Deeper Reflection
PAUL HAD ARRIVED AT THE POINT OF “THE TIME OF MY departure has come” in his life, calling and service to the Lord (v.6). Reflecting on the past, he was certain that he was faithful in answering God’s call for his life (v.7). This certainty was followed by his confident anticipation of the future: “the crown of righteousness” that God will reward him (v.8). Then Paul returned to the present and “to his personal predicament”⁴⁰: his sense of isolation and loneliness. His friends had left him, for good and bad reasons (vv.10-13). He had been opposed by Alexander the coppersmith (v.14). At his first defence, “no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me” (v.16). Feeling terribly cut off and abandoned, exiled from the churches he founded,⁴¹ Paul appealed twice to Timothy, whom he longed to see (2 Tim 1:4): “Do your best to come to me soon” (vv.9, 21). We see here “the urgency of Paul’s affectionate desire to see Timothy”⁴².The great Apostle Paul was “also a creature of flesh and blood, a man of like nature and passions with ourselves. Although he has finished his course and is awaiting his crown, he is still a frail human being with ordinary human needs. He describes his plight in prison and expresses in particular his loneliness”⁴³. The presence of the Lord with us every day (v.17) and the prospect of His coming on the last day are “not intended to be substitute for human friendships”⁴⁴ – all the more so in discipleship suffering. 

⁴⁰ John R. W. Stott, The Message of 2 Timothy, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP, 1973), 117 ⁴¹ John R. W. Stott, 2 Timothy, 118 ⁴² John R. W. Stott, 2 Timothy, 119 ⁴³ John R. W. Stott, 2 Timothy, 117 ⁴⁴ John R. W. Stott, 2 Timothy, 120