Flee Youthful Lusts; the Lord’s Servant Must Be Gentle (2 Timothy 2:22–26)

2 Tim. 2:22. Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Flee from that, hold fast to this—and you will be a vessel well-suited to the Master of the house, that is, you will be in the Lord’s hands a well-suited instrument for the establishing of salvation among people. Holy Timothy was certainly already such. This is given only as a reminder to him—and perhaps not so much to him as to all pastors and archpastors in his person. By “youthful lusts” are meant not carnal impulses—to guard against these, one must suppose, would have been superfluous for holy Timothy—but rather the youthful impulsiveness that does not allow one to deliberate calmly and pushes one toward imprudent steps, for example, into disputes and, in disputes, into an irritating sharpness and the like. Holy Chrysostom says: “Youthful lusts are not only those of fornication, but every inappropriate impulse betrays youthfulness. Let those who are advanced in years take note of this—that they ought not to do what those who are younger do. Whether one is sharp in words, or shows stubbornness and domineering in deeds, or allows himself something else of the kind—all these are youthful unreasonable impulses. All this tends to happen when the heart has not yet been moderated and settled, and when the thoughts of the mind are not deepened but float lightly on the surface. Therefore, so that no one be carried away by this—what does the Apostle enjoin? Flee from youthful fantasies.”

Having removed what can push one toward an imprudent manner of action, the Apostle points to the moral supports of prudence. “But pursue,” διωκε — pursue, strive zealously, endeavor in every way to display—“pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.” Righteousness and love are two dispositions that encompass all morally good deeds and deny all bad ones. “Righteousness” does not allow one to do anything undue and keeps one within the bounds of what is due, while love urges one to multiply all good within those bounds. “Faith” is the mother of these dispositions, their nourisher and keeper, while “peace” is their offspring, the common sum of their deeds, like a cloud that overshadows them. Whoever, animated by faith, directs all zeal toward deeds of righteousness and love and thereby walks under the cloud of peace—in his deeds comprehensive prudence cannot but reign.

The Apostle enjoins the having of “peace” “with all who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” He has set two qualifications: “with those who call on the Lord”—and: “who call from a pure heart.” He does not suggest that one should not carefully maintain peace with others; but he warns against befriending them, against going so far as to live with them soul to soul. General concord and peacefulness with all must be maintained, but to live soul to soul is both possible and obligatory only with believers, who are understood by those who call on the Lord. In this regard nothing prevents joining the words “out of a pure heart” with “peace”—so that it reads: keep sincere peace with those who call on the Lord. Peace with such persons arranges itself and fills the hearts of believers, especially pastors who know all the flock better than anyone. Unity of convictions and aspirations merges souls, and they live one in the other. Such harmony of souls is, however, impeded and broken where insincerity of faith is noticed in anyone. As soon as it becomes apparent that one or another calls on the Lord insincerely or believes in Him not from the heart—the harmony with them is at once disrupted, by the natural suspicion that arises, that they surely are pursuing other aims and not those which faith enjoins. They are not aiming there; there is nothing to harmonize with them about. In this regard the words “out of a pure heart” are to be joined with “those who call on the Lord.” Holy Chrysostom interprets this as follows: “What does it mean: ‘with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart’? He says, as it were: do not trust all who call on the Lord, but only those who call on Him without pretense, without hypocrisy, without guile; associate with such; with others one should not be close, but only maintain peace as much as possible.”

Approaching the second task of prudence in the present circumstances—namely that if necessity compels entering into discourse with those who teach otherwise, one should conduct it meekly (2:23–26)—the Apostle first sets down again the rule already stated of avoiding disputes.

2 Tim. 2:23. But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.

“Do you see how the Apostle everywhere turns Timothy away from controversies? Not because Timothy was incapable of refuting them; he was capable; and if he were not, the Apostle would have said to him: strive to become capable of refuting them, just as he said: ‘attend to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine; for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you’ (1 Tim. 4:16). But the Apostle knew that it is utterly useless to enter into such controversies (as those that occurred then), and that they end in nothing other than quarrel, enmity, insult, and slander. Avoid such disputes, he says” (holy Chrysostom). “These controversies carry even the most gentle into quarrel. Unbelievers and heretics, by their extremely absurd contradiction of the truth, provoke them beyond endurance, and they, becoming angry, then say what they would not wish to say. Meanwhile, these give the appearance of calm reasoners, as if standing on solid ground (though their heart within is seething against the orthodox). And from this something unfavorable to the truth of God results. That is why the Apostle writes: it is better not to enter into these disputes. ‘Avoid’—saying as it were: disputing is not our business.”

