When Was The Book Of 2 Timothy Written
The apostle Paul wrote this very intense and personal letter to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy, sometime between A.D. 66-67 . At this time Paul was in his second imprisonment in Rome . It appears Pauls final imprisonment was much more severe than his first stint in prison there. He was in bonds with few visitors, and he felt his death was imminent .
It was a time of unrest for many reasons. In A.D. 64 Nero had allegedly burned sections of Rome and blamed the Christians. In 66 the Jewish wars began. Paul probably wrote his first letter to Timothy between 63 and 65. As already noted, this second letter to Timothy was then probably written in 66 or 67. Conybeare and Howson, in their book The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, date Pauls death as May or June 68.
Imperial persecution was on those who followed the Christian way of life, and no doubt such a renowned figure as Paul was closely guarded. Like the envious Jews of Thessalonica, it seems the Roman leadership also felt that the Christianity Paul taught and lived had turned the world upside down .
Introduction To The Last Book Of The Bible
- General Biblical Studies, Interdenominational Christian Training Center
The book of Revelation is by far one of the most challenging books in the Bible, yet well worth the effort to study and comprehend. In fact, the opening passage contains a blessing to everyone who reads, hears, and keeps the words of this prophecy:
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”
Promises To The Ancestors
In 1978 David Clines published his influential The Theme of the Pentateuch influential because he was one of the first to take up the question of the theme of the entire five books. Clines’ conclusion was that the overall theme is “the partial fulfilment which implies also the partial nonfulfillment of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs”.
The patriarchs, or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives . Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells the patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants , and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise.
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A Prophecy That Sadly We See Coming True
In 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Paul lists 19 end-time attitudes that will lead to stress or perilous times for all. Verse 5 clearly warns all to turn away from people displaying such characteristics. Such behavior leads to corruption of the members and an attack against the truth.
In 2 Timothy 3:1-5 Paul lists 19 end-time attitudes that will lead to stress or perilous times for all. Verse 5 clearly warns all to turn away from people displaying such characteristics. Such behavior leads to corruption of the members and an attack against the truth.
Stories You Didn’t Learn In Sunday School
Many of the New Testament texts familiar to Christians today were being used authoritatively already in the second century, but different congregations preferred some texts over others and included some texts that don’t appear in the New Testament. Here are a few:
The Gospel of Peter: Only a fragment of this text was recovered in 1886 in Egypt, but it includes the only narrative account of the resurrected Jesus leaving his tomb. According to Peter’s version, two giant angels descended to the tomb and escorted the resurrected Jesus out, who was also suddenly gigantic. But the oddest note was that the three figures were followed by a floating cross that could talk.
“And they heard a voice from the heavens, saying, ‘Thou hast preached to them that sleep.’ And a response was heard from the cross, ‘Yea.'”
The Gospel of Mary: Combs says that some apocryphal texts reflected theological and doctrinal debates going on within the early church, such as the role of women. In the Gospel of Mary , is not only referred to as one of Jesus’s disciples, but perhaps his favorite one. In this text, after Jesus is resurrected, he relays esoteric teachings to Mary, who then tells the other disciples. Peter asks why they should listen to a woman, to which another disciple Levi responds:
“If the Savior made her worthy, who are you then, for your part, to cast her aside? Surely the Savior knows her full well. That is why he has loved her more than us.”
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Symbolism Of The Seven
The infamous seven-headed Beast that rises from the sea demanding to be worshipped symbolises Rome. By John’s time seven emperors had ruled over Rome and Rome was known as the city of seven hills.
The number of the Beast – 666 – has always puzzled Christians and led to many speculations about who this could be. Scholars now believe that this was a matter of numerology, a popular puzzle in ancient times. The letters of a name were ascribed numerical value and added up to give a number.
The name of the Emperor Nero adds up to 666.
Historians believe that Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome may have entered the consciousness of early Christians, making him a hate figure.
However, evidence from ancient manuscripts indicates that 666 may not have been the number of the Beast.
In the late 19th century, British archaeologists working at the site of the Egyptian city Oxyrhynchus discovered a cache of papyri that were brought to Oxford, where academics have been working their way through them ever since. One of these papyrus fragments is of the Book of Revelation and gives the number of the Beast as 616.
Working on the same principle of numerology, academics work out 616 to indicate the Emperor Caligula. Caligula had had a statue of himself erected in the temple in Jerusalem, greatly offending Jews. If John indeed was a Jew from Palestine he would have known this.
The Old And New Testament Dissected
The following is taken from a Bible published by Matthew Carey in 1801. This accumulation of statistics was of course made before computers made such statistics more easily obtainable.
