Welcome to the 10-Minute Bible, where we discuss one book of the Bible in 10 minutes. Well, give or take 10 minutes. In this session, we're going to talk about the book of 2 Timothy. As you've heard me say throughout this series on the 10-Minute Bible, in order to understand any book of the Bible, you need to understand three things. Number one, what is the subject of the book? which is nothing more than the answer to the question, what is the author talking about? Now, in most books of the Bible, virtually all actually, there are a number of different subjects, but there's one overall subject. And that's what I mean when I say, what is the subject of the book? The second thing you need to understand is the structure of the book, and by that I mean how does the author develop that structure, or that subject, I should say. One way to see how he's doing that is to look at an outline of the book, which you could find in a good study Bible. The third thing you need to understand is what I call the situation. that in virtually every book of the Bible something was going on that provoked the author to write on that subject to the original audience. So if you knew that, that'd go a long way down the line for you understanding that book. That includes the author and the recipients and the purpose. Why did that author write on that subject to those people? Now, We're going to use that to look at 2 Timothy. What is the subject? What is the structure? What is the situation in the book of 2 Timothy? So let's start with the subject. The subject of 2 Timothy is obviously an epistle written to an individual. Now, that's different. We've been looking at epistles written to churches. Now it's written to an individual, and he would be the leader of the church. Today we would call him a pastor. So the subject of this book is to Timothy, and it's to fulfill your ministry, or you might say to be faithful to the ministry that God has given you. And that's based on a couple of verses in the book itself. But the idea here is ministry, because this is written to a minister. Now, what is the structure? Well, since we've been dealing with Paul, we've said that these are epistles. And there is a format in all of these epistles that are similar, not the same in some cases. And it's the format of an ancient letter. I've laid that out as we've talked about Paul's epistles. In this case, Paul follows that format with one exception. In this particular case, we don't have a prayer. There's a thanksgiving, but for some reason, there's not a prayer. then the body of the book is a series of commands. So I would outline the book by saying it opens with a salutation. That salutation, like others, identifies the author, the recipients, and gives a greeting. Then there is a Thanksgiving in the first chapter, verses three to five. And then there is what I'm going to call a prologue, where he sort of introduces a couple of things. The body of the book, in my opinion, starts in chapter two. And in chapter two, he gives a command, and the command is, commit the word, meaning the scripture, to faithful teachers who will be able to teach others. It's a very famous verse, one of the most famous verses in this book. And that is in 2 Timothy 2, one to 13. The second command is in chapter two, beginning with verse 14, and the command is, correct people who are out of line, or I would say, correct errors, errorists, meaning people who are in error, or false teaching. That takes you through the end of chapter two. The third command is in chapter three, verse one, to chapter four, verse eight, and it's to continue in the word. So, the outline of the body of the book is commit the word to fateful teachers, two, correct people who are in spiritual error, number three, continue in the word yourself. Then there's an epilogue at the end of chapter four, and it ends like all good epistles with personal greetings and a benediction. All right, the subject is the ministry, the structure of those three commands inside of an epistle. Well, let's talk about the situation. Who is the author? Well, that's easy. The first verse tells us that it was Paul. Now, if you try to reconstruct Paul's life, you have to go to the book of Acts. And if you look at the book of Acts, it ends with Paul in prison in Rome. Now we can fit into the book of Acts all the letters that Paul wrote, except first and second Timothy and Titus. Those are called the pastoral epistles because they're written to pastors, Timothy and Titus. Now, that means this happened after Acts chapter 28. So piecing things together from things outside of the scripture as well as the New Testament itself, what scholars have concluded is this, that Nero ruled Rome from 54 to 68 AD, and he began the persecution of Christians. Paul, he said he was going to go to Spain. Apparently he did. If he did, he came back around 66 AD and he was arrested as a criminal. And he was put into a very cold cell in Rome. Matter of fact, they say that still exists. When I visited Rome years ago, I saw that cell. and it would not be a nice place to spend any time in. And there was no hope of acquittal. By the time he got to writing 2 Timothy, this is his last epistle, and he acknowledges in chapter four that he's about to die, and shortly after this, he apparently did. Now, he wrote 1 Timothy, and fairly shortly after that, he wrote 2 Timothy, And most would date it somewhere around the fall of 67 AD. And he expresses a hope that Timothy would come see him before winter. So it's in the fall. The recipients are, the recipient in this case is obviously Timothy. And he's still in Ephesus. Remember, 1 Timothy was written to Ephesus and he's still there. And there were problems in Ephesus when he wrote 1 Timothy, and according to this book, they're still there. And so he's writing to Timothy while he's facing martyrdom, but the purpose is to strengthen him to deal with these problems in Ephesus and to summons him to come to Rome as soon as possible. And in chapter four, there's also the possibility that he wanted Mark to come as well as to bring him his cloak, books, and parchments, which he had left at Troas. Now, if I were gonna put the whole book together, I would say that he, Paul is saying, he's encouraging Timothy to fulfill his ministry in spite of persecution and defection, as well as asking him to come to Rome. If I were going to pinpoint a spiritual lesson in this book, I would say, based on things that are said in the book, that in dark and difficult days when there is persecution from without and defection from within, as a minister, make sure you fulfill your ministry. So regardless of what's going on, Be fateful. That's the message of this book.