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was not uttered by one who lived a shielded life. Here we find the apostle fully living out
his own injunctions:
"Through me the proclamation (kerugma) might be fully known, and that all the
Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the month of the lion" (4: 17).
When the apostle made the solemn claim to be "a preacher, and an apostle, and a
teacher of the Gentiles" (I Tim. 2: 7 and II Tim. 1: 11), the word translated "preacher"
is kerux.
There is therefore need not only to preach the glad tidings of great joy, but to proclaim
the Word as an herald, even though the hearers prove antagonistic or indifferent.
Moreover, Timothy is enjoined to "preach the WORD". This word logos occurs
seven times in the second epistle, and is evidently a key word. Its distribution is as
follows:
A | 1: 13. The form of sound words, hugiaino "sound".
B | 2: 9. Paul suffering, the word not bound.
C | 2: 11. The faithful saying.
D | 2: 15. The principle, Rightly divide the Word of truth.
C | 2: 17. The word like a canker.
A | 4: 2, 3. Preach the word . . . sound doctrine, hugiaino "sound".
B | 4: 15-18. Paul's word withstood. Prison.
One item of value that comes to the surface by putting these references together, is
that the correspondence of A | 1: 13 and A | 4: 2, 3, indicates that the "Word"
which Timothy was exhorted to preach would be in line with that "form of sound words"
which he had learned of Paul. It was that "good deposit" about which the apostle was so
concerned, and he knew that just as at the beginning, men had "turned away from"
himself the preacher (II Tim. 1: 15), so in the latter days men would "turn away from" the
teaching he had received, for which he had lived and suffered and for which he was about
to die.
"Preach the Word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap unto themselves teachers, having
itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto
fables" (4: 2-4).
"Be instant." This word has now become obsolete. It must not be confused with a
word of the same spelling which means, the time now present. Instancy is still in use
bearing the meaning of urgency.
Ephistemi, the word translated "be instant" is used by Paul once again in this same
chapter, when he says "The time of my departure is at hand" (4: 6). Paul uses the word
on only one other occasion, namely in I Thess. 5: 3 when he said "Sudden destruction
cometh upon them" There is an urgency in the word, and this is intentional on the part of