Who would have had the time or even bothered to count and calculate all these letters and words? An old newspaper clipping found between the pages of a Bible in the Dunham Family Bible in America Museums collection said that the statistics were compiled by the Prince of Granada, heir to the Spanish throne, during his life imprisonment in the Palace of Skulls, Madrid. The Prince had only one book, the Bible, to read during his 33 years of solitary confinement in the prison. Upon his death, the statistics were found written on all the walls of his prison cell. Though an expert in Bible trivia, there is no evidence the Princes soul was affected by the Bibles message. However, other sources indicate the compilation was made by an anonymous person who spent three year making the calculations.
The Old and New Testament Dissected
Books in the Old Testament39
Chapters929
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What Is The Book Of Life
Ask a Question!NewsletterQuestion:
Answer: The phrase “book of life” is found only eight times, in eight verses, in the Bible. These occurrences are all found in the New Testament. Only one is written by the Apostle Paul while the remaining seven are recorded by John .
According to one Biblical commentary, the phrase “the book of life” comes from an ancient custom of keeping genealogical records .
We often wonder why God does things in a certain way or does not do other things. Clearly, an all-powerful and all wise deity, who knows every hair on our head , does not need a book to write in or remind him of some fact.
That said, he has chosen to reveal to us a special book he has created for reasons we might not fully understand. Guided by his Holy Spirit, however, we can at least partly comprehend its purpose and the role it will play in his plan of salvation .
We start to get a sense of the mysterious purpose of this volume from Paul’s only reference to it. Near the close of Philippians, he exhorts two female helpers in the gospel to be of the same mind. He then requests, “And I ask you, my true yokefellow, to assist these women , who labored with me in the gospel, and with Clement, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life” .
The Biblical reference to this unique volume, found in Revelation 20, is the one most familiar to people. It is the passage concerning God’s judgment on the vast majority of mankind.
Title Authorship And Date
The name Revelation comes from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: , which means “unveiling” or “revelation”. The author names himself as “John”, but modern scholars consider it unlikely that the author of Revelation also wrote the Gospel of John. He was a Jewish Christian prophet, probably belonging to a group of such prophets, and was accepted by the congregations to whom he addresses his letter.
The book is commonly dated to about AD 95, as suggested by clues in the visions pointing to the reign of the emperorDomitian. The beast with seven heads and the number 666 seem to allude directly to the emperor Nero , but this does not require that Revelation was written in the 60s, as there was a widespread belief in later decades that Nero would return.
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The Last Verse Of The Bible
The end of all 66 books of Scripture, the culmination of the Old and New Testaments, the final send off from Gods Word, the last verse of the Bible, is for the grace of Jesus to be with us. God leaves us with a profound, Live in the grace found in my Son. That, dear friend, is a summary of the Bible. Everything is about Jesus. The Old Testament points us to the grace found in Jesus. The New Testament shows us the grace found in Jesus. The final verse tells us to live in that grace. What a loving design of God!
I want to take us to Titus 2 to give us two practical ways to live this out. If God has placed such a high level of importance on the grace found in Jesus, how do we live in that grace? The apostle Paul can show us how! He shows us, in Titus 2, two powerful things that Gods grace in Jesus does for us. If we tap into both, our lives are going to radically change. That is exactly what grace is meant to do.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
Who Decided Which Books To Include In The Bible
In his best-selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” Dan Brown wrote that the Bible was assembled during the famous Council of Nicea in 325 C.E., when Emperor Constantine and church authorities purportedly banned problematic books that didn’t conform to their secret agenda.
Except that’s not how it really went. “The Da Vinci Code” was fiction, but Brown wasn’t the first to credit the Council of Nicea with deciding which books to include in the Bible. Voltaire, writing in the 18th century, repeated a centuries-old myth that the Bible was canonized in Nicea by placing all of the known books on a table, saying a prayer and seeing which illegitimate texts fell to the floor.
In truth, there was no single church authority or council that convened to rubber stamp the biblical canon , not at Nicea or anywhere else in antiquity, explains Jason Combs, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University specializing in ancient Christianity.
“Dan Brown did us all a disservice,” says Combs. “We don’t have evidence that any group of Christians got together and said, ‘Let’s hash this out once and for all.'”
What evidence scholars do have in the form of theological treatises, letters and church histories that have survived for millennia points to a much longer process of canonization. From the first through the fourth centuries and beyond, different church leaders and theologians made arguments about which books belonged in the canon, often casting their opponents as heretics.
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