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#14.
The Good Soldier.
Together with the structure of II Tim. 2: 1-13.
pp. 121 - 126
We have already devoted two articles to this third section of the epistle, but, before
going further, it is imperative that we discover the structure, otherwise we shall miss the
Divine underscoring, emphasize parts that appeal to ourselves, and so fail in our quest.
It has already been made evident that the testimony of the Lord's prisoner was not
only despised and rejected but opposed and hated. The preceding section, II Tim. 1: 8-18,
opens with a reference to afflictions, as though the testimony of the Lord's prisoner and
enduring afflictions necessarily went together. Three times in this brief compass of
eleven verses we meet the word "ashamed"; "be not ashamed", "I am not ashamed",
"he was not ashamed", while in verse 12 Paul categorically states that he suffered
because he was a preacher, an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.
The Lord's answer to this discouraging aspect of things is the encouragement given in
the third section, where suffering is intimately associated with reigning, and enduring
with a crown.
Shorn of detail, the structure is resolved into three parts, thus:
II Timothy 2: 1 - 13.
A | 1-7. The Crown.
B | 8-10. I suffer, I endure.
A | 11-13. The Reign.
the key note being Suffering and Reigning. But the following fuller analysis is necessary
to our understanding of the epistle, before we can effectively proceed to its exposition.