“Disputes,” ζητησεις — inquiries. Not every inquiry is forbidden. That is why the Apostle has defined which ones must be avoided: “avoid foolish and ignorant inquiries. Foolish,” μωρας — childish, senseless, empty; “ignorant,” απαιδευτους — uninstructed, unedifying. “There are other inquiries, namely those about the truths of Scripture, which must not be avoided, because they do not generate quarrels (but spread general edification)” (holy Chrysostom, blessed Theophylact).

2 Tim. 2:24–25. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, apt to teach, patient,—correcting in meekness those who oppose themselves.

Here is the subject of the present section. Do not dispute, but do teach—even opponents—yet gently and meekly. “For he to whom the proclamation of divine instructions has been entrusted must present them without disputes” (blessed Theodoret). “One must not quarrel even in discussion; the servant of God must be far from quarrels. If God is the God of peace, how can the servant of the God of peace quarrel?” (holy Chrysostom).

“But be gentle toward all.” Gentle, but not listless. A listless word will produce no effect. One must speak both powerfully and without contentiousness. Otherwise, why would he write in another place: “reprove with all authority” (Tit. 2:15)—and again: “rebuke them sharply” (Tit. 1:13)? And this too he commands to do in a spirit of meekness. A powerful reproof, when given with meekness, is especially able to move. A powerful word without meekness can perhaps only shame; but united with meekness, it will take hold of the heart and prevail (holy Chrysostom).

“Apt to teach”—“that is, for all who wish to learn” (holy Chrysostom). One who enters into conversation with a contentious spirit—from him turn away; but one who seeks instruction and guidance—do not refuse to teach him. The pastor must also himself seek out those who hold to a deviant teaching, in order to bring them to reason with a speech gentle but powerful; and only when someone among them stubbornly remains in his heterodox view, contrary to the truth of God, then turn away from him, as holy Paul commands elsewhere: “reject a factious person after a first and second warning” (Tit. 3:10).

“Patient”—not to become angry or irritated at the unsuccessfulness of the word that seeks to bring to reason. “The Apostle added this well; a teacher especially needs gentleness; otherwise all will be in vain. If a fisherman, casting his nets the whole day and catching nothing, does not fall into despair, how much more should we not despair. For it often happens that the plough of the word, acting by unceasing suggestion, enters into the depths of the soul and destroys the passion that has seized it. Whoever has listened a thousand times must feel something; for it is impossible that a person, hearing unceasingly, should feel nothing at all. Thus it may happen that a person already ready to be persuaded loses everything on account of our impatience; and the same will result as if someone, unskilled in farming, having planted a vineyard and tended it the first year, and the second, and the third, in hope of receiving fruit, but not receiving it and losing hope, were to abandon it in the fourth year after three years (without care, cast it aside), precisely at the moment when he was due to receive the reward for his labors” (holy Chrysostom).

2 Tim. 2:25. Correcting in meekness those who oppose themselves: if God perhaps will grant them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.

“Having said ‘patient,’ the Apostle does not rest content with this, but adds: ‘correcting in meekness those who oppose themselves.’ Here especially the teacher must proceed with meekness; a soul that has need of instruction cannot receive anything profitable when it is delivered harshly and with reproach—and though it may be ready to listen, being thrown into perplexity, it will absorb nothing. Whoever wishes to learn something profitable must first be well disposed toward the teacher. If this is not arranged beforehand, nothing fitting and beneficial can result. But no one can be well disposed toward a person who is angry and abusive. ‘With meekness’—he says. Do you see how one must approach those who wish to learn? And one must not leave off conversing with them before they are persuaded” (holy Chrysostom). “The Apostle also teaches holy Timothy to persist in instruction and not to despair concerning those who do not easily receive the word of preaching. Whoever delivers instruction to unbelievers with fatherly meekness and patiently listens to their objections can often persuade even the most stubborn of heretics” (blessed Theodoret).

“If God perhaps will grant them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”

“If perhaps he will grant”—perhaps he will grant somehow—there is no certainty, but neither is there despair: perhaps they will come to their senses. It points to the difficulty of correcting one who has fallen into falsehood: only God is able to correct him; it enjoins patiently continuing to bring him to reason in the hope, though a weak one, of correction, and consequently it ordains not to turn away and not to cut off those who have gone astray, until one has ascertained that they are incorrigible and harmful to Christians who are faithful but simple in faith. Holy Chrysostom says: “The meaning of these words is as follows: perhaps some correction will take place. The word ‘if perhaps’ is used of things not precisely known; consequently, one should withdraw only from those people of whom we can say with certainty and are persuaded that they are incorrigible, whatever measures may be employed. And this word also implies that in bringing to reason one must have great long-suffering. Note also how he teaches humility. He did not say: perhaps you will be able to; but: ‘if perhaps God will grant them to arise’; if anything does occur, all belongs to the Lord; you plant, you water, but He gives growth and effects the bearing of fruit.”

