Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Timothy 2:3
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
3. Thou therefore endure hardness ] The best mss. give one compound verb instead of pronoun conjunction and simple verb, take-part in-suffering-hardship. As our A.V. stands, the words may seem hard and severe, with little allowance for difficulty and weakness. But the phrase in the Greek is a volume of tenderness and yearning confidence, of a father’s claim to loyal imitation. ‘Take your share in the enduring of hardness. Take up my mantle. I say not go and brave hard fighting in the trench, hard words, hard deeds, for Christ your Master. I rather say being such an one as Paul the aged come with me, come after me, be one with us all who war the good warfare. My own son in the faith, I crave (strange though it seem), to nerve me for my last crowning effort, the sight of your young heroism. The standard that must fall from my failing hands you will grasp will you not?’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
3 6. The three illustrations follow of the soldier, the athlete, the farmer, with the common point of persevering pains. They are all familiar to St Paul. That of the soldier has occurred already, 1Ti 1:18, where see references.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ – Such hardships as a soldier is called to endure. The apostle supposes that a minister of the gospel might be called to endure hardships, and that it is reasonable that he should be as ready to do it as a soldier is. On the hardships which he endured himself, see the notes at 2Co 11:23-29. Soldiers often endure great privations. Taken from their homes and friends; exposed to cold, or heat, or storms, or fatiguing marches; sustained on coarse fare, or almost destitute of food, they are often compelled to endure as much as the human frame can bear, and often indeed, sink under their burdens, and die. If, for reward or their countrys sake, they are willing to do this, the soldier of the cross should be willing to do it for his Saviours sake, and for the good of the human race. Hence, let no man seek the office of the ministry as a place of ease. Let no one come into it merely to enjoy himself. Let no one enter it who is not prepared to lead a soldiers life and to welcome hardship and trial as his portion. He would make a bad soldier, who, at his enlistment, should make it a condition that he should be permitted to sleep on a bed of down, and always be well clothed and fed, and never exposed to peril, or compelled to pursue a wearisome march. Yet do not some men enter the ministry, making these the conditions? And would they enter the ministry on any other terms?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Ti 2:3
Endure hardness as a good soldier.
The Christian soldier
Every Christian, and especially every Christian minister, may be regarded as a soldier, as an athlete (2Ti 2:5). as a husbandman (2Ti 2:6); but of the three similitudes the one which fits him best is that of a soldier. Even if this were not so, St. Pauls fondness for the metaphor would be very intelligible.
1. Military service was very familiar to him, especially in his imprisonments. He must frequently have seen soldiers under drill, on parade, on gourd, on the march; most have watched them cleaning, mending, and sharpening their weapons; putting their armour on, putting it off. Often, during hours of enforced inactivity, he must have compared these details with the details of the Christian life, and noticed how admirably they corresponded with one another.
2. Military service was also quite sufficiently familiar to those whom he addressed. Roman troops were everywhere to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the empire, and nearly every member of society knew something of the kind of life which a soldier of the empire had to lead.
3. The Roman army was the one great organisation of which it was still possible, in that age of boundless social corruption, to think and speak with right-minded admiration and respect. No doubt it was often the instrument of wholesale cruelties as it pushed forward its conquests, or strengthened its hold, over resisting or rebelling nations. But it promoted discipline and esprit de corps. Even during active warfare it checked individual license, and when the conquest was over it was the representative and mainstay of order and justice against high-handed anarchy and wrong. Its officers several times appear in the narrative portions of the New Testament, and they make a favourable impression upon us. If they are fair specimens of the military men in the Roman Empire at that period, then the Roman army must have been indeed a fine service. But the reasons for the apostles preference for this similitude go deeper than all this.
4. Military service involves self-sacrifice, endurance, discipline, vigilance, obedience, ready cooperation with others, sympathy, enthusiasm, loyalty.
5. Military service implies vigilant, unwearying and organised opposition to a vigilant, unwearying, and organised foe. It is either perpetual warfare or perpetual preparation for it. And just such is the Christian life; it is either a conflict or s preparation for one. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
The minister a good soldier
Ministers above all should be leaders and exemplars in this contest. For the apostles fear of disapproval at last relates to him as a herald or preacher to others, calling them to the spiritual warfare. They should be like the statues of ancient heroes in the Palcestra, which the Roman youth were sent to admire and emulate, while they recounted the history of their achievements. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)
The good soldier of Jesus Christ
Fight, not as Joash, who smote the ground with the arrows thrice and stayed before he was bidden, for which he was denied a full victory. Fight, not as Israel in Canaan, who, instead of seeking the decreed extermination of all the ancient inhabitants, suspended their conquests, and allowed many of them to remain in their immediate neighbourhood and intercourse; for which they received not the promise of full rest and enjoyment. But fight as Joseph, who said, How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God! Fight as Paul did, when he laboured to bring under his body and keep it in subjection. Fight as Christ told His disciples to fight, by cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye that causes them to offend. Fight as did your great Lord and Master Himself with the arch-traitor, when he sought to inject into His mind thoughts of discontent, of ambition, and of a debasing servility of soul: repelling him with a holy indignation, and saying, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)
Aggressive goodness
The Saviour expects true saintliness will always be an aggressive thing. Where it is such, its activities rouse enmity. We have different views from the Saviour on this subject of aggressive goodness. We think saintliness is at liberty to be an unobtrusive, self-saving thing: carefully restricting its service to the quiet influence of its example, content to develop its own life sweetly. But the Saviour calls for something more vigorous than passive piety. Prince of Peace as He was, He proclaims: I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword–to set a man at variance with those around him. He defines His object to be to send fire on the earth, and tarries only until it is kindled. He assumes that evil must be assailed, that falsehood will be contradicted, and sin denounced. He intends a true peace to be reached by the disturbance of the false. He expects sanctity ever to have something of the soldierly quality, and that the life will be a fight of faith. He did not contemplate sanctity adopting a live-and-let-live policy in the presence of falsehood and evil Silence is the earth in which the talent of truth is buried. He expects us to be His witnesses; bids us say, Repent! not merely to men in general, but to sinners in particular; expects us to reprove all evil, as well as to point to Him who is the source and pattern of all good. Wherever love is thus aggressive, truth thus bold, mercy thus active–hatred of the intensest kind must rise. For who can bear to have his ways denounced as evil; his views as false; his destiny–perdition; his duty–repentance? Moreover, the Christian has to be the reformer in a world of vested interests. And there is no evil under heaven, from idolatry to drunkenness, from gambling to gaiety, from heresy to vice, but some have an interest in maintaining it. You will not achieve any usefulness of any sort without the cry, This our craft is in danger! rising to the lips of those profiting by others ignorance, or servitude, or evil. In these circumstances, however meek and peace-making the saint of God may be, if he is faithful to his Saviour, and to the interests of men, he will suffer from the bitter speech or the deed of hatred of those who resent his whole spirit and activity. (R. Glover.)
Earnestness demanded
During the Crimean War a young chaplain, newly arrived in camp, inquired of a Christian sergeant the best method for carrying on his work, among the men. The sergeant led him to the top of a hill and pointed out the field of action. Now, sir, said he, look around you. See those batteries on the right, and the men at their guns. Hear the roar of the cannon. Look where you will, all are in earnest here. Every man feels that this is a life and death struggle. If we do not conquer the Russians the Russians will conquer us. We are all in earnest here, sir; we are not playing at soldiers. If you would do good, you must be in earnest; an earnest man always wins his way. Such was the advice of Queen Victorias servant to the servant of King Jesus. (A. A. Harmer.)
A recruiting sergeant
In writing the life of Uncle John Vassar, Dr. Gordon has so dealt with the materials at command that the successive chapters are made to pourtray the good soldier of Jesus Christ, and to enforce the injunction–Fight the good fight of faith. Uncle John not only deserves to be called a good soldier. He was something more, for, while lighting the Lords battles himself, he was an active recruiting sergeant, and never seems to have missed a chance of pressing home the question, Who is on the Lords side? Accosting a gentleman on one occasion with the familiar question, My dear friend, do you love Jesus? he was met with the rejoinder, I do not know that that concerns you, sir. Uncle John was too shrewd a tactician to be disconcerted, and at once followed up the assault with the remark, Oh, yes it does. In these days of rebellion does it not concern every citizen as to which side every other citizen may take? How much more when a world is in rebellion against God, should we be concerned to know who is on the Lords side! In this way he fenced the resentment which the obtrusion seemed likely to provoke, and justified his advance as the anxious inquiry of an interested friend. Resisted or repulsed in his spiritual warfare, Uncle John never appears to have been vanquished. The word defeat was not found in his vocabulary.
Every Christian a soldier
Not only ministers, but laymen, should be Christs ambassadors. Must a soldier be an officer in order to fight well? By no means. Minus gold lace and cocked hat, he may do good service. Hard blows may be given, or a sure aim may be taken, by him who is quite destitute of ribbon and medal. Thus is it spiritually. Eminent talent and honourable position are non-essentials in benevolent effort. The humblest warrior in the Saviours army can be valiant and victorious. And he ought to be. Excuse here is quite vain. None that are saved have a right to be idle; all are to evangelise. The work is not to be delegated to one order or class. Each is expected to take his share. What should we think of him who refused to rescue a drowning man because he was not connected with the Royal Humane Society? Let him that heareth, as well as him that preacheth, say Come. (T. R. Stevenson.)
Enemies not to be depised
It is said that the Duke of Wellington on one occasion, when asked why it was that he was so generally on the side of victory, replied that he never despised an enemy.
Every convert a recruit
As the young Hannibal was brought by his father to the altar of his country, and there sworn to life-long hatred of Rome, so should we be, from the hour of our spiritual birth, the sworn enemies of sin, the enlisted warriors of the Cross; to fight on for Jesus till lifes latest hour, when all shall be more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us. The Spartan mother, as soon as her child was born, looked upon the babe as having in it the possibilities of share; and the whole training of the Lacedemonians aimed solely at producing good soldiers, who would honour the race from which they sprung. So should we look upon every young convert as a recruit; not merely as one who has been himself saved, but as having within his new-born mature the possibilities of a good soldier of Jesus Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
In my shirt sleeves
I am much of the opinion of the soldier who, being brought before the Duke of Wellington and a committee of the House of Lords, on being asked if he had to fight the battle of Waterloo over again how he would like to be dressed, said, Please, your Lordship, I should like to be in my shirt sleeves. And, depend upon it, the freest dress is the right costume of war. There is nothing like the shirt sleeves for hard gospel work. Away with that high stock and the stiff coat, in which you find it difficult to fight when you come to close contact with the enemy. You must dispense with pipeclay and bright buttons when it comes to blood, fire, and vapour of smoke. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ provides for His soldiers
Our filthy garments are to be taken off; we are to go to the Royal Fountain and wash; we are to go to the Royal Wardrobe to be clothed; we are to go to the Royal Armoury for our equipment; we are to go to the Royal Banqueting House to be fed; we are to go to the Royal Treasury to be paid. Christs soldiers have no reason to care about the future. (C. Garret.)
A soldier always
You cannot be a saint on Sundays and a sinner in the week; you cannot be a saint at church and a sinner in the shop; you can not be a saint in Liverpool and a sinner in London. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You are a soldier everywhere or nowhere, anti woe to you if you dishonour your King. (C. Garret.)
The inspiration of a true leader
The personal magnetism of General McLellan over his soldiers in the Civil War was a constant experience. Once when the tide of success seemed to go against the Union forces, and dismay was gradually deepening into despair, his arrival in the camp at night worked a revolution among the troops. The news General McLellan is here was caught up and echoed from man to man. Whoever was awake roused his neighbour, eyes were rubbed, and the poor tired fellows sent up such a hurrah as the army of the Potomac never heard before. Shout upon shout went out into the stillness of the night, was taken up along the road, repeated by regiment, brigade, division, and corps, until the roar died in the distance. The effect of this mans coming upon the army–in sunshine or in rain, darkness or day, victory or defeat–was ever electrical, defying all attempts to account for it. (H. O. Mackey.)
Enduring hardness
It behoves thee not to complain if thou endure hardness; but to complain if thou dost not endure hardness. (Chrysostom.)
The Christian must be prepared for trial and conflict
Some of Gods people seem to forget this. They think they are soldiers on pay days and at reviews: but as soon as the fiery darts begin to fall around them, and the road gets rough and rugged, they fancy they are deserters. A strange mistake this. You are never so much a soldier as when you are marching or fighting. I fear the fault of this mistake lies very much with some of us who may be called recruiting sergeants. In persuading men to enlist we speak much more of the ribbons, the bounty money, and the rewards, than we do of the battle-field and the march. Hence, perhaps, the error. But if we are to blame in this respect our great King is not. The whole of His teaching is in the other direction. He puts all the difficulties fairly before us, and we are exhorted to count the cost, so that we may not be covered with shame at last. (C. Garrett.)
Christian courage
Thomas Garrett, of America, when he was tried and heavily fined for concealing fugitive slaves, and his judge said he hoped it would be a warning to him to have nothing to do with runaway slaves for the future, replied: Friend, if thou knowest of any poor slave who is coming this way, and needs a friend, thou canst tell him I shall be ready to help him. (C. Garrett.)
Enduring hardness
The old wrestlers did not decline ten months of laborious and abstemious training to make their bodies supple and their will indomitable; so much so, that a wrestlers health became a proverb. If Plato challenged his disciples–Shall our children not have energy enough to deny themselves for a much more glorious victory? (De Leg., 7:340), a greater man than Plato urged, Now they do it for a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible; and our ardour, self-denial, and moral training, or, as St. Paul calls it, our spiritual gymnastics, should exceed theirs, in some such ratio as our prize exceeds theirs; and thus, if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (J. B. Owen, M. A.)
