 |  |
"Knowing of whom thou hast learned them."
"By me the preaching might be fully known."
If unwarranted and uninspired this insistence on the personal pronoun would be
disturbing, but the statements are as true as John 3: 16. When we realize how few there
are who stand for the truth of the mystery, we should be all the more determined, by
grace, to devote our every effort to its support and to its furtherance. If only all those
who realize the blessedness of the calling could say "One thing I do", what a testimony
would go out from this little, despised company! May every reader ponder II Tim. 2: 8, 9
as before the Lord, making it a very personal matter. We might do worse than breathe
the earliest recorded prayer of Paul:
"Lord, what wilt THOU have ME to do" (Acts 9: 6).
#18. The Faithful Saying (2: 10-13).
The difference between living and reigning with Christ.
pp. 49 - 54
In our last article we left Paul in bonds, suffering as an evildoer but exulting in the fact
that "the word of God is not bound". The subject is in some measure continued to
verse 13, the end of the present section.
"I endure", said the Apostle, and associated his endurance with the aionion glory of
the believer. "If we endure", continued the Apostle, and associated that endurance of the
believer himself with the added glory of "reigning" with Christ.
In the original, the words translated in the A.V. of II Tim. 2: 10 and 12 "I endure"
and "If we suffer" are the verb hupomeno, from hupo, "under", and meno, "remain" or
"abide". The noun form of this word is hupomone, and is translated "patience", and it
would be wise if, in the verb, we brought the two words together and translated
II Tim. 2: 10 and 12 "patiently endure", for there may be a grudging or murmuring
endurance, which is far from the Apostle's meaning here.
Let us use this opportunity of becoming acquainted with the usage and derivations of
this word meno, and for our present purpose let us confine ourselves to the epistles to
Timothy.
Meno, "To remain or abide":
"If they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety" (I Tim. 2: 15).
"If we believe not, He abideth faithful" (II Tim. 2: 13).
"But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned" (II Tim. 3: 14).
"Erastus abode at Corinth" (II Tim. 4: 20).