Lesson - Stand In The Face Of Rejection Series

Lesson: STAND IN THE FACE OF REJECTION

INTRODUCTION

Second Timothy 1:8–18 encourages Timothy to be brave and protective of his faith. Paul reminds his dear friend Timothy that the Spirit of God grants Christians spiritual power. As a result, they should not be afraid to associate with persecuted brothers and sisters. Timothy is encouraged to hold to accurate, healthy Christian teachings. Paul also refers to various ministry partners who have supported—or abandoned—him.

COMMENTARY

[1:15, NIV] You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

“You know that.”

Or, of this, you have received information; he had personal knowledge of the apostasy of some, as for others, he knew it from information which Paul provided.

Paul specifically mentions two men who seem to have abandoned him. These are Phygelus and Hermogenes. It is uncertain whether these men left Paul in Rome or elsewhere, though Rome seems most likely. This suggestion is also strengthened by Paul's words later in this letter. In 2 Timothy 4:9–10[2], Paul mentions those who had left him in Rome. They included at least one deserter, as well as others Paul had sent to do ministry. At the time Paul wrote 2 Timothy, only Luke—the author of the books of Luke and Acts—was still with him (2 Timothy 4:11). Luke may have even been the man who wrote down Paul's letter for him, though this is uncertain.

This sad abandonment by friends is well known to Timothy. Paul complements Him for not being discouraged by it and by his arrest and unjust imprisonment. “Instead of feeling sad,” said Paul, “you should be stimulated to fresh and renewed efforts for the cause for which I suffer this desertion and these bonds.

“Everyone in the province of Asia[1].”

He means those of Asia known to him by a profession of Christianity and those who had met with him in Rome for a while. It has been claimed by many, even by great Greek expositors such as Chrysostom, that “Everyone in the province of Asia.” refers to individual Asiatic Christians who happened to be in Rome at the time of the apostle's arrest and imprisonment. Others have even suggested that these Asiatics had gone to Rome for the purpose of bearing witness in Paul’s favor, and discovering that Paul’s position was one of extreme danger, they became terrified for themselves—like others had been once before in the Christian story—for fear that they too should be involved in a similar condemnation, forsook him and fled. But the simple and more obvious meaning is preferred here, and we assume as certain that the forsaking, the giving up of Paul, took place in Asia itself. That is, in that part of Asia Minor, of which Ephesus was the capital. The geographical term Asia is vague; it includes the areas around Mysia, Phrygia, Lydia, and Caria, but such a wide-spread defection from Pauline teaching seems unlikely, and there is no tradition that anything of the kind ever took place. However, many Christians, if not whole churches, chose to renounce their connection with the great father of Gentile Christianity and disobeyed some of his teachings. What took place in Asia while Paul lay bound, waiting for death in Rome, had been often threatened in Corinth and other cities. Feelings ran high in those days, we know, and one of the most distressing trials the kind-hearted Paul had to endure in the agony of his last witnessing for his Lord was the knowledge that his name and teaching no longer was held in honor in some of those Asian churches so dear to him. This passage proves that Timothy was somewhere in the region of Asia Minor when this Epistle was written to him because otherwise, he could not be supposed to know what is said here. When Paul says that

"all" were turned away from him, he must use the word in a general sense, for he

immediately specifies one who had been faithful and kind to him.

. has deserted me

“Why did they desert me,” asks Paul? But the apostle thinks he knows why his friends and other Christians deserted him. This is how he explains it, "All who are here now turned from me (deserted me) when they were in Rome because they were ashamed of my chains." He is referring either to those that followed the apostle from Asia to Rome; or who came from Asia to Rome upon business, and were there on the spot when the apostle was having his most significant troubles, and yet all forsook him, and no man stood by him; or else the churches and ministers in Asia, that is, a considerable number of them; for it cannot be said of every minister and church, and of all the members of churches there – they deserted me! Even Onesiphorus did not stand with me but forsook me instead (2Tim. 4:16). It is possible that the occasion of their turning from him was at his apprehension in Nicopolis, which happened while they were escorting him on his way to Rome, but they did not make it to Rome, for they were turned back to Asia. Timothy took that as an indication that he was not to be like them, but to imitate Onesiphorus and come to him in Rome (2Tim. 4:21).