No feather-bed soldiers
A young Christian officer said, Our heavenly Captain wants no feather-bed soldiers. He wants those who are not afraid of camp bed and marching orders, who dont mind roughing it a little by the way, because they know that perfect rest awaits them when their home-call sounds, and their race here is ended.
A sham battle
At the festival of Treviso, to which the neighbouring towns were invited, the chief feature was the storming of a fortress, defended by the most beautiful ladies and their servants, by noblemen who made war with fruits, flowers, sweetmeats, and perfumes. (H. O. Mackey.)
A good soldier
I remember a story of a French grenadier, who, in a war with the Austrians, was in charge of a small fort commanding a narrow gorge, up which only two of the enemy could climb at a time. When the defenders of the fort heard that the enemy were near, being few in number, they deserted, and left the brave grenadier alone. But he felt he could not give up the place without a struggle, so he barred the doors, raised the drawbridge, and loaded all the muskets left behind by his comrades. Early in the morning, with great labour, the enemy brought up a gun from the valley, and laid it on the fort. But the grenadier made such good use of his loaded muskets that the men in charge of the gun could not hold their position, and were compelled to retire; and he kept them thus at bay all day long. At evening the herald came again to demand the surrender of the fort, or the garrison should be starved out. The grenadier asked for a night for consideration, and in the morning expressed the willingness of the garrison to surrender if they might go out with all the honours of war. This, after some demur, was agreed to, and presently the Austrian army below saw a single soldier descending the height with a whole sheaf of muskets on his shoulder, with which he marched through their lines and then threw them down. Where is the garrison? asked the Austrian commander, astonished. I am the garrison, replied the brave man, and they were so delighted with his plucky resistance that the whole army saluted him, and he was afterwards entitled the First Grenadier of France. (Major Smith.)
Luxury unfits for soldiership
The Commons of England being very importunate with Edward
IV. to make war with France, he consented to satisfy their importunity, though willing rather to enjoy the fruits of his wars and toils, and spend the rest of his days in peace. When he took the field he ordered to accompany him a dozen of fat, capon-eating burgesses, who had been most zealous for that expedition. These he employed in all military services, to lie in the open fields, stand whole nights upon the guard, and caused their quarters to be beaten up with frequent alarms, which was so intolerable to those fat gentry accustomed to lie on soft down, and that could hardly sit on a sessions bench without nodding, that a treaty being desired by King Louis, none were so forward to press the acceptance of his offers, or to excuse so little done by the king with so great preparations. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A war for fireside
Home guards to the front! was the cry of 65. Look at them, slight lads stooping under their heavy muskets, decrepit men tottering on with cane in one hand and gun in the other; convalescent, furloughed soldiers rising like a wounded war-horse. And has war come to this? Yes, and worse. It has seen the nursing mother, and feeble, aged women, and delicate girls, defending the parapet. The hearth must be protected, and the husband, the little lad, and the white-haired father are gone, dead, dead in their blood! Women are to the front only because there are no men, none at all. But wait; there is a war for home and fireside, a war for rights more dear, and from foes more cruel, in which women face its fury, not because the men have fallen first, but because men shirk. Yes, men shirk the discipline, the hardships, the responsibility of this war. Not all men, thank God! yet many do. Happy in their homes, receiving the blessings of Christianity, they are willing to see the wives and mothers fight the battle. The hosts of hell, with black flag unfurled, surround us, menacing the peace of home, threatening slavery and death. With dreadful malice and cruelty they contend for every inch of ground. It is a battle remorseless, ceaseless, momentous. It appeals to all that is manly in men to take their places in it, to submit to its discipline, to endure its hardships, to shoulder its responsibility. (R. S. Barrett.)
A good soldier of Jesus Christ
I. A soldier must be enlisted.
II. The soldier after having been enlisted has to be drilled–that is to say, he has to learn his business. A good soldier is not to be made in a day; there must be time and pains spent upon him; he must be trained and taught, and that very carefully, before he is fit to fight against the enemies of his country. And it is just the same with Christian soldiers. They have to learn to act together, so as to support and help one another in the conflict with evil. And then they have to learn the use of their weapons–of one more especially, which is called the sword of the Spirit.
III. We have enemies to fight with–real enemies, not imaginary ones: the world, the flesh, and the devil. In order to enable you to understand what is meant by fighting against the flesh and the devil, I will tell you a story, or rather, two stories, both of them true. Some years ago there lived a good and holy man, who was a most useful minister of the gospel. This good mans Christian name was William. Now when he was a little boy, about four or five years old, he one day was left in the dining-room alone, and on the table was a plate of sweet cakes, of which he was particularly fond, but which he had been forbidden to touch. Somebody coming quietly into the room found the boy looking at the cakes, his little hands tightly clasped together behind his back, and saying to himself over and over again, as if he were saying a lesson, Willie mustnt take them, cause they are not Willies own. Now this was a victory over the flesh. The flesh said, These cakes are very nice, Willie; just smell them. No one will see you, Willie, if you do take one. Mamma will not miss the cakes, Willie, there are so many of them. But little Willie would not do wrong, although he was sorely tempted to it. He fought with the flesh, and came off conqueror. But there was one sad occasion on which Willie, now grown up to be a tall, handsome lad of seventeen, was beaten by the enemy. There was a servant in the family who was a wicked man; and wicked men, whether they know it or not, are agents for the devil, and do his work. This servant, annoyed at his young masters goodness, said once, in a sneering sort of way, and in Williams hearing, Oh! as for Master William, hes not man enough to swear. The taunt–it was just like a fiery arrow shot from Satans bow–stung the young lad beyond endurance; and for the only time in his life, I believe, he took Gods holy name in vain, and swore a terrible oath. Whenever William spoke of the matter–years, long years, after–it was with expressions of the bitterest regret, though he felt in his heart that God had forgiven him. Well, that was a fight with the devil in which the devil was the victor. The Christian soldier was beaten, for the moment. Satan, through the mouth of one of his servants, triumphed over him.
IV. The apostle tells us that we are to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. A good soldier obeys orders strictly; does not get tired of his duty, but sticks to it; and never dreams of turning his back and running away when the enemy is coming.
V. And now let me tell you by what means we are to become good soldiers. A good general makes good soldiers. He infuses his own spirit into them, and leads them to victory. And we have a good general, the Lord Jesus Christ. Put yourselves, then, into His hands, and He will make you what you ought to be. I wish you especially to notice that you cannot be a true Christian warrior without possessing that loyal devotion to Christ which springs from love. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
A good soldier
Much as war is at variance with the spirit of Christianity, there are few things to which the Scriptures more frequently allude when treating of the spiritual life. There is reason for this; for, notwithstanding all that is objectionable in the soldiers occupation, there are many things in the personal qualities of the man which pertain to the very noblest type of character. That which makes him a good soldier would also, if combined with other elements, make him a higher style of man.
I. The first thing required of a good soldier is hearty service. One volunteer is worth many pressed men. The adage was singularly verified during the war between Austria and Prussia. The Austrian soldiers fought well, but not with the enthusiasm of men who cordially approve of the object for which they fight. Drawn from various nationalities–believing, some of them, that the war was hostile to the dearest interests of their country–they were not so much free agents as machines forced into the strife; and this fact, perhaps, more than bad generalship or insufficient equipment, accounted for their signal defeat. Whereas the Prussians, although not enlisted voluntarily in the first instance, nevertheless entered voluntarily into the conflict. With an appreciation of the purposes of the war which few gave them credit, believing that it was to promote the much-coveted unity of the Fatherland, they fought with an enthusiasm which is the surest pledge of victory; and to this, quite as much as to the superiority of their arms and their leaders, did they owe their splendid triumphs. And so to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must freely and enthusiastically engage in His service.
II. The second thing required of a good soldier is implicit obedience to his commanders orders. Much has been said of the drill and discipline of the Prussian soldiers as accounting for that marvellous succession of victories which, culminating in Sadowa, changed the map of Europe. The far-seeing men who contemplated and conducted the war, with a keen appreciation of the means by which their end was to be gained, had been drilling most severely for years, until the soldier had become a kind of living machine. And that is really what is required in order to good soldiership.
III. A third quality essential to the good soldier is faith in his leader. In the war to which we have referred, the Austrian soldiers, after two or three defeats attributable to mismanagement, lost all faith in the capacity of their general, and not only ceased to fight with spirit, but were forthwith changed into a panic-stricken rabble. Even the brave Italians, with all their enthusiasm, recovered slowly from their defeat at Custozza, because of the manifest bungling which brought about the disaster. Whereas the Prussians, having in their leaders men whose clearness of vision and capacity for command were equal to their own fighting efficiency and power of endurance, do not seem ever to have faltered in their victorious career. Such confidence is manifestly indispensable. The private soldier knows little or nothing of the plan of the battle in which he is an actor, knows not why he is led into this position or that, or how he is to be led out of it, knows not why he is required to do this or that; but his general knows, and unless he has full confidence in the men who are directing the movements of the troops he will fight with very little courage, and prove himself but a poor soldier. And in our warfare we are equally required to have faith in our King.
IV. A fourth quality is careful training. In the war referred to, the best trained and most intelligent men proved the best fighters. Intelligence consists with, and is conducive to, the highest state of discipline; and of the human machine, which the soldier must needs become, the thinking is by far the most efficient specimen. So in our warfare the best soldier, other things being equal, is the man whose mind is most thoroughly trained. The servants of Christ should seek to understand the requirements of their time, and prepare to meet them. The conditions of warfare and the works required of the Christian soldier now are not what they were once; and unless men have understanding of the times, they may, though with the best intentions, render very bungling service. The worthier the master, the more efficient should his servants be.
V. Heroic effort and patient endurance are necessary. We cannot understand in what sense they are soldiers of Christ who enter His service simply with a view to their own comfort. Their notion is that they are to have a nice pleasant time, plenty of sweet experiences, and no trials, with temporal comforts to match the unruffled smoothness of their spiritual course. So much has been said of making the best of both worlds, that the highest con ception which many form of Christianity is that it is a system which rewards men in the next world for seeking to be comfortable in this. Young men should under stand that a soldiers life is one of warfare and endurance. In order to your being good soldiers of Jesus Christ, there must be–
VI. Concerted action. Union is strength, insomuch that one small band of men, acting together for one purpose and under one head, will scatter thousands who have neither leader nor organisation. (W. Landels, D. D.)
A good soldier of Jesus Christ
Many men, many minds. In reference to what a Christian is there have been very many and diverse opinions. Pauls description of a Christian in the text is that of a soldier, and that means something very far different either from a religious fop, whose best delight is music and millinery, or a theological critic who makes a man an offender for a word, or a spiritual glutton who cares for nothing but a lifelong enjoyment of the fat things full of marrow, or an ecclesiastical slumberer who longs only for peace for himself. The Christian is a self-sacrificing man as the soldier must be. A soldier is a serving man. A soldier is full often a suffering man. Once again, the true soldier is an ambitious being. Paul does not exhort Timothy to be a common, or ordinary soldier, but to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ; for all soldiers, and all true soldiers, may not be good soldiers. David had many soldiers, and good soldiers too, but you remember it was said of many, These attained not unto the first three. Now Paul, if I read him rightly, would have Timothy try to be of the first three, to be a good soldier.
I. We shall endeavour to describe a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
1. We must begin with this fundamental–he must be loyal to his King.
2. He is obedient to his Captains commands.
3. To conquer wilt be his ruling passion.
Wellington sent word to his troops one night, Ciudad Rodrigo must be taken to-night. And what do you think was the commentary of the British soldiers appointed for the attack? Then, said they all, we will do it. So when our great Captain sends round, as he doth to us, the word of command, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, if we were all good soldiers of the cross, we should say at once, We will do it. The passion for victory with the soldier often makes him forget everything else. Before the battle of Waterloo, Picton had had two of his ribs smashed in at Quatre Bras, but he concealed this serious injury, and, though suffering intensest agony, he rode at the head of his troop, and led one of the greatest charges which decided the fortunes of the day. He never left his post, but rode on till a ball crushed in his skull and penetrated to the brains. Then in the hot fight the hero fell. In that same battle one of our lieutenants, in the early part of the day, had his left fore-arm broken by a shot; he could not, therefore, hold the reins in his hand, but he seized them with his mouth, and fought on till another shot broke the upper part of the arm to splinters, and it had to be amputated; but within two days there he was, with his arm still bleeding, and the wound all raw, riding at the head of his division. Brave things have been done amongst the soldiers of our country–Oh, that such brave things were common among the armed men of the Church militant!
4. A good soldier is very brave at a charge.
5. A good soldier is like a rock under attack.
6. He derives his strength from on high.
This has been true even of some common soldiers, for religious men when they have sought strength from God have been all the braver in the day of conflict. I like the story of Frederick the Great; when he overheard his favourite general engaged in prayer, and was about to utter a sneering remark, the fine old man, who never feared a foe, and did not even fear his majestys jest, said, Your Majesty, I have just been asking aid from your Majestys great ally. He had been waiting upon God. In the battle of Salamanca, when Wellington bade one of his officers advance with his troops, and occupy a gap, which the Duke perceived in the lines of the French, the general rode up to him, and said, My lord, I will do the work, but first give me a grasp of that conquering right hand of yours. He received a hearty grip, and away he rode to the deadly encounter. Often has my soul said to her Captain, My Lord, I will do that work if Thou wilt give me a grip of Thy conquering right hand. Oh, what power it puts into a man when he gets a grip of Christ, and Christ gets a grip of him!