He says: “will God not grant?” But God is ever ready to grant both knowledge of the truth and power for good. But He grants it not by the authority of sovereignty alone, but always according to the inclination of the human will. Let the will incline toward desiring the good from God and seek it—and God is ready to grant and does grant it. The doubt: “if perhaps?” — is aroused not by God’s readiness to give, but by the stubbornness of the human will. One cannot know for certain from it that, once brought to reason, it will desire and seek. How then is stubborn resistance to truth broken down? By repentance. It softens the heart and compels the proud mind to bow its proud head under the yoke of God’s truth. God presents to consciousness and freedom all illuminating moments. When consciousness, impelled by them, presses in its own part on freedom, and the latter, being shaken, desires to come out of the darkness in which stubbornness holds it, then God’s cooperation comes and brings this penitent beginning to its end—that is, to the resolve to abandon falsehood and to humbly receive truth as it is, without inquisitiveness, without admixture of one’s own reasonings, and without any wavering. In consequence of this, as light pours into opened eyes, so the light of truth begins to pour into the soul opened by repentance, and it is filled with knowledge of it. All this the Apostle expresses, saying: “if perhaps God will grant them repentance to the knowledge” (to the acknowledging) “of truth.”

2 Tim. 2:26. And that they may come to their senses and escape out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

What a dark state belongs to those who have fallen into falsehood and have entangled God’s truth with empty reasonings that conceal the truth! They are ensnared in the nets of the devil; yet they think that they alone possess freedom of mind. They think that they soar in mind by their own will, but meanwhile they dance to the will of the devil. The enemy presents to the mind a phantom of truth. The mind, supposing this to be the highest knowledge of truth grasped by itself, is carried away by this phantom and is captivated by it. Then the enemy creeps up and through the imagination weaves all the realm of truth with phantasmal representations. The mind, captivated in the main point, is captivated by all the rest as well and appears enmeshed from every side by the enemy’s net of falsehood, through which it sees everything not as it is, according to God’s truth. This state is very well expressed among us by the proverb: “the enemy has ensnared him,” which is used when one wishes to say: it seemed that things were thus and so, but now I see that they are not so. This is also recognized by one enmeshed in falsehood when, having come to repentance, he calls upon God, and God sends him a ray of His truth, which, having penetrated the soul, rends the nets of dark falsehood and scatters it as wind scatters thickened smoke. And he arises (is freed) from the devil’s net. He will then come to himself—and sees clearly how he was confused and deluded, unable to explain how all this was woven together, and still less how all of it was believed. This is effected by the knowledge of truth; which is why the words “and they shall arise…” explain what the knowledge of truth is—as Oecumenius writes. “What is the knowledge of truth? It is to arise from the net of the devil and lying dogmas to the uprightness of faith. And see how he said: ‘they shall arise from the devil’s net’—as though from drunkenness or madness.”

“Taken captive by him at his will—Taken captive,” εζωγρημενοι — captured alive, or taken as prey. When the enemy kills the one he is pursuing, that is the end of it; but when he takes him alive, he makes him a prisoner and forces him to fulfill his will. Thus the enemy deals also with those who fall into the nets of his falsehood. He takes them alive, for he has no power over life and death. But, having seized them, he makes them ready instruments for the fulfillment of his evil schemes; he forces them to spread falsehood and to ensnare others in their nets; he forces them to do evil as well, disguising it with the appearance of good.

A wandering mind that has fallen into the devil’s nets is characterized by self-confidence; and self-confidence cannot bear correction, still less reproachful and offensive correction. But if you quietly set before him the correcting truth, one may still hope that somehow, perhaps, he will come to his senses.

Among Christians there are always both those who think otherwise and those who draw others in that direction, as well as those who live improperly. In the early period there were not many of the latter; yet they existed and served as the germ of the moral corruption that was later to develop. Since suppressing a germ averts what is destined to come forth from it, holy Paul directs holy Timothy toward this (3:1–9). For this purpose he first depicts: α) what moral corruption will develop in later times (3:1–5); then, having said, as it were, thereby: do you see what evil there will be? And the germ of it already exists now—he enjoins: so you, as soon as you notice such persons among you: β) do not indulge them. They do this and that, and you can easily recognize them (3:5–8); γ) do not be troubled, however; they will not prevail, and the common voice of the faithful will condemn them (verse 9).