2 Timothy 4:16-22
No One Stood With Me
16At my first defense, no one stood with me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be charged against them.
17But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it. So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion.
18And the Lord will rescue me from every evil action and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
19Greet Prisca and Aquila, as well as the household of Onesiphorus.
20Erastus has remained at Corinth, and Trophimus I left sick in Miletus.
21Make every effort to come to me before winter. Eubulus sends you greetings, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.
22The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.
Berean Standard Bible
The hearing had already happened by the time Paul wrote this down. He made what he calls his first defense, looked around the room for the people who should have been standing with him, and found nobody there.
At my first defense, no one stood with me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be charged against them.
Two sentences, side by side, with no bridge built between them. The first is a plain record of what was done to him, put in writing where Timothy could read it. The second asks God not to hold it against the men who did it. Paul had every right to a different second sentence, and he did not take it.
But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it.
Nobody stood with him, and someone stood by him. What the strengthening was for is the uncomfortable part: not so that he would feel better, and not so that he would be acquitted. He was given strength at his first defense, so that through him the message would be fully proclaimed.
He goes on to say the Lord will rescue him from every evil action and bring him safely into the heavenly kingdom, having already written that the time of his departure was at hand. So the rescue he expects is not rescue from dying. It is the kind he described in chapter three, where God brought him out of persecutions he had already been all the way through.
Then the greetings, ordinary and full of names. Prisca and Aquila. The household of Onesiphorus, which turned up near the start of the letter. Erastus stayed at Corinth, and Trophimus was left behind sick at Miletus, reported flatly by the same man Acts 28:8 shows healing a sick man on Malta. Timothy is told to come before winter, and no reason is given for the deadline because Paul assumes he knows it.
Four more names send their greetings in the line before the end, which means there were people with him after all. It does not cancel the courtroom. The letter lets both stand without smoothing them into one story.
The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.
The last line is short, and it is addressed to all of you rather than to Timothy alone. A man with very little left to give ends by giving that away.
How We Know
The closing keeps three things in it that do the writer no favors. Each is a slight reason to read this as a letter kept as written, and none of them settles an event it reports.
Verse 16 says that at his first defense no one stood with him and everyone deserted him. That is a man recording his own abandonment, in writing, to a subordinate.
Verse 20 says Trophimus was left sick at Miletus. Acts 28:8 has Paul healing a sick man on Malta. Here a friend is left behind ill, reported flatly, with no explanation and no apology.
Verse 21 asks Timothy to come before winter, which is a travel constraint rather than a theological one, and then greets four people by name who are evidently with him after verse 16 said nobody was.
Prisca and Aquila in verse 19 are the couple Acts 18:2 introduces at Corinth. The letter greets them without introducing them.
Questions
1 Has anybody let you down badly enough that you still remember it? Did you tell them, or just quietly file it away?
AnswerPaul did both halves. He wrote down that nobody stood with him at his first defense and that everyone deserted him, so the fact is on the record and not softened. Then he asked God not to charge it against them.
2 What was Paul strengthened for?
AnswerPreaching. Not for feeling better, and not for winning the case. He says the Lord stood by him and strengthened him so that the message would be fully proclaimed and the Gentiles would hear it. The strength was for the sermon, not for the verdict.
3 He says the Lord will rescue him from every evil action. What sort of rescue can he mean?
AnswerNot rescue from dying, since he has already said his departure is at hand. It is the same sort he described in chapter three, where God brought him out of persecutions after he had been all the way through them.
4 Four people send greetings at the end. What does that add to what he said about his first defense?
AnswerThat there were people with him after all. It does not cancel the courtroom where nobody came. Both go in the letter, a few lines apart, with no attempt to make them into one tidy account.
What This Means for Us
Nobody stood with him, and the Lord stood by him. Paul writes those two sentences at 4:16 and 4:17, and the second is the reason he can afford to write the first one down at all.
He does not pretend the desertion did not happen or that it cost him nothing. He names it. Then he asks that it not be charged against them, and then he says who was actually there, which is the Lord, standing by him and strengthening him. The forgiving is not Paul being big about it. It comes out of a man who turned out not to have been left alone after all.
So say plainly what somebody did, and then say the second half of it. What makes that possible is not strength of character. It is that the one person who did not leave is the one who keeps us.
Prayer
Father, we do one half or the other. We nurse the record or we pretend there is nothing on it. Thank you for a man alone in a courtroom who did both, and for the one who stood by him. Teach us to name it and let it go. Amen.