II. Thus I have described a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Give me a few minutes while I exhort you to be such.
1. I exhort you who are soldiers of Christ to be good soldiers, because many of you have been so. Dishonour not your past, fall not from your high standing. Forward be your motto.
2. Be good soldiers, for much depends upon it.
3. Good soldiers we ought to be, for it is a grand old cause that is at stake.
4. I implore you to be good soldiers of Jesus, when you consider the fame that has preceded you. A soldier when he receives his colours finds certain words embroidered on them, to remind him of the former victories of the regiment in which he serves. Look at the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, and see the long list of the triumphs of the faithful. Remember how prophets and apostles served God; recollect how martyrs joyfully laid down their lives; look at the long line of the reformers and the confessors; remember your martyred sires and covenanting fathers, and by the grace of God I beseech you walk not unworthy of your noble lineage.
5. Be good soldiers because of the victory which awaits you.
6. Besides, and lastly, if I want another argument to make you good soldiers, remember your Captain, the Captain whose wounded hands and pierced feet are tokens of his love to you. Redeemed from going down to the pit, what can you do sufficiently to show your gratitude? Assured of eternal glory by-and-by, how can you sufficiently prove that you feel your indebtedness. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fellow soldiers
Let no one say that he has no taste for warfare. Each one of us is pledged to fight. Each one of us bears the sign of the Cross, which binds him to be Christs soldier till his lifes end. Once, in the old wars, an English drummer-boy was taken prisoner by the French. They amused themselves by making the lad play on his instrument, and presently one asked him to sound the retreat. The drummer answered proudly that he had never learnt how to do that! So in our warfare there is no retreating. It was the boast of Napoleons soldiers–the guard dies, but never yields! We Christians are bidden to be faithful unto death, and Jesus promises us a crown of life. When Maximian became Emperor of the West he did his utmost to destroy Christianity. There was in the Roman army a famous legion of ten thousand men, called the Thebian Legion. It was formed entirely of Christians. Once, just before going into battle with the enemy, the Emperor commanded the Thebian Legion to sacrifice to idols. Their leader, in the name of his ten thousand soldiers, refused. The Emperor then ordered them to be decimated–that is, every tenth man to be killed. Still they were firm, and again, the second time, the cruel order was given for every tenth man to be slain. Fully armed, with their glittering eagles flashing on their helmets, the Christian soldiers stood in the perfect discipline of Rome, ready to die, but not to yield. Again they were ordered to sacrifice, and the brave answer was returned, No; we were Christs soldiers before we were Maximians. Then the furious Emperor gave the order to kill them all! Calmly the remaining soldiers laid down their arms, and knelt whilst the other troops put them to the sword. So died the Thcbian Legion, faithful unto death! Each one of us is in one sense a martyr, a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those of us who bear hard words, and cruel judgments, and harsh treatment, patiently, rendering not evil for evil, are martyrs for Jesus. Again, as fellow soldiers, let us remember the Name under which we serve. To a Roman soldier of old the name of Caesar was a watchword, which made him ready to do or die. In the wars of the middle ages, when our countrymen went into battle the cry was, St. George for Merry England, and every soldier was ready to answer with his sword. They tell us that the name of the great Duke of Wellington was alone enough to restore courage and spirit to the flagging troops. Once when a regiment was wavering in the fight, the message was passed along the ranks, The Duke is coming, and in an instant the men stood firm, whilst one old soldier exclaimed, The Duke–God bless him! I had rather see him than a whole battalion. The name of our Leader is one indeed to inspire perfect faith, courage, and hope. In all ages certain regiments have had their distinguishing names. Among the Romans of old time there was one famous band of warriors known as the Thundering Legion. In later times there have been regiments known as the Invincibles, the Die-hards. One famous corps has for its motto a Latin sentence meaning By Land and Sea, and another has one word for its badge, meaning Everywhere. These mottoes remind the soldier that the regiment to which he belongs has fought and conquered, served and suffered, all over the world. The proud badge of the county of Kent is Invicta—unconquered; that of Exeter is The Ever-faithful City. All these titles belong of right to our army, the Church of Jesus Christ. It is said that in New Zealand, some years ago, many of our troops were mortally wounded by concealed natives, who hid them selves in holes in the earth, and thence darted their deadly spears upward against the unsuspecting soldier. So our spiritual enemy, Satan, hides himself in a thousand different places, and wounds us with some sudden temptation when we are least aware. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)
The childrens crusade
I suppose many of you have read of those strange wars called the Crusades? They were undertaken to deliver the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus at Jerusalem out of the hands of the heathen. Thousands of brave men, besides their friends and followers, went to the Holy Land, at different times, to fight in the Crusades. The warriors wore a blood red cross on their clothing, from which they got their name of Crusaders, and their motto was, The Will of God. It was a very good motto, but not a very true one for them, for I am afraid they did many cruel and wicked things which certainly were not the will of God; and thousands of people perished miserably abroad, who might have been doing useful work at home. Well, amongst these Crusades there was one called the Childrens Crusade. A boy in France went about singing in his own language–
Jesus, Lord, repair our loss,
Restore to us Thy Holy Cross.
Crowds of children followed him, singing the same words. No bolts, no bars, no fear of fathers, or love of mothers, could held them back, they determined to go to the Holy Land, to work wonders there! This mad crusade had a very sad ending; of course young children could do nothing, being without leaders, or experience, or discipline, and they all perished miserably either by land or sea. Now I want you to think about another Childrens Crusade, in which you are all engaged. What do you think is required of a good soldier?
I. First of all he must be brave. We all like to hear about acts of bravery, like that of the little midshipman who spiked the Russian guns in the Crimean war; or of the boy Ensign, Anstruther, who at the battle of the Alma planted the colors of the 23rd Regiment on the wall of the great Redoubt, and then fell, shot dead, with the colours drooping over him like a pall. But the courage which is thought most of in heaven is the courage to do right. I have read a story of a wounded soldier lying on a battlefield, whose mouth had been struck by a shot. When the doctor placed a cup of water to his mouth, the man was eagerly going to drink, when he stopped and said, My mouth is all bloody, it will make the cup bad for the others. That soldier, in giving up self for the sake of others, was more of a hero then than when charging against the foe. Try to remember that story, children, and if you are tempted to do anything selfish or wrong, stop and think, It will make it bad for the others.
II. You must expect to find enemies and difficulties if you do what is right. Every one was against Daniel because he prayed to God. Every one was against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because they would not bow down to an idol. But God was on their side. There was once a famous man of God named Athanasius. He was bold enough to maintain the true faith of Christ against Emperors, and Bishops, and he was driven into banishment over and over again. Some of his friends advised him to give in, for, said they, the world is against you; Then, answered Athanasius, I am against the world. Now you must, as Christs soldiers, learn to suffer and be strong. To win a victory we must fight, to get to the end of a journey we must bear fatigue. Let me tell you a fable about that. Three animals, an ermine, a beaver, and a wild boar, made up their minds to seek a better country, and a new home. After a long and weary journey, they came in sight of a beautiful land of trees and gardens, and rivers of water. The travellers were delighted at the sight, but they noticed that before they could enter this beautiful land, they must pass through a great mass of water, filled with mud and slime, and all kinds of snakes and other reptiles. The ermine was the first to try the passage. Now the ermine has a very delicate fur coat, and when he found how foul and muddy the water was, he drew back, and said, that the country was very beautiful, but that he would rather lose it than soil his beautiful coat. Then the beaver proposed that as he was a good architect, as you know beavers are, he should build a bridge across the lake, and so in about two months they might get across safely. But the wild boar looked scornfully at his companions, and plunging into the water, he made his way, in spite of mud and snakes, to the other side, saying to his fellow-travellers, Paradise is not for cowards, but for the brave. Dear children, between you and the Paradise of God there lies a long journey, the enemys country, where the devil and his angels will fight against you, where there are deep pools of trouble to be gone through, rough, stony roads of temptation to be traversed, high rocks of difficulty to be climbed: but dont be afraid, only be brave, and go forward, and follow Jesus year leader, and you will be able to say, as St. Paul said, Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Well, we have seen that soldiers must be brave, what else must they be? obedient. God told Saul to do a certain thing, and he did not, and God would no longer have him as a soldier. Do you remember what was said to him? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)
The good soldiers
The question before us is,–How may we become good soldiers of Jesus Christ?
I. We must wear the uniform of Christ. This uniform is not made up of different-coloured cloth, such as we see other soldiers wear. No; but it is made up of the tempers, or dispositions, which form their character. To wear the uniform of Jesus, then, is to have the same mind, or spirit, or temper that He had.
II. The second thing for us to do, if we would be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, is to–obey the orders of Jesus. Some time ago, a largo ship was going from England to the East Indies. She was carrying a regiment of soldiers. When they were about half-way through their voyage, the vessel sprang a leak, and began to fill with water. The lifeboats were launched and made ready, but there were not enough of them to save all on board the ship. Only the officers of the ship, the cabin passengers, and some of the crew, could be taken in the boats. The soldiers had to be left on board, to go down with the ship. The officers determined to die with their men. The colonel was afraid the men would get unruly if they had nothing to do. That he might prevent this he ordered them to prepare for parade. Soon they all appeared in full dress. He set the regimental band on the quarter-deck, with orders to keep on playing lively airs. Then he formed his men in close ranks on the deck. With his sword drawn in his hand, he took his place at their head. Every officer and man is at his post. The vessel is gradually sinking; but they stand steady at their post, each man keeping step. And then, just as the vessel is settling for its last plunge, and death is rushing in upon them, the colonel cries,–Present arms! and that whole regiment of brave men go down into their watery grave, presenting arms as death approached them. Those were good soldiers. They had learned to obey orders. But this is a hard lesson to learn. Several boys were playing marbles. In the midst of their sport it began to rain. One of the boys, named Freddie, stopped and said, Boys, I must go home. Mother told me not to stay out in the rain. Your mother–fudge! said two or three of the boys. The rain wont hurt you any more than it will us. Freddie turned on them with a look of pity, and yet with the courage of a hero, while he calmly said, Ill not disobey my mother for any of you. That was the spirit of a good soldier. After a great battle once, the general was talking to his officers about the events of the day. He asked them who had done the best that day. Some spoke of one man who had fought very bravely, and some of another. No, said the general, you are all mistaken. The best man in the field to-day was a soldier who was just lifting up his arms to strike an enemy, but when he heard the trumpet sound a retreat, he checked himself, and dropped his arm without striking the blow. That perfect and ready obedience to the will of his general is the noblest thing that has been done to-day.
III. We must follow the example of Jesus. When Alexander the Great was leading his army over some mountains once, they found their way all stopped up with ice and snow. His soldiers were tired out with hard marching, and so disheartened with the difficulties before them, that they halted. It seemed as if they would rather lie down and die than try to go on any farther. When Alexander saw this, he did not begin to scold the men, and storm at them. Instead of this, he got down from his horse, laid aside his cloak, took up a pickaxe, and, without saying a word to any one, went quietly to work, digging away at the ice. As soon as the officers saw this, they did the same. The men looked on in surprise for a few moments, and then, forgetting how tired they were, they went to work with a will, and pretty soon they got through all their difficulties. Those were good soldiers, because they followed the example of their leader. (Richard Newton, D. D.)
A good soldier
I. What is implied in being a soldier?
1. A soldier is a person wire has enlisted in an army. Had looked at the reasons for and against entering the army, and at last he enlisted.
2. He is the property of the king. Gives up his free agency. Gives up his very name. Known and called by the number he bears.
3. He is provided for by the king. Must take off his own clothes, whether of best broadcloth or corduroy. Must be clothed, and fed, and armed by the king.
4. He must always wear his regimentals. A soldier can always be recognised as such.
5. He is prepared for trial and conflict. Soldiers are the result of war, and if there were no war, there would be no soldiers. He enlisted to fight. For this purpose he is armed, and trained, and drilled.
II. What is implied in being a soldier of Christ? It is implied that Christ is a King, that He has enemies, that He has an army, and that the person spoken of belongs to this army. I have to glance at the ground we have already passed–You have enlisted, etc.
III. What is implied in being a good soldier of Christ? There are soldiers and soldiers. There are some who are idle and dissipated: a disgrace to the profession to which they belong. Others only swell the numbers and fill up the ranks, they look very well at reviews, but dont count for much in the battle-field. Others are so true and faithful that they cover the army to which they belong with glory.
1. A good soldier is thoroughly loyal. Not a mercenary, fighting for pay. Proud of his uniform, his name, his king.
2. Patriotic. Loves his country. Every soldier is his comrade. The defeat of the army is his sorrow; its success his joy.
3. Obedient. He may be at home in the midst of his family–a telegram comes; by the next train he leaves to join the army, perhaps to cross the seas and perish in a distant land.
4. Earnest.
5. Brave.
6. Patient. Not enlisted for a day, but for life. Often put where there is nothing to excite or gratify ambition. There will be the long wearisome march, or the still more wearisome halt. While his comrades are assaulting cities and winning victories, he has to stand and watch, or lie and suffer.
7. Self-denying.
8. Modest. His motto, Deeds not words. It is said that the word glory is not found in the despatches of the Duke of Wellington. He merely states what the army had done. So with the Christian. What are you? A rebel? Your defeat is certain. A deserter? Return. A penitent, longing to be enlisted in Christs army? Come. A soldier? Be a good soldier. (C. Garrett.)
A good soldier of Jesus Christ
The contrast between the saints of the Old Testament and of the New Testament is very great, especially in the relation which they bore to war. No great saint or apostle of the New Testament was a soldier. But in the Old Testament we read of the faith of Abraham, of the wisdom of Moses, of the courage of Joshua, of the nobility of David, of the piety of Josiah, of the zeal of Nehemiah; and all these had at some parts of their lives to go forth to the battle-field. But it was not so with Peter, James, John, Paul, and the rest of the early disciples. The distinction is to be accounted for partly by the circumstances in which they severally lived. In Old Testament and primitive times men had to obtain a footing for their very life, and to contend for national existence. But in the time of Christ the Roman Government secured the safety of person and property, and within certain limits left the Jew to indulge in his national customs. So, in the history of our own country, we see how greatly circumstances have changed. In the time of Queen Elizabeth Englishmen of every creed were compelled to have the soldierly spirit unless they wished to succumb to the Spaniard. And in the time of the Stuarts men were obliged to keep their armour bright unless they were prepared to put their liberties at the mercy of a tyrant. Thus we have in both periods of English history, and also during the struggles of Jewish history, saints who were also and literally soldiers. Bat there is a deeper reason for the change which has come about. And that reason is to be seen in the gentle and forgiving spirit which is inculcated by the Christian religion. The religion of Christ banishes war by taking away its occasions and its causes. It bids its adherents still enter on a battle. It utilises those pugnacious principles which exist in us all, by confronting us with the great moral struggle between good and evil, where every man must choose his side. There are certain plain and palpable qualifications of a good soldier of Christ which we will point out.
I. A good soldier understands his captain.
II. Understands his weapons.
III. Understands his place in the battle.
IV. Loves the cause in which he fights. (S. Pearson, M. A.)
Christianity and soldiers
The metaphor which the apostle here chooses to describe the work of a primitive Christian bishop cannot bat strike us as remarkable. Himself a servant of the Prince of Peace, and writing to another servant of the Prince of Peace, he might, we may think, have gone somewhere else for his metaphor than to the profession of arms. How are we to explain the honour which the apostle puts upon the military profession when he points to a soldier as embodying, at any rate, some of the qualities which he desires to see in a ruler of the Church of God? We cannot say, by way of reply, that the metaphor is so accidental or so singular that stress ought not in fairness to be laid on it, for there is a great deal more religions language with a military colour or flavour about it, not merely in the Old Testament, but in the New. The relation between the military profession and religion thus traceable in Scripture reappears in the history of the Church. If, in her higher moments, the Church has done her best to check or condemn bloodshed, as when St. Ambrose excommunicated the Roman Emperor Theodosius, at the very height of his power, for the slaughter of Thessalonica, she has distinguished between the immediate instruments in such slaughter and the monarchs or the captains who were really responsible for it. If, in the first centuries of the faith, Christians were often unwilling to serve in the Roman ranks, and in some eases preferred martyrdom to doing so, the reason was that such service was then so closely bound up with pagan usages that to be an obedient soldier was to be a renegade from the Christian faith. When this difficulty no longer presented itself, Christians, like other citizens, were ready to wear weapons and to serve in the wars, and so long as warfare is defensive–devoted, not to the aggrandisement of empire, but to maintaining the peace and the police of the world–the Christian Church, while deploring its horrors, cannot but recognise in it at times a terrible necessity. When the great Bishop Leo of Rome or the great soldier Charles Martel set their faces against the destructive inroads of barbarism, they had behind them all that was best and purest in Christendom; and the rise of the military orders, the Knights of the Temple and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, marks a yet closer intimacy, the form of which was determined, no doubt, by the ideas of the twelfth century rather than of our own, between a soldiers career and the profession of religion. We cannot pass that noble home of the law, as it is now, the Temple, without remembering that it was once tenanted by an Order of soldiers, bound by religious obligations, devoted to the rescue and the care of those sacred spots which must always be dearest to the heart of Christendom. Here, then, let us ask ourselves the question, What are the qualities which are common to a good soldier and to a good Christian? The answer will explain and will justify the language of the apostle.
I. The first is, that each, the Christian and the soldier, does his work well in the exact degree of his devotion to his commander. The greatest generals have been distinguished by the power of inspiring an unbounded confidence in and attachment to their persons. This is true in different senses of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, of Napoleon. And what is the deepest secret of the Christian life if it be not an unbounded confidence in the Captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord, devotion to His person, undoubting belief in His Word, readiness to do and to endure whatever He may order?
II. And the second virtue in a soldier is courage. In the conventional language of the world, a soldier is always gallant, just as a lawyer is learned, just as a clergyman is reverend. Whatever be a mans real character, the title belongs to him by right of his profession. There are virtues in which a soldier may be wanting without damage to his professional character, but courage is not one of these.
III. And a third excellence in a soldier is the sense of discipline. Without discipline an army becomes an unmanageable horde, one part of which is as likely as not to turn its destructive energies against another, and nothing strikes the eye of a civilian as he watches a regiment making its way through one of our great thoroughfares in London more than the contrast which is presented by the unvarying, I had almost said the majestic, regularity of its onward movement and the bewildering varieties of pace, gesture, direction, costume of the motley crowd of curious civilians who flit spasmodically around it. Discipline in an army is not merely the perfection of form, it is an essential condition of power. Numbers and resources cannot atone for its absence, but it may easily with small resources make numbers and greater resources powerless.
IV. And one more characteristic of the military spirit is a sense of comradeship. All over the world a soldier recognises a brother in another soldier. Not only members of the same regiment, of the same corps, of the same army and country, but even combatants in opposing armies are conscious of a bond which unites them, in spite of their antagonism; and the officers and men of hostile armies have been known to engage in warm expressions of mutual fellowship as soon as they were free to do so by the proclamation of peace. This generous and chivalrous feeling which survives the clash of arms confers on a soldiers bearing an elevation which we cannot mistake. When, in the later years of his life, Marshal Soult, who had been in command in the Peninsula, visited this country, he came to St. Pauls Cathedral, and the monument which most interested him, and which then had been recently erected in the South Transept, was that of Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna. Soult, says one who witnessed it, stood for some time before the monument; he could not speak; he could hardly control himself; he dissolved in a flood of tears. Certainly it was meant to be so m the Church. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one towards another. But there is an important difference between the services. The one terminates, if not before, yet certainly and altogether at the moment of quitting this earthly scene. The last possible point of contact that even a Wellington can have with the profession of his choice is seen in the device on his coffin, in the epitaph on his grave. The other service–that of Jesus Christ–although under changed conditions lasts on into that world to which death is but an introduction, and which He, our Captain, has opened to us by His death on the cross, by His resurrection from the dead. (Canon Liddon.)
Endurance
Here the apostle is not thinking of the soldier on the field of battle engaged in conflict with the enemy. His exhortation to Timothy is not to fight well, but to endure, or, as the same word is rendered elsewhere (2Ti 1:8), to suffer affliction well. He thinks of the soldier being drilled and disciplined for the fight. As a prisoner at Rome he would be, very probably, a daily eye-witness of the severe training through which the emperors troops had to pass. These were good soldiers of Caesar. They were true patriots, laying upon the altar of their country their very lives. Now Timothy was, like the apostle himself, a soldier; but the soldier of avery different King from Caesar, and had a very different warfare to wage than such wars as the Roman soldiery were so frequently engaged in. He was the soldier of Jesus Christ.
I. Let me remind you that there is hardness to be endured by all of us. Christianity means to-day as it always did, continual cross-bearing. The word duty has still a rough edge. For example, here is a Christian merchant who has so many shares in a concern which he has for some time back had good reason for thinking is in a rather shaky condition, and an opportunity occurs for his selling out, and that at a good price. Just at present a few hundred pounds in hard cash would be of immense service to him in his business. But no, he wont sell. He means to be the true Christian gentleman, and he feels that that he cannot be and sell as good that what he has his doubts about. Yet it is hard, especially if one can see at his back a wife and so many daughters inclining rather to be extravagant, and who cannot appreciate fathers scruples. This is his cross, and as a good soldier of Jesus Christ he bears it. Come what may, he will be honest–will not finger a shilling that does not come to him lawfully. I think, then, that in the region of commercial morality those of us who belong thereto will find occasion for the exercise of the precept, Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
II. Let me see if I can give the true word of direction; if I can at least indicate to you the spirit in which we are to endure. I think Paul does this himself for us. We are to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. That is, we also, like Timothy–and like those good soldiers at Rome which Paul saw–are to take to our task kindly. We are not to despise the cross that is laid upon us. We are not to run out of the way of duty. We are not to rebel when our Master chastens.
III. Let me see if I can say anything that may help to stimulate us to dare and do the right, So that we may not repeat the mistakes of the past which have brought to us so much misery and unrest. Observe, then, what Paul says–As a good soldier of Jesus Christ. That is, as a soldier under Jesus Christ. Think of that name–Jesus Christ. Can we for a moment suppose that He would give an unkind command or put upon us an unnecessary burden? Jesus! Why the name suggests all that is kindest, and noblest, and gentlest, and truest. But there is one other thought here I should like to take up and lay upon your hearts, As a good soldier of Jesus Christ–that is, of Jesus Christ as our Leader. He is not the Master to say Go. His way is always to say Come. The heaviest cross ever borne was that which He bore. (Adam Scott.)
Moral soldiership
I. Let us understand the meaning of the injunction, endure hardness. The reference is to the life of privation and suffering which a soldier, far more in those times than now, had to undergo, and which in all times he is expected to bear without murmuring, to endure willingly, as a part of that profession which he has voluntarily embraced. Endurance is not merely bearing suffering, but bearing it manfully. To bear hardship with the spirit of a hero is to endure hardness as a good soldier. Samuel Rutherford, when in prison, used to date his letters from Christs Palace, Aberdeen, and when Madam Guyon was confined in the castle of Vincennes, she said, It seems as if I were a little bird whom the Lord has placed in u cage, and that I have nothing now to do but sing. Paul, too, did not tell his son in the faith to do more than he had done himself.
II. The Christians profession, as a soldier, implies a voluntary change of position in life.
III. It is now nearly universally allowed that an intelligent acquaintance with the plans of the general, and with the purposes for which the battle is fought, or the campaign undertaken, by begetting confidence in his leader, enables the soldier to render more efficient service. So in proportion as a Christian grows in the knowledge of God and of His plans for the redemption of our world as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, in that proportion he throws his whole soul into the fight. Four special conditions in which a soldier is called upon to endure hardness.
1. In standing his ground. Wellington brought peace to Europe by his stand at Waterloo. To retire would have been disgrace, to advance would have been destruction. Holding his position brought victory. The battle of Inkermann was won by an eight hours resistance of six thousand men to sixty thousand. So a Christian soldier often finds himself so hotly assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil, that he is unable to advance a foot. But a firm, resisting stand is conquest.
2. A soldier must endure hardness in marching. The chief care of one who has a long march before him is to be well shod. If this be not attended to, even things so insignificant as thorns and briars will occasion suffering, and may unfit the soldier for the fight. So the lesser vexations and petty cares and trials of patience in everyday life, if not guarded against, will weary and wound the feet of the soul, as Bishop Home calls the affections, and, footsore and wearied, he will be ill-prepared for those special encounters with the enemy to which he is always liable.
3. The soldier must endure hardness in action.
4. Although many an earthly soldier endures who is never crowned, no soldier of Christ is overlooked in the day of victory. The only condition is endurance. (W. Harris.)
Soldiers of Christ
It sometimes happens that a verse in our English Bible contains a Scriptural rule of the utmost value, though it represents neither the best reading nor the accurate translation. Such is the case with this text. The true translation in reading it is: Share, my son, in my suffering as a fair soldier of Jesus Christ; and yet the words endure hardness convey a most valuable general lesson, and involve the exhortation of the entire context. Perhaps some careless epicurean man of the world, perhaps some envious fashionable woman of the world, perhaps some easy, self-indulgent, godless youth asks me, Why should I endure hardness? Life has troubles enough in store; why should I add to them? There is no religion in making myself uncomfortable; how can God be pleased by self-denials which will only be a burden to me?
1. My first answer to your question is, Do it for your own sakes because we men cannot live like beasts to be cloyed with honey; because sickness and satiety are the just nemesis of self-indulgence; because, by the very constitution of the nature God has given you, it is a bad thing as well as ruinous to all earthly happiness that the body should be pampered, since where the body is pampered the spirit is almost necessarily starved. We have bodies; but we are spirits. He who would truly live must walk in the Spirit, and he who would walk in the Spirit must keep the body under stern control.
2. But we go further and say, endure hardness also because it is the manifest will of God. See what pains God takes to teach us that it is His will. The everlasting hills are full of their mineral riches, but to get them men must drive the tunnel and sink the shaft. The soil teems with golden harvests, but to win them man must scatter his seeds into the furrow, and breathe hard breath over the plough. Nature has priceless secrets in her possession; but she holds them out to us clenched in a granite hand, which sheer labour must unclasp. Everywhere in nature God teaches us the same great lesson. Anything worth having is not to be had for nothing.
3. Endure hardness also because it is the training-school of worth. When God wants a nation to do Him high service, to fight His battles, to wrestle in His arenas, then lie gives that nation labours and sorrows too. He takes them out of the sluggish levels of Egypt, and makes them climb His granite mountains and listen to the wild music of His desert winds. A nation of greedy slaves might have been contented to live and die in gluttonous animalism; but when God wants heroes, then out of His house of bondage He calls His sons. Read Gods lessons written on the broad page of history. The type of Egypts centuries of sluggish placidity is but the cruel, motionless, staring Sphinx; but the type of immortal Greece and the brave flash of her glory is the Apollo launching at the Python with his arrows. What would Sparta have been had she never had Thermopylae? What would Athens have been but for Salamis and Marathon?
4. Endure hardness, scorn sloth, embrace labour, despise sham, practise self-denial in the path of duty, because Christ did it. It is the will of Christ; because there is no virtue and there is no holiness possible without it. The word virtue occurs but once in the whole of the New Testament; because the pagan world has made of it too dwarfed an ideal, and Christianity had better words than that; but even the pagan world saw that broad is the path of evil–broad, and straight, and smooth to ruin by the steps of sin. The type of nobleness, even to the pagan world, was not Sardanapalus, but Hercules; not Apicius, the glutton, but Leonidas, the king. They knew it was difficult to be a good man–difficult, and not so easy as it seems; they knew that any fool could be a money-getter, or a drunkard, or a debauchee; that out of the very meanest, vilest clay that ever was you can make an effeminate corrupter, or selfish schemer, or a slanderer, or a thief; but that it takes Gods own gold to make a man, and that it wants the furnace and the toil to make of that gold and fine gold; and it is strange how unanimous all nations have been on this point. David Hume has a passage in his writings about virtue, and her affability, and her engaging manners, nay, even, at proper intervals, her frivolity and gaiety, and her parting not willingly with any pleasure, and requiring a just calculation, and her ranking us as enemies to joy and pleasure, as hypocrites, or deceivers, or the less favoured of her votaries; whereupon one of our men of science, far from being a dogmatist, says that in this paean of virtue there is more of a dance measure than will sound appropriate in the ears of most of the pilgrims who toil painfully, not without many a stumble, along the rough and steep road that leads to the higher life. But if virtue be difficult of acquirement, far more is holiness. (F. W. Farrar, D. D.)
Enduring hardness as a soldier
The apostle Paul, a true and valiant hero, gives counsel in the text to each minister of God who stands up in any age to do battle for the Lord. He must not only understand the art of war as a theory, but put his know ledge into practice, going before the mighty host of Gods elect in order that they may triumph gloriously–Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The apostles all set this example to the world. The advice of St. Paul in the text had reference in its original application to the clergy, but it is no less a rule which is binding on all Christians. The fact that we are Christian soldiers suggests three corresponding duties.
I. The will of the soldier should be wholly absorbed in that of his commander. My life consists in being, rather than in doing, said a good Christian woman, when cut off from active work by long-continued sickness. I cannot fight much, but if I can hold the standard for other eyes, I may inspire tired soldiers with fresh courage, and so, if nothing but a colour bearer, help in the good cause! Yes, brave and devoted woman, many a jaded and disheartened one will take heart and hope, as you thus bear aloft with unflinching hand the standard of faith and patience!
II. A soldier, to deserve the name, must possess true courage.
III. A soldier must be ready to endure hardness. (J. N. Norton.)
The good soldier of Jesus Christ
Suppose a young man went of his own will for a soldier, was regularly sworn in to serve the Queen, took his bounty, wore the Queens uniform, ate her bread, learnt his drill and all that a soldier need learn, as long as peace lasted. But suppose that as soon as war came and his regiment was ordered on active service, he deserted at once and went off and hid himself. What should you call such a man? You would call him a base and ungrateful coward, and you would have no pity on him if he was taken and justly punished. But suppose that he did a worse thing still. Suppose that the enemy, the Russians say, invaded England, and the army was called out to fight them; and suppose this man of whom I speak, be he soldier or sailor, instead of fighting the enemy, deserted over to them, and fought on their side against his own country, and his own comrades, and his own father and brothers, what would you call that man? No name would be bad enough for him. If he was taken he would be hanged without mercy, as not only a deserter but a traitor. And who would pity him or say that he had not got his just deserts? Are not all young people, when they are old enough to choose between right and wrong, if they choose what is wrong and live bad lives instead of good ones, very like this same deserter and traitor? For are you not all Christs soldiers, every one of you? Did not Christ enlist every one of you into His army, that, as the baptism service says, you might fight manfully under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil–in one word, against all that is wrong and bad? And now when you are old enough to know that you are Christs soldiers, what will you deserve to be called if, instead of fighting on Christs side against what is bad, you forget you are in His service. But some may say, My case is not like that soldiers. I did not enter Christs service of my own free will. My parents put me into it when I was an infant without asking my leave. I was not christened of my own will. Is it so? Do you know what your words mean? If they mean anything, they mean that you had rather not have been christened, because you are now expected to behave as a christened man should. Now is there any one of you who dare say, I wish I had not been christened? Not one! Then if you dare not say that; if you are content to have been christened, why are you not content to do what christened people should? But why were you christened? not merely because your parents chose, but because it was their duty. Every child ought to be christened, because every child belongs to Christ. You have now no right to choose between Christ and the devil, because Christ has chosen you already–no right to choose between good and bad, because God, the good God Himself, has chosen you already, and has been taking care of you, and heaping you with blessings ever since you were born. And why did Christ choose you? As I have told you, that you may fight with Him against all that is bad. But if we go on doing bad and wrong things, are we fighting on Christs side? No, we are fighting on the devils side, and helping the devil against God. Do you fancy that I am saying too much? I suspect some do. I suspect some say in their hearts, He is too hard on us. We are not like that traitorous soldier. If we do wrong, it is ourselves at most that we harm. We do not wish to hurt any one; we do not want to help the devil. (Chas. Kingsley.)
Fortitude
Weakness and effeminacy have ever accompanied the latter stages of all human civilisation. Either society actually rottens and falls to pieces by the dissolving influence of its own vices, or, weakened by indulgence, it falls a ready prey in its turn to the sword of some ruder but manlier enemy. In the ancient nations of the world such has been the invariable process. The question has often been asked, Does the law still hold good, and must the nations of modern Europe decay and die, as the great nations of antiquity have done? If we had nothing but human nature to look to the reply would be an unhesitating, Yes. But we have another element in our case, what our Lord calls the leaven, to spread its own healthy influence through the otherwise fermenting mass of humanity; and upon its regenerating force all our hopes of a happier future must rest. If Christianity keeps us from effeminacy, it will keep us from ruin. I cannot for a moment doubt its power, because it is the power of God. But it therefore follows that, if it is to save us, it must be a real Christianity–a Christianity such as God originated and such as God will work by. Now it is, I think, the most serious thing in the present condition of the world that, not only has a luxurious civilisation weakened the domestic virtues, especially among some women, whose extravagances have become almost a satire upon womanhood–I say among women, because the love of athletic sports to a considerable degree checks the tendency among men; hut that our Christianity itself has caught the infection and is demoralised by self-indulgence. The effeminacy has reached even our religion. Words and sentiments take the place of deeds. The charm of the eye and the ear are substituted for great inward principles; the grandest truths are welcomed, admitted, admired, but not acted upon in daily life. The Church is enormously below her own standard. A refined self-indulgence spreads everywhere, and if it continues to spread till it touches the very heart of the Church and nation, then indeed there can be no hope for us. I cannot doubt that it is the providential object of the struggles of faith belonging to our day to revive the manliness, the independence, the reality, and power of our religion, just as nations amid sufferings and disaster recover the manly virtues which have rusted in prosperity and ease. There are many obvious reasons for cultivating a more robust and manly earnestness in our religion.
I. It is due to the character of the great Master whom we serve. We look up to the Captain of our salvation, and every imaginable motive which can nerve the human heart combines to inspire us with dauntless courage and unflinching fortitude.
II. A robust earnestness is due to the necessities of the work. God takes every possible precaution in His Word that we should count the cost, before we enlist under our Captains banner. We have, indeed, Divine strength to help us; but it is given to help, not to supersede. Our battle requires all our strength, and nothing less will suffice. The very saints hardly press into the kingdom: they take it by violence, and enter like soldiers after a hard-fought fight–wounded, bleeding, and weary, but conquering. And this endurance of hardness is the more necessary because, not only are habits of personal self-denial and self-restraint, watchful devotion and earnest effort, the conditions of victory, but they are actual parts of the victory themselves.
III. Manly vigour is due to the abundance of the reward. Salvation itself is not of reward; it is all of grace. But once let the soul find Christ, let it be accepted within the family circle, let it fairly take service beneath the banner of Christ as the faithful soldier and servant of a crucified Master, and then God deals with it by rewards. (E. Garbett, M. A.)
The Christian a soldier
I. The soldier giving up the direction of his own actions and exertions, gives himself up to the service of another. The Roman soldier, to whose case St. Paul must be supposed particularly to refer, was nothing but a soldier. So it is with the Christian: he may not serve the world and his God together. He must either be all Christs or none of His.
II. The service into which the soldier enters is for the most part a service accompanied by peril and privation.
III. The third point of similarity observed in the conditions of the soldier and the Christian is, that each is bound to be faithful in the discharge of the duties of his profession by the obligation of a solemn oath. At the time St. Paul wrote, the Roman soldier, when first enrolled, took an oath to obey the commands of his emperor, and never to forsake his standard: and this oath was yearly renewed. A Christianised imagination found a parallel to this in the solemn engagement entered into at baptism, and renewed in the holy communion of the supper of the Lord, obediently to keep Gods holy will and commandments, and to walk in the same all the days of our life. For this very reason those two awful rites of our religion received from the primitive Church the name which they yet bear, the name of sacraments. Sacrament was the usual term for the soldiers military oath, and it was transferred by the ancients to baptism and the eucharist, because in them the believer, as it were, binds himself by solemn compact faithfully to serve in the spiritual armies under the orders of the King of heaven. (W. H. Marriott.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. Endure hardness] He considers a Christian minister under the notion of a soldier, not so much for his continual conflicts with the world, the devil, and the flesh, for these are in a certain sense common to all Christians, but for the hardships and difficulties to which he must be exposed who faithfully preaches the Gospel of Christ.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Endure hardness; in the Greek it is, suffer evils, that is evils of affliction, expect them, and encounter and patiently eudure them.
As a good soldier of Jesus Christ; remembering that the life of a minister is not a life of ease and pleasure, but the life of a soldier, whose life is a life of hardship, exposed to numberless hazards and dangers.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. Thou therefore endurehardnessThe oldest manuscripts have no “Thoutherefore,” and read, “Endure hardship with(me).” “Take thy share in suffering” [CONYBEAREand HOWSON].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou therefore endure hardness,…. “Or afflictions”; as in 2Ti 4:5. The same word is used there as here, and properly signifies, “suffer evil”; and means the evil of afflictions, as persecutions of every kind, loss of name and goods, scourging, imprisonment, and death itself, for the sake of Christ and the Gospel:
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Christ is the Captain of salvation, the Leader and Commander of the people, who are made a willing people in the day of his power; or when he raises his forces, and musters his armies, these are volunteers, who willingly enlist themselves into his service, and under his banners fight his battles; and such who manfully behave against sin, Satan, and the world, are his good soldiers; such are all true believers in Christ, and particularly the ministers of the word, whose ministry is a warfare, and who fight the good fight of faith; and besides the above enemies, which they have in common with other saints, have to do with teachers, who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Suffer hardship with me (). See 1:8 for this verb. The old preacher challenges the young one to share hardship with him for Christ.
As a good soldier ( ). Paul does not hesitate to use this military metaphor (this word only here for a servant of Christ) with which he is so familiar. He had already used the metaphor in 1Cor 9:7; 2Cor 10:3; 1Tim 1:18. In Php 2:25 he called Epaphroditus “my fellow-soldier” ( ) as he did Archippus in Phm 1:2.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Endure hardness [] . Comp. chapter 2Ti 1:8. A. V. verse fails to give the force of sun with. Rend. suffer hardship with me. Soldier [] . Only here in Pastorals. o P. Frequent in Acts.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Thou therefore endure hardness” (sugkapatheson) “Suffer ill with, together, or endure painful endurance.” Toil and pain are conditions of success in most every achievement. It is the price paid by 1) the soldier, 2) athlete, and 3) field laborer for the victory, crown, or wage, 2Ti 4:5.
2) “As a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” hos kalos stratiotes) “As a good soldier, or sentry of (christou iesou) Christ Jesus.” Php_2:25; Phm 1:2.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3 Do thou therefore endure afflictions Not without strong necessity has he added this second exhortation; for they who offer their obedience to Christ must be prepared for “enduring afflictions;” and thus, without patient endurance of evils, there will never be perseverance. And accordingly he adds, “as becomes a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” By this term he means that all who serve Christ are warriors, and that their condition as warriors consists, not in inflicting evils, but rather in patience.
These are matters on which it is highly necessary for us to meditate. We see how many there are every day, that throw away their spears, who formerly made a great show of valor. Whence does this arise? Because they cannot become inured to the cross. First, they are so effeminate that they shrink from warfare. Next, they do not know any other way of fighting than to contend haughtily and fiercely with their adversaries; and they cannot bear to learn what it is to
“
possess their souls in patience.” (Luk 21:19)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
2Ti. 2:3. Endure hardness.R.V. Suffer hardship with me. Compare 2Ti. 1:8, where the same word occurs. It would seem more consistent to refer the fellowship in each case to St. Paul, in behalf of the gospel.
2Ti. 2:4. No man that warreth entangleth himself.R.V. No soldier on service. The word for entangleth himself occurs again only 2Pe. 2:20. St. Paul had before him living illustrations of his saying. The Roman soldier carried his home on his back. Who hath chosen him to be a soldier.R.V. who enrolled him as a soldier. This phrase is represented by one word in the original. It is the term for the general who collects an army.
2Ti. 2:5. Strive for masteries.R.V. contend in the games. In the best Attic Greek the word would mean to work, to endure. Lawfully.1Ti. 1:8. Conformably to law. Not merely of the contest itself, but also of the preparation and training for it.
2Ti. 2:6. The husbandman that laboureth.The notion of laboureth is that of the weariness and lassitude which follow the straining of his powers to the utmost. The lesson seems to be No sweat, no sweet.
2Ti. 2:7. Understanding.Here means the power of putting things together. It is, as Bishop Lightfoot suggests, the critical application of wisdom to details.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.2Ti. 2:3-7
Phases of the Christian Life.
I. The Christian life is a military service.
1. The power of endurance is acquired by continuous drill. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2Ti. 2:3). Military service involves self-sacrifice, endurance, discipline, vigilance, obedience, ready co-operation with others, sympathy, enthusiasm, loyalty (Plummer). Tertullian writes: Even in peace soldiers learn betimes to suffer warfare by toil and discomforts, by marching in arms, running over the drill-ground, working at trench-making, constructing the tortoise, till the sweat runs again. In like manner do ye, O blessed ones, account whatever is hard in your lot as discipline of the powers of your mind and body. Ye are about to enter for the good fight, in which the living God gives the prizes, and the Holy Spirit prepares the combatants, and the crown is the eternal prize of an angels nature, citizenship in heaven, glory for ever and ever. Therefore your trainer Jesus Christ has seen good to separate you from a state of freedom for rougher treatment, that power may be made strong in you.
2. The efficiency of service must not be impaired by being excessively engrossed with other occupations (2Ti. 2:4). The soldier is wholly devoted to his profession, and his term of service is spent either in warfare or in preparation for it. He abandons all other occupations: they would interfere with his efficiency and with his prospects of promotion. So the Christian soldier, if he is to render good service, must not be entangled with worldly affairs: not that he can ignore them or neglect them; but he must guard against their interfering with the obedience he owes to His heavenly Commander.
II. The Christian life is an athletic contest.
1. Victory is gained only by great effort. And if a man also strive for masteries (2Ti. 2:5). Tertullian, continuing his address to martyrs, passes by an easy transition from training for military service to training for athletic contest. For the athletes also are set apart for stricter discipline that they may have time to build up their strength. They are kept from luxury, from daintier meats, from too pleasant drink; they are driven, tormented, distressed. The harder their labours in training the greater their hopes of victory. Virtue is built up by hardness, but by softness is overthrown.
2. Reward is given only to those who faithfully observe the rules of the contest. Yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully (2Ti. 2:5). The athlete, though gaining the victory, is not crowned unless he has observed all the conditions of the contest, and the preparation for it as to self-denying diet, exercise, self-restraint, chastity, and decorum. So in the Christian course the prize is given to him who has obeyed all the rules. To share the glory of Christ we must share His suffering: if we shrink from the cross, we miss the crown.
III. The Christian life is moral husbandry.
1. Implying diligent toil. The husbandman that laboureth (2Ti. 2:6). The husbandman knows that according to the labour put into the soil will be its fruitfulness. Christianity not only inculcates work, but ennobles it. Work is necessary for sustenance, and is the condition of all growth. Mental and moral excellence are attained only by great labour.
2. The diligent worker is entitled to reward. Must be first partaker of the fruits (2Ti. 2:6). The first to enjoy the results of work should be he who has been most diligent. In all labour there is profit. Work is the pathway to success and honour.
IV. The manifold phases of the Christian life require earnest thought.Consider what I say (2Ti. 2:7). Christianity must be studied in its many-sided aspects; and it will always be suggestive to regard it as a military service, an athletic contest, and as moral husbandry. But much as we reflect and ponder, it is the Lord only who can give us true understanding in all things. Timothy is not the only Christian or the only minister who is in danger of being disgusted, disheartened, and dismayed by the coldness and apathy of professing friends, and by the hostility and contempt of secret or open enemies. We are at times inclined to murmur because the rest for which we so often yearn is not given us hererest from toil, from temptation, from sin. Such a Sabbath rest is the prize in store for us; but we cannot have it here. And if we desire to have it hereafter, we must keep the rules of the arenaself-control, self-sacrifice, work (Plummer).
Lessons.
1. Religion is adapted to all conditions of life.
2. Obedience is the pathway of safety and success.
3. The highest prizes of religion are not secured without self-denying effort.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ti. 2:3-4. The Military Discipline
I. Requires the putting off or excision of the world as an interruptive and disqualifying power.
II. Raises spirit and high impulse by a training under authority exact and absolute.
III. We find in military discipline how to put a more genial look on our crosses and required self-denials.
IV. The military discipline has as little direct concern to beget happiness as it has to compel self-abnegation.
V. Whatever we get we must somehow fight for it.Bushnell.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
b.
As a Soldier 2Ti. 2:3-4
Text 2:3, 4
3 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier.
Thought Questions 2:3, 4
65.
Why inform Timothy that he was to take his place in suffering persecution? Was Timothy reluctant to do so?
66.
In what way would the sufferings of Timothy be associated with those of Paul?
67.
Why use the figure of a soldier? Show two or three comparisons.
68.
As a soldier of Christ Jesus, was Paul thinking of Christ as in this army? What position?
69.
Why mention possible entangling alliances?
70.
When does the Christian soldier get his furlough?
71.
Specify some of the affairs of this life in which the soldier of Christ Jesus could become entangled.
72.
How shall we understand the expression, enrolled him as a soldier?
73.
Is Christ actually affected with our conduct of life on earth; i.e., does He, personally, respond to our good and bad decisions? Explain.
Paraphrase 2:3, 4
3 Since thou must maintain the doctrine of Christ, and commit it in purity to others, do thou endure with constancy the evils attending that service as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, that the teachers whom thou appointest may imitate thee.
4 No soldier engages in any of the businesses of this life, that, being constantly ready for action, he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. The same rule ought a minister of the gospel to follow, that he may please Christ who hath called him,
Comment 2:3, 4
2Ti. 2:3. Timothy is not only Pauls child (or Gods child), but he is also Christs soldier.
As a soldier of Christ, he must expect his share in the suffering that accompanies this service. No good soldier of Nero would leave the army or refuse the service because of hardships. Shall we do less for Christ than the soldier does for the emperor?
Are you a good soldier of Christ Jesus? Then expect to sufferit came with your enlistment.
2Ti. 2:4. Continuing the metaphor, Paul reminds Timothy of the complete dedication required by army service. When there is a choice of activities, all that would hinder obedience to orders from the superior officer, must be eliminated.
The expression, on service, can also be translated, warring. The preacher is in a holy war! He must give his part in the battle priority over all else. How very many perfectly legitimate affairs of this life have taken up the time, thought and energy (to say nothing of money) that should have been given in winning the battle for King Jesus!
Someone immediately thinks of Pauls making tents as a hindering alliance with the affairs of this life. We do not know just how extensive such tent making was, or just what he did when working at such a task. But one thing we do know, it did not encumber him from warring the good warfare. Another thing we can know is that much tent making today does hinder and entangle Gods soldierhow much time, thought, energy and talents can we devote to our captain when it has been spent elsewhere? Please do not forget that our captain is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, both for good and for evil (Heb. 4:12). He is pleased or hurt by our service. The use of the term enrolled, as here used, is of one who has mustered an army and is calling for volunteers; for those who will enlist, We have enlisted at the call of our Commander, Lets give Him a full measure of serviceHe deserves it.
Fact Questions 2:3, 4
48.
What is the meaning of the expression, suffer hardships?
49.
Read Heb. 13:23 and discuss its possible application to suffer hardship with me.
50.
How is the complete dedication required of Christs soldiers here indicated?
51.
What is the meaning and application of the expression on service?
52.
How can it be determined when we have become entangled in the affairs of this life?
53.
Didnt Paul make tents? Wasnt this an association with the affairs of this life?
54.
Can we be sure that Jesus is pleased or hurt by our service? How?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(3) Thou therefore endure hardness.The older authorities do not contain the Greek word rendered thou therefore. The word translated endure hardness in the older authorities is compounded with a preposition, and is better and more literally rendered, take thy share in suffering. But Timothy must remember, if he obeys St. Pauls voice, and with steady earnestness follows St. Pauls tracks, the very same sufferings which have been the masters guerdon will be the lot of the loyal disciple. So St. Paul adds, Take thy share of suffering, or, Suffer hardship with me. Timothy must be prepared for this. He must look on himself as one of the pioneers of the army of the great King, as a tried veteran, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, prepared for the dangers and trials which in those days awaited such a calling. Then, under three different pictures, the Apostle paints the duties and rewards of a Christians life.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Endure The English translation omits the prefix that implies fellowship of endurance, co-suffering; endure-hardness-with-me; co-suffer as a good soldier, who shares with a fellow, shoulder to shoulder, the privation and the fight. And this endurance St. Paul now enforces from the analogy of the soldier, the gymnast, and the husbandman.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.’
He is also, like Paul himself, to face up to any hardship to come as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. The Lord’s army is on the march, the comforts and entanglements of home life have been left behind, and he must be ready to face both physical shortages and danger, and spiritual battles. He must especially recognise that such a life will often result in hardship and require perseverance and endurance, something that he must take on himself without regret because he has become one of Messiah’s chosen conscripts. And such a life is also required to be a life of discipline and obedience, and of keeping the weapons of their warfare constantly ready for battle (Eph 6:10-18).
Paul knew well some of the hardships of a soldier’s life first hand from the soldiers to whom he was manacled. Did he count as one of those hardships that, whether they liked it or not, they no doubt had to listen to the Gospel from him time and again? Hopefully for some it would turn out to their good, but for many it was probably seen as a great trial. For other references to the soldier-like nature of the Christian life see for example Rom 6:13; Rom 7:23 ; 1Co 9:7; 2Co 6:7 ; 2Co 10:4-6; Eph 6:11-18; 1Th 5:8 ; 1Ti 1:18; 1Ti 6:12. See also Php 2:25; Phm 1:2
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2Ti 2:3 . ] Timothy is not to shun a community of suffering with the apostle, 2Ti 1:8 ; 2Ti 1:12 ; 2Ti 1:16 .
] stands elsewhere in the N. T. only in its proper sense, but, as is well known, the kindred words , , are often used of the Christian life. Here, however, the apostle is speaking not generally of Timothy’s work as a Christian, but more specially of his work in the office committed to him, viz. of his struggle against the opponents of evangelic truth and the toils connected therewith.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Ver. 3. Endure hardship ] Never dream of a delicacy; think not to find God in the gardens of Egypt, whom Moses found not but in the burning bush. Many love Canaan, but loathe the wilderness; commend the country, but look upon the conquest as impossible; would sit in the seat of honour with Zebedee’s children, but not drink the cup of affliction. These deceive themselves.
As a good soldier, &c. ] Christ saith to us (as the Black Prince’s father sent to him, fighting as it were in blood to the knees, and in a great distress), Either vanquish or die; as the Prince of Orange said to his soldiers at the battle of Newport, when they had the sea on the one side, and the Spaniards on the other, If you will live, you must either eat up these Spaniards or drink up this sea.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3 .] Suffer hardship with me (Conyb. happily renders it, ‘Take thy share in suffering.’ The – binds it to what precedes and follows, referring primarily to the Apostle himself, though doubtless having a wider reference to all who similarly suffer: see above, on the connexion of 2Ti 2:2 ), as a good soldier of Jesus Christ .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
2Ti 2:3-13 . The condition of all success is toil; toil which may involve pain. Think of the price of a soldier’s victory, the conditions of an athlete’s crown, of a field-labourer’s wage. Our Lord Jesus Himself, as man, is the great Exemplar of this law. I am another. This is a faithful saying; and therefore we sing, “We shall live with Him because we died with Him, etc.”.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2Ti 2:3 . : Take thy part in suffering hardship (R.V.m.). This general reference is better than to supply , as R.V. See note on 2Ti 1:8 . : cf. , Phi 2:25 , Phm 1:2 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
endure hardness. Greek. kakopatheo. Literally suffer
evil. Here, 2Ti 2:9; 2Ti 4:5, Jam 5:13.
Jesus Christ. The texts read “Christ Jesus”, as 2Ti 2:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3.] Suffer hardship with me (Conyb. happily renders it, Take thy share in suffering. The – binds it to what precedes and follows, referring primarily to the Apostle himself, though doubtless having a wider reference to all who similarly suffer: see above, on the connexion of 2Ti 2:2), as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
2Ti 2:3. , thou then) An Anaphora;[2] comp. 2Ti 2:1. Timothy is here, 2Ti 2:3, called to higher duties; comp. 2Ti 2:2.
[2] Frequent repetition of the same word in beginnings. Append.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
2Ti 2:3
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.-To suffer hardness is to bear persecution, deny oneself, and labor for the salvation of others. God carries his children through a discipline of hardness to try and strengthen their faith and develop the worthy elements of their character. [Here is a volume of tenderness and yearning confidence of a fathers claims to loyal imitation. Take your share in enduring hardness. Take up my mantle. Paul bids Timothy come with him, come after him, be one with all who war the good warfare. Though strange it may seem to some, he craved the right of this to nerve him for his last crowning effort.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
endure: 2Ti 2:10, 2Ti 1:8, 2Ti 3:11, 2Ti 4:5, 1Co 13:7, 2Co 1:6, Heb 6:15, Heb 10:32, Heb 11:27, Heb 12:2, Heb 12:3, Jam 1:12
a good: 2Co 10:3-5, Eph 6:11-18, 1Ti 1:18
Reciprocal: Num 4:23 – to perform the service Num 8:24 – wait upon Num 16:5 – even him Jos 10:9 – all night Jdg 3:2 – might know 2Sa 11:11 – my lord 1Ch 26:6 – mighty men of valour Neh 4:17 – with one Pro 27:17 – so Jer 13:5 – as Luk 9:60 – but Luk 10:2 – the labourers Act 23:31 – as 1Co 9:7 – goeth 1Co 16:13 – quit 2Co 10:4 – our Phi 2:25 – fellowsoldier Phm 1:2 – our fellowsoldier Heb 11:25 – Choosing Rev 1:9 – companion
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE WAR OF THE LORD
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2Ti 2:3
The good soldier of Jesus Christ!
I. Eyes fixed.He turns neither to the right hand nor to the left. Through evil report and good report, in sunshine and in storm, in patient endurance and with earnest endeavour, he climbs the steep ascent which leads to Life, drawn onwards by the attraction of Him on Whom his faith and hope and love are fixed, the King in His beauty.
II. The hardness of which the Apostle speaks is not the petty chastisement which men may choose to inflict upon themselves, and imagine that so they are bearing the Cross of Christ. It is the hardness of actual war. Keep watch and ward over the thoughts, the words, the deeds, of every hour. Take up arms with all your heart and mind, and soul and strength, against the sin which most easily besets you; and soon you will find that your path is rough indeed, your struggle hard.
III. There are three marks by which you are to be known:
(a) The bold confession of His Name before a world which loves Him not.
(b) Manly energy in the wars of the Lord.
(c) Faithful perseverance even to the end.
Illustration
We are called upon to endure hardness, to take our part in suffering hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. The word for this duty is often used in classical writers of the fatigues, the burdens, and privations which are connected with military service; and these thoughts may be applied to the higher service of the King of kings. Christianity means to-day what it always did. There is ever a cross to carry, spiritual fatigues and privations to be borne, principles for which to contend, hardness to be endured.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER
Let us think for a moment of some of those qualifications which make for a good soldier.
I. Loyalty to the Captain of our salvation.Loyalty to the Church of which we are so justly proud; loyalty to the principles of our Church; loyalty to our baptismal or confirmation vowsthis is right and good, but nothing will sustain our enthusiasm in the battle of life like loyalty to the Person of Jesus Christ. This word loyalty involves several ideas.
(a) It involves absolute trust in our Leader and devotion to His Person. The Christian soldier does his work well in the exact degree of his devotion to Christ. This is the deep secret of a good warfare. Great leaders have ever had the power of calling forth the enthusiasm of their followers. Hannibal, Csar, Napoleon, and our own Wellington had this power. And the love of Christ constraineth us. There is no power like the power of His Name to excite the enthusiasm of His people and to draw them on to battle and to victory.
(b) And loyalty to Christ involves the hatred of sinthe enemy of Christ, of goodness, of our souls. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil. This knowledge that sin is disloyalty to our Master may often be the means of keeping us from it, as we struggle to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
II. Strict obedience to orders, although we may not at the time understand them.
III. A face, and never the back, turned to the enemy.
IV. A readiness to take whatever place be assigned to us in the battle without question.
V. A firm persuasion of the righteousness of the cause in which we are fighting.
Rev. Dr. Noyes.
Illustration
The exhortation of the text is, no doubt, addressed in the first instance to one who was an officer in the Christian army; but its application is not restricted to those only who are stewards of the mysteries of God. The life of every Christian is from one aspect a warfarea warriors historya fact of which we should never lose sight. It is a thought before us very frequently in the Holy Scripture, and in the Offices of our Church. When the sign of the Cross was imprinted on our brow at Holy Baptism, it was in token that we should not hereafter be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, but manfully to fight under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christs faithful soldier and servant unto our lifes end.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
MILITARY LIFE
What has the soldier which is purely good? St. Paul would point us to two things, discipline and endurance.
I. He is a man of discipline, who has taken, in the Roman phrase, a sacrament, or oath. He has chosen his side and has his Master. It is that which our dear Lord Himself praises in the first centurion of the Gospel (St. Matthew 8.). We Christians need that lesson very much. There are Christians who all their life long are wondering on which side they shall stand, and who are ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Let us pray our Captain, our Lord and Saviour, that we may not fall into the awful curse of those who deny Him, their Master.
II. The hardness, the endurance, of the military life.That also is a lesson to us as a nation and a Church. In the nation there is a perilous seeking after softness, pleasure, satisfaction, ease, a longing to avoid what is hard; I speak not of luxury, I speak not of eating and drinking, of lying soft and rolling swift: those are mere specks upon the stream of our life. I speak of that general and widespread longing to avoid all that is unpleasant, to avoid the word that costs us or our neighbour pain, to avoid the manly course when we are in an awkward situation, to replace the Christian ideal of suffering and conflict by another ideal of mere release from bodily pain, of an earthly and passing peace of mind, of a health and bodily development which subjects all other interests to its own. The man who is trying to find a soft place in the world will never find one soft enough. It is from those given up to pleasure, and longing for what they call happiness, that we hear words which come near to rebellion against God Himself when they have met with one of the common troubles of life. They see endless losses in losses which are indeed real, but in which braver souls find encouragement. Fighting people find the world tolerable and joyful; it is those who recognise it as a battle who are optimists. The soft theory means a bitter heart, and the bold acceptance of Gods call to arms means a heart at peace, knowing peace under the banner of a King at war.
Rev. P. N. Waggett.
Illustration
St. Paul loved soldiers, and owed much to them; and, seeing their frank and brave carriage, he says, This also is what the Christian is to be: let him be the good soldier of Christ, and keep himself from all entanglements of civil life, the ordinary affairs of this life, which he must use but not be used by, in order that he may give satisfaction to Him Who has chosen him to be, not His darling, but His soldier.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Ti 2:3. A good soldier is one who is willing to endure hardness or hardships on behalf of his country. He cannot always be resting in the comfort of his own camp, but must be out on the firing line before the enemy. Likewise the soldier of the cross must face the many persecutions as he battles against the enemies of the Lord.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Ti 2:3. Endure hardness. The word is the same as that rendered in 2Ti 1:8, be thou partaker of the afflictions. Take thy share in hardships would express its meaning. We lose the emphasis of repetition by the change of the English words.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Still we find our apostle prosecuting the great and general design of this epistle, which is to direct Timothy in the faithful discharge of his office, as a minister of the gospel, and particularly to prepare for sufferings, and to inure himself to hardship, and to encounter with difficulties and dangers:
Hence, he compares him to a soldier, to a wrestler, and an husbandman:
1. To a soldier; endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Learn hence, That every faithful minister is a spiritual soldier, warring under Jesus Christ, his captain and chief commander:
Must the soldier be called and to do all by comission? so must the minister.
Must the soldier be armed, trained up, and disciplined, and made fit for service? so must the minister.
Must the soldier shun no dangers, stick at no difficulties, pass through thick and thin?
must he use allowed weapons, approved armour of his general’s directing, not of his own inventing? all this must the minister be and do.
In a word, must the soldier please him that hath chosen him to be a soldier, and in order thereunto, not entangle himself with the affairs of this life? Such a life of freedom from incumbrance by secular affairs, should the minister of God desire and endeavour after.
Soldiers must be as free as may be from distractions; a soldier that fights in fetters, fights thereafter: he must put off his fetters before he puts on his armour; the ministers work lies in the affairs of the other life:
Now, he that is entangled in the affairs of this life, will do little about the affairs of the next.
He must also please his captain, not please himself, his appetite, his pride, his covetousness, much less must he please the enemy he is to fight against, the devil, the world, and the flesh.
Again, 2. The minister here is compared to a wrestler; If a man strive for the mastery: that is, for the prize, the garland, the crown, at the end of the race; he shall be crowned if he strives lawfully, if he runs fairly according to the rules of the game, and perseveres finally till he comes to the end of the goal.
Thus must the ministers of the gospel strive for the crown of life, by putting forth all their strength, exerting theri utmost endeavours; such as are now wrestlers, shall ere long be conquerors.
Lastly, Timothy, and all with him in the work of the gospel, are here compared to husbandmen: As the husbandman must first toil and labour before he can partake of the fruits of the earth, he must plough and sow before he can reap and gather; so must the minister of God, by a laborious diligence, cultivate and improve the people, before he can hope to reap that great fruit and benefit, by gaining and converting of souls to Christ. God will regard no ministers but the laborious, he will never dignify drones in the church triumphant.
Farther, by comparing Timothy to an husbandman, he intimates to him his duty, not to be discouraged if he doth not reap fruit presently; the seed sometimes lies under the clods long before it does appear; we must not despair of men too soon.
And, lastly, By comparing Timothy to an husbandman, he seems to intimate, that he was to be sustained and maintained by those for whom he laboured.
Thus having laid Timothy’s duty before him, under the metaphor of a soldier, a wrestler, and an husbandman; he counsels him to consider what he had said unto him, and desires of God to give him a right understanding and sound judgment in all things; intimating that they that will have God’s word and good counsel blessed by God to their understanding and practice, must ponder upon it, consider of it, and duly apply it to themselves; Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Different Images of a Minister’s Life If Timothy was to pass along the gospel, he would have to be prepared to suffer persecution, self denial and the onslaught of the enemy like a soldier on active duty. Guthrie says Paul is telling Timothy that he will have to take his share of suffering. He went on to use the image of a soldier loaded down with items not pertaining to his warfare. When it came time to draw his sword, he would find it tangled up in the things he is carrying and could not have it drawn when the fight began. All Christians need to keep a constant watch on their involvement in the things of this world. Of course, we need to work to provide for our own, for example, but such work should never entangle our sword, or God’s word, and prevent us from using it to defeat Satan. Our overriding concern should be to please the Savior, who is also our commander ( 2Ti 2:3-4 ).
Just as an athlete competing in the Olympic games must abide by the rules if he would be declared the winner, the Christian must pursue the goal of heaven along the course laid out by the Master. Followers of Christ are also like the farmer who works hard to produce a crop and gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Those believers who work hard to teach others the will of God will find themselves becoming the first beneficiary of laboring with God’s word ( 2Ti 2:5-6 ).
Paul urged Timothy to carefully consider the images he presented. If he did so, the apostle said the Lord would help him gain a complete understanding of all things. Once anyone has grown in the knowledge of God’s word, he needs God’s help to have the wisdom to properly apply it to his life ( 2Ti 2:7 ; Jas 1:5 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
2Ti 2:3-7. Thou therefore endure hardness , literally, endure evil; that is, expect persecutions and various sufferings, and, by the powerful aids of divine grace, endure them with courage, constancy, and patience; as a good soldier of Jesus Christ Who endured much greater afflictions in the days of his flesh, and hath thereby shown all who engage to fight under his banner, and would approve themselves his faithful soldiers, that they must expect to meet with various hardships and sufferings, and in what spirit they must sustain them, that they may war a good warfare, and prove victorious. No man that warreth entangleth himself any more than is unavoidable, in the affairs of this life With any other business or employment; that Minding war only; he may please him who hath chosen him, &c. Namely, his captain or general. In this and the next verse, there is a plain allusion to the Roman law of arms, and to that of the Grecian games. According to the former, no soldier, at least no legionary soldier, (as Grotius has here shown,) was suffered to engage in any civil occupation, such as agriculture, merchandise, mechanical employments, or any business which might divert him from his profession. According to the latter, no one could be crowned as conqueror who did not keep strictly to the rules of the game. The apostle, by applying these things to the ministers of the gospel, hath shown that all who undertake the office of the ministry should, on the one hand, avoid engaging in such secular businesses as would engross their attention, and require much time to execute; and, on the other, should be careful to observe all the rules of faith and practice enjoined in the gospel. The husbandman that laboureth, &c. This should undoubtedly be rather rendered, The husbandman must first labour, and then partake of the fruits; or, must labour before he partake of the fruits. For it was entirely to the apostles purpose to remind Timothy that the labour of the husbandman must precede the harvest; but whether he was to receive these fruits first, or before any others, was not the point in question. How much more, as if the apostle had said, oughtest thou to labour, O Timothy, in the ministry before thou art rewarded. Consider what I say Concerning the necessity of devoting thyself wholly to the ministry, and enduring evil; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things Belonging to the gospel, and thy duty as a Christian and a minister.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 3
Hardness; hardship.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Endure that which God brings your way – as a soldier. While doing this study, I watched several war movies – movies about World War II and Viet Nam. I was struck by the commitment of these men – men that had survived heavy battles and had lived when so many had died – men that had to walk immediately back into some other skirmish which could be as bad if not worse than the one before. If they survived that one, they were willing to walk into another and another, when each battle was one worthy of being their last, yet they kept going.
What an example we have in these men – they were fighting/dying for their country. We as believers have a Savior which is much more worthy of our commitment and sacrifice – how willing are we to step into hardship for Him?
We knew a couple that were pastoring a church in the Midwest when God called them to go to the mission field. They packed up their few belongings and visited a few churches and raised $150 dollars a month support and enough for airfare to the Philippine Islands and left to serve the Lord in that needy land.
Today we have missionaries that are willing to go out to the field, but they must have $5, 000 a month support. They cant go without a full compliment of everything that they might need, nor can they leave without their retirement adequately supplied, their return fare guaranteed, and a number of other things.
Not that the missionary today should not look to his families need, but that he should look to God for his families need, not the gathering of funds.
Having said that, there are a few I have met that have gone to the field as the young couple years ago, and they have faired quite well with God supplying their needs.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
2:3 {2} Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
(2) Another admonition: that the ministry of the word is a spiritual warfare, which no man can so travail in that he pleases his captain, unless he abstains from and parts with all hindrances which might draw him away from it.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Paul’s long ministry with Timothy had included many hardships. Now, as Timothy looked forward to training other younger men, he could expect more of the same. Paul urged him to submit to difficulties as a good soldier.
The apostle used three illustrations to help Timothy appreciate the logical consistency of this exhortation (cf. 1Co 9:7; 1Co 9:10; 1Co 9:24). The first illustration is the soldier (cf. Eph 6:11-17; 1Th 5:8). Paul’s emphasis in this illustration was on the importance of remaining free from entanglement with other lesser goals and activities while serving the Lord. This is something about which Paul had previously warned Timothy (1Ti 6:3-16; cf. Mat 13:22; Luk 8:14). Obviously Paul did not mean that a minister should always give all of his time to preaching and teaching to the exclusion of any tent-making activities. He meant that he should not let other duties drain off his energies or interests or divert him from his primary responsibilities as a Christian soldier. Demas, whom Paul mentioned later, turned out to be a bad soldier in this respect (cf. 2Ti 4:10). As an ordinary soldier must be single-minded in his purpose, rigorous in his self-discipline, and unquestioning in his obedience, so must every soldier of Christ.
"Paul’s appeal shows the importance of developing an ability to distinguish between doing good things and doing the best things. Servants of Christ are not merely to be well-rounded dabblers in all types of trivial pursuits. They are tough-minded devotees of Christ who constantly choose the right priorities from a list of potential selections." [Note: Lea, p. 203.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 30
THE CHRISTIANS LIFE AS MILITARY SERVICE; AS AN ATHLETIC CONTEST; AS HUSBANDRY. – 2Ti 2:3-7
ST. PAUL represents the Christian life and the Christian ministry under a variety of figures. Sometimes as husbandry; as when he tells the Galatians that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”; and that “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not”; {Gal 6:7; Gal 6:9} or when he reminds the Corinthians that “he that plougheth ought to plough in hope, and he that thresheth, to thresh in hope of partaking”. {1Co 9:10} Sometimes as an athletic contest; as when he tells the Corinthians that “every man who striveth in the games is temperate in all things”; {1Co 9:25} or the Ephesians that “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”. {Eph 6:12} Sometimes, and most frequently, as military service: as when he charges the Thessalonians to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation”; {1Th 5:8} or when he writes to the Philippians of Epaphroditus as his “fellow-soldier”. {Php 2:25}
In the passage before us he makes use of all three figures: but the one of which he seems to have been most fond is the one which he places first, -that of military service. “Suffer hardships with me,” or “take thy share in suffering, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier.” He had used the same kind of language in the First Epistle, urging Timothy to “war the good warfare” and to “fight the good fight of faith”. {1Ti 1:18; 1Ti 6:12} Every Christian, and especially every Christian minister, may be regarded as a soldier, as an athlete, as a husbandman; but of the three similitudes the one which fits him best is that of a soldier.
Even if this were not so, St. Pauls fondness for the metaphor would be very intelligible.
1. Military service was very familiar to him, especially in his imprisonments. He had been arrested by soldiers at Jerusalem, escorted by
2. troops to Caesarea, sent under the charge of a centurion and a band of soldiers to Rome, and had been kept there under military surveillance for many months in the first Roman imprisonment, and for we know not how long in the second. And we may assume it as almost certain that the place of his imprisonment was near the praetorian camp. This would probably be so ordered for the convenience of the soldiers who had charge of him. He therefore had very large opportunities of observing very closely all the details of ordinary military life. He must frequently have seen soldiers under drill, on parade, on guard, on the march; must have watched them cleaning, mending, and sharpening their weapons; putting their armor on, putting it off. Often during hours of enforced inactivity he must have compared these details with the details of the Christian life, and noticed how admirably they corresponded with one another.
Military service was not only very familiar to himself; it was also quite sufficiently familiar to those whom he addressed. Roman troops were everywhere to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the Empire, and nearly every member of society knew something of the kind of life which a soldier of the Empire had to lead.
1. The Roman army was the one great organization of which it was still possible, in that age of boundless social corruption, to think and speak with right-minded admiration and respect. No doubt it was often the instrument of wholesale cruelties as it pushed forward its conquests, or strengthened its hold, over resisting or rebelling nations. But it promoted discipline and esprit de corps. Even during active warfare it checked individual license; and when the conquest was over it was the representative and mainstay of order and justice against high-handed anarchy and wrong. Its officers several times appear m the narrative portions of the New Testament, and they make a favorable impression upon us. If they are fair specimens of the military men in the Roman Empire at that period, then the Roman army must have been indeed a fine service. There is the centurion whose faith excited even Christs admiration; the centurion who confessed Christs righteousness and Divine origin at the crucifixion; Cornelius, of the Italian cohort, to whom St. Peter was sent; C. Lysias, the chief captain or tribune who rescued St. Paul, first from the mob, and then from the conspiracy to assassinate him; and Julius, who out of consideration for St. Paul prevented the soldiers from killing the prisoners in the shipwreck.
2. But the reasons for the Apostles preference for this similitude go deeper than all this.
Military service involves self-sacrifice, endurance, discipline, vigilance, obedience, ready co-operation with others, sympathy, enthusiasm, loyalty. Tertullian in his “Address to Martyrs” draws with characteristic incisiveness the stern parallel between the severity of the soldiers life and that of the Christian. “Be it so, that even to Christians a prison is distasteful. We were called to active service under the Living God from the very moment of our response to the baptismal formula. No soldier comes to the war surrounded by luxuries, nor goes into action from a comfortable bedroom, but from the makeshift and narrow tent, where every kind of hardness and severity and unpleasantness is to be found. Even in peace soldiers learn betimes to suffer warfare by toil and discomforts, by marching in arms, running over the drill-ground, working at trench-making, constructing the tortoise till the sweat runs again. In the sweat of the brow all things are done, lest body and mind should shrink at changes from shade to sunshine, and from sunshine to frost, from the dress of ease to the coat of mail, from stillness to shouting, from quiet to the din of war. In like manner do ye, O blessed ones, account whatever is hard in this your lot as discipline of the powers of your mind and body. Ye are about to enter for the good fight, in which the Living God gives the prizes, and the Holy Spirit prepares the combatants, and the crown is the eternal prize of an angels nature, citizenship in heaven, glory forever and ever. Therefore your trainer, Jesus Christ, Who has anointed you with the Spirit and led you forth to this arena, has seen good to separate you from a state of freedom for rougher treatment, that power may be made strong in you. For the athletes also are set apart for stricter discipline, that they may have time to build up their strength. They are kept from luxury, from daintier meats, from too pleasant drink; they are driven, tormented, distressed. The harder their labors in training, the greater their hopes of victory. And they do it, says the Apostle, that they may obtain a corruptible crown. We, with an eternal crown to obtain, look upon the prison as our training-ground, that we may be led to the arena of the judgment-seat well disciplined by every kind of discomfort: because virtue is built up, by hardness, but by softness is overthrown” (“Ad Mart.,” 3.). It will be observed that Tertullian passes by an easy transition from training for military service to training for athletic contests. The whole passage is little more than a graphic amplification of what St. Paul writes to Timothy.
1. But military service implies, what athletic contests do not, vigilant, unwearying, and organized opposition to a vigilant, unwearying, and organized foe. In many athletic contests ones opponent is a rival rather than an enemy. He may defeat us; but he inflicts no injury. He may win the prizes; but he takes nothing of ours. And even in the more deadly conflicts of the amphitheatre the enemy is very different from an enemy in war. The combat is between individuals, not armies; it is the exception and not the rule; it is strictly limited in time and place, not for all times and all places; it is a duel and not a campaign, – still less a prolonged war. Military service is either perpetual warfare or perpetual preparation for it. And just such is the Christian life: it is either a conflict, or a preparation for one. The soldier, so long as he remains in the service, can never say, “I may lay aside my arms and my drill: all enemies are conquered; there will never be another war.” And the Christian, so long as he remains in this world, can never think that he may cease to watch and to pray, because the victory is won, and he will never be tempted any more. It is for this reason that he cannot allow himself to be “entangled in the affairs of this life.” The soldier on service avoids this error: he knows that it would interfere with his promotion. The Christian must avoid it at least as carefully; for he is always on service, and the loss of promotion is the loss of eternal life.
Observe that St. Paul does not suggest that Christians should keep aloof from the affairs of this life, which would be a flat contradiction of what he teaches elsewhere. The Christian is to “do his own business, and to work with his hands, that he may walk honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing”. {1Th 4:11-12} He has a duty to perform “in the affairs of this life,” but in doing it he is not to be entangled in them. They are means, not ends; and must be made to help him on, not suffered to keep him back. If they become entanglements instead of opportunities, he will soon lose that state of constant preparation and alertness, which is the indispensable condition of success.
The same thought is brought out in the second metaphor by the word ” lawfully. ” The athlete who competes in the games does not receive a crown, unless he has contended lawfully, i.e. , according to rule ( ). Even if he seems to be victorious, he nevertheless is not crowned, because he has violated the well-known conditions. And what is the rule, what are the conditions of the Christians contest? “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” If we wish to share Christs victory, we must be ready to share His suffering. No cross, no crown. To try, to withdraw oneself from all hardship and annoyance, to attempt to avoid all that is painful or disagreeable, is a violation of the rules of the arena. This, it would appear, Timothy was in some respects tempted to do; and timidity and despondency must not be allowed to get the upper hand. Not that what is painful, or distasteful, or unpopular, is necessarily right; but it is certainly not necessarily wrong: and to try to avoid everything that one dislikes is to ensure being fatally wrong. So that, as Chrysostom says, “it behooves thee not to complain, if thou endurest hardness; but to complain, if thou dost not endure hardness.”
Chrysostom and some modern commentators make the striving lawfully include not only the observance of the rules of the contest, but the previous training and preparation. “What is meant by lawfully? It is not enough that he is anointed, and even engages, unless he complies with all the regulations of training with respect to diet, temperance, and sobriety, and all the rules of the wrestling-school. Unless, in short, he go through all that is befitting a wrestler, he is not crowned.” This makes good sense, if “is not crowned” be interpreted to mean “is not likely to be first,” rather than “does not receive the crown, even if he is first.” A victorious athlete is rightly deprived of the reward, if he has violated the conditions of the contest: but no one ever yet heard of a victor being refused the prize because he had not trained properly. Moreover, there are enough examples to show that “lawfully” ( ) does sometimes include the training as well as the contest.
But this does not seem to be St. Pauls meaning. In the first similitude he takes no account of the time which precedes the soldiers service, during which he may be supposed to be preparing himself for it. The Christians life and the soldiers service are regarded as coextensive, and there is no thought of any previous period. So also in the second similitude. The Christians life and the athletes contest are regarded as co-extensive, and no account is taken of anything that may have preceded. Baptism is entering the lists, not entering the training-school; and the only rules under consideration are the rules of the arena.
No doubt there are analogies between the training-school and Christian discipline, and St. Paul sometimes makes use of them; {1Co 9:25; 1Co 9:27} but they do not seem to be included in the present metaphor.
But it is about the third similitude that there has been most discussion. “The husbandman that laboreth must be the first to partake of the fruits”: not, as the A.V., “must be first partaker of the fruits”; which seems to imply that he must partake of the fruits before he labors. What is the meaning of “first?” Some commentators resort to the rather desperate hypothesis that this word is misplaced, as it sometimes is in careless writing and conversation: and they suppose that what St. Paul means is, that “the husbandman, who labors first, must then partake of the fruits,” or, more clearly, “the husbandman, who wishes to partake of the fruits, must first of all labor.” The margin of the A.V suggests a similar translation. But this is to credit the Apostle with great clumsiness of expression. And even if this transposition of the “first” could be accepted as probable, there still remains the fact that we have the present and not the aorist participle ( and not ). Had St. Paul meant what is supposed, he would have said “The husbandman who has first labored,” not “who labor first.” But there is no transposition of the “first.” The order of the Greek shows that the emphatic word is “labors.” “It is the laboring husbandman who must be the first to partake of the fruits.” It is the man who works hard and with a will, and not the one who works listlessly or looks despondently on, who, according to all moral fitness and the nature of things, ought to have the first share in the fruits. This interpretation does justice to the Greek as it stands, without resorting to any manipulation of the Apostles language. Moreover, it brings the saying into perfect harmony with the context.
It is quite evident that the three metaphors are parallel to one another and are intended to teach the same lesson. In each of them we have two things placed side by side, -a prize and the method to be observed in obtaining it. Do you, as a Christian soldier on service, wish for the approbation of Him who has enrolled you? Then you must avoid the entanglements which would interfere with your service. Do you, as a Christian athlete, wish for the crown of victory? Then you must not evade the rules of the contest. Do you, as a Christian husbandman, wish to be among the first to enjoy the harvest? Then you must be foremost in toil. And the Apostle draws attention to the importance of the lesson of self-devotion and endurance inculcated under these three impressive figures, by adding, “Consider what I say; for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things.” That is, He has confidence that His disciple will be enabled to draw the right conclusion from these metaphors; and having done so, will have grace to apply it to his own case.
Timothy is not the only Christian, or the only minister, who is in danger of being disgusted, and disheartened, and dismayed, by the coldness and apathy of professing friends, and by the hostility and contempt of secret or open enemies. We all of us need at times to be reminded that here we have no abiding city, but that our citizenship is in heaven. And we all of us are at times inclined to murmur, because the rest for which we so often yearn is not given us here; -a rest from toil, a rest from temptation, and a rest from sin. Such a sabbath-rest is the prize in store for us; but we cannot have it here. And if we desire to have it hereafter, we must keep the rules of the arena; and the rules are self-control, self-sacrifice, and work.