effort means one attempt, two attempts, three, four, five, twenty attempts, without expecting things to work out on the first try.
Experience shows that there are farmers who have never received a harvest, because just as the fruit was about to bloom, a storm came and ruined the entire crop. There were so many setbacks that kept them from receiving the harvest, despite having worked. And yet, the correct attitude of that farmer, the following year, is to sow again. The failure of the previous year does not determine the decision of the present year. That is character.
The gospel and the life of faith require this character, because otherwise, even with very solid content of the Word, a very good revelation of God, without character we will not be able to establish it. Many men and women have begun a ministry and have abandoned it — not for lack of knowledge, since many were very good preachers, very capable of presenting and understanding the Word — but because character betrayed them.
None of us has any guarantee of immediate success. Many times we say: “Lord, give me a guarantee; if You do not confirm it to me, I will not go.” But by acting this way, we are walking contrary to the will of God, seeking to expose ourselves only to what we consider safe, without any risk of failure.
The book of Hebrews, chapter 11, illustrates this truth powerfully. We usually stop at the first verses of that chapter, and, at most, we reach verse 6:
“…he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV).
but we rarely reach the end of the chapter. However, beginning at verse 33 we read:
“…who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise” (Hebrews 11:33-39, NKJV).
All these men and women were approved through the testimony of faith, and yet did not receive the promise in this life. The farmer, in order to receive the fruits, must work first, without guarantees. This is the situation the apostle presents to Timothy in this third instruction, and it is of great importance, because he is not dealing properly with doctrine, but with the element that complements it: character. If we do not have the character that validates doctrine, both are eventually spoiled, just as has, in fact, happened to many men and women.
Conclusion
In order to develop character, then, it is necessary, first of all, to define ourselves: to recognize that we are soldiers of Jesus Christ. If we do not understand that in the world we will have tribulation, that Jesus was rejected, and that the same will be done to us, we will be wasting our time.
The apostle Paul himself confirms this in verse 9 of the same chapter:
“…for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:9-10, NKJV).
And this section concludes with a faithful saying:
“For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:11-13, NKJV).
We are soldiers. God chose us, God called us — but not to live in comfort, rather to be soldiers. Our task is to please the One who enlisted us as soldiers. Second, we must compete according to the rules, that is, on God’s terms: doing what God says to do, saying what God says to say, and not what happens to be popular, nor the expressions that have become common or that have turned into a passing trend. And third, it is necessary to work first, without any guarantee of what we will receive, and only in this way will we be able to develop the necessary character.
The life of faith does not consist merely in knowledge, does not consist merely in revelation, does not consist merely in how many words we are able to quote. The life of faith consists, in addition to all of this, in developing character: character of faith, character in the Lord. This is what the life of faith consists of. The demand the Lord now presents to us is a demanding one, but we must accept it, because in doing so we ensure that our deposit remains secure in the Lord.
I bless you. The peace of the Lord be with you and with your household. Amen.
Review Questions
1. According to the teaching of this chapter, why is doctrinal knowledge not enough to sustain a firm life of faith, and what role does character play in that equation?
2. What does it mean, in everyday practice, to “define yourself” as a soldier of Jesus Christ, and how should that definition change our reaction to rejection or criticism?
3. Based on the example of the farmer who must work first without any guarantee of a harvest, what attitude should we cultivate toward attempts that do not produce the expected result the first time?
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