2 Timothy 3:10-13
You Have Observed My Life
10You, however, have observed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance,
11my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
12Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
13while evil men and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul has just finished describing men who keep the outward form of religion with nothing behind it. He turns to Timothy with a contrast, and the contrast is not a sharper argument. It is a list of things Timothy watched: his teaching first, and then his conduct, his purpose, his faith, his patience, his love, his perseverance. One item on that list is what Paul said. The other six are what he was.
The word Paul chooses is observed. Timothy did not hear this from somebody else and he did not get it in a report. He was near enough, for long enough, to inspect the man, and that is the one kind of evidence a counterfeit cannot produce.
my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.
Three towns, named, in a letter that could easily have kept the whole thing general. The third one is Timothy's own. Whatever was done to Paul at Lystra was done in the streets of the town this young man is from, and there would have been neighbors he knew who watched it happen. Paul is not telling him a story. He is reaching into his memory and taking something out of it.
Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Rescued from is not the same as spared. Paul went into Antioch and Iconium and Lystra and came out the far side of each of them, carrying whatever they had done to him. God did not keep the stones in the hands of the men who threw them. He got Paul up off the ground afterward, and Paul is content to call that rescue.
There is no cushion around the sentence that follows. It does not single out the prominent or the reckless; it covers anybody who wants a godly life at all. Timothy is being asked to want one with his eyes open, having already watched what the wanting cost the man he is being asked to copy.
while evil men and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
The men doing the damage are not standing outside the lie and working it like a machine. They are inside it with everybody else. Whatever they are selling they bought first, and they are further along the same road they keep sending other people down.
How We Know
Paul lists three towns, and another account gives the events in the same order.
Acts 13:50 has him driven out of Antioch in Pisidia. Acts 14:5 has an attempt on him at Iconium. Acts 14:19 has him stoned at Lystra and dragged out of the city as though dead.
2 Timothy 3:11 names Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, in that order, and calls them persecutions he endured.
The third town is the one that connects. Acts 16:1 has Paul finding a disciple named Timothy at Lystra, and 16:2 says the brothers there and at Iconium spoke well of him. So the letter is appealing to events in a town where its reader was known, and neither account points that out.
Questions
1 Who has watched you closely enough to know what you are actually like, and what would they say if somebody asked them?
AnswerTimothy could have answered that about Paul. He observed his teaching first, and then his conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love and perseverance. One of those is what Paul said. The rest is what he was, watched over years by somebody standing close enough to check.
2 Why does Lystra matter here more than Antioch or Iconium?
AnswerBecause Lystra is where Timothy is from. Whatever was done to Paul there was done in the streets of the boy's own town, and he would have known people who saw it. Paul is not telling him a story. He is reaching into his memory.
3 Paul says the Lord rescued him from all of his persecutions. What does that not mean?
AnswerThat he was spared them. He went through every one. God did not keep the stones in the hands of the men who threw them, and Paul was still on the ground before he was on his feet. Rescue here means through rather than around.
4 What do the last four words of verse 13 add to the picture?
AnswerDeceiving and being deceived. The men doing the damage are not standing outside the lie and running it. They are inside it too, further along the same road they keep sending other people down.
What This Means for Us
The Lord rescued me from all of them. Paul finishes the list of towns that way, after naming Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, and the ending is the point of the whole list. What the young man had been observing all those years was not Paul's endurance. It was God getting him out, again and again, in places Timothy could name.
Children watch us the same way. They are not much moved by our positions on things, and they are not really keeping score on our endurance either. What they take in is what we do when something goes badly, and underneath that, who we turn out to be leaning on when it does.
So the useful question tonight is not what this family has been taught. We would mostly pass that one. The harder question is what this family has watched us depend on when something went wrong, because they are copying it whether anybody meant them to or not.
Prayer
Father, we would rather be believed for what we say than for how we live, because the second one is harder. Thank you for a man who could tell a young friend to watch him. Make our lives bear looking at by the people who cannot help but look. Amen.