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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 2 Timothy 3:10 - 3:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
fully known - literally, “fully followed up” and traced; namely, with a view to following me as thy pattern, so far as I follow Christ; the same Greek as in Luk 1:3, “having had perfect understanding of all things.” His pious mother Eunice and grandmother Lois would recommend him to study fully Paul’s Christian course as a pattern. He had not been yet the companion of Paul at the time of the apostle’s persecutions in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (Act 13:50; Act 14:5, Act 14:19), but is first mentioned as such Act 16:1-3. However, he was “a disciple” already, when introduced to us in Act 16:1-3; and as Paul calls him “my own son in the faith,” he must have been converted by the apostle previously; perhaps in the visit to those parts three years before. Hence arose Timothy’s knowledge of Paul’s persecutions, which were the common talk of the churches in those regions about the time of his conversion. The incidental allusion to them here forms an undesigned coincidence between the history and the Epistle, indicating genuineness [Paley, Horae Paulinae]. A forger of Epistles from the Acts would never allude to Timothy’s knowledge of persecutions, when that knowledge is not expressly mentioned in the history, but is only arrived at by indirect inference; also the omission of Derbe here, in the Epistle, is in minute accordance with the fact that in Derbe no persecution is mentioned in the history, though Derbe and Lystra are commonly mentioned together. The reason why he mentions his persecutions before Timothy became his companion, and not those subsequent, was because Timothy was familiar with the latter as an eye-witness and Paul needed not to remind him of them, but the former Timothy had traced up by seeking the information from others, especially as the date and scene of them was the date and scene of his own conversion.
doctrine - “teaching.”
manner of life - “conduct,” “behavior.”
purpose - The Greek is elsewhere usually used of God’s “purpose.” But here, as in Act 11:23, of Paul’s determined “purpose of heart in cleaving unto the Lord.” My set aim, or resolution, in my apostolic function, and in every action is, not my selfish gain, but the glory of God in Christ.
long-suffering - towards my adversaries, and the false teachers; towards brethren in bearing their infirmities; towards the unconverted, and the lapsed when penitent (2Ti 4:2; 2Co 6:6; Gal 5:22; Eph 4:2; Col 3:12).
charity - love to all men.
patience - “endurance”; patient continuance in well-doing amidst adversities (2Ti 3:11; Rom 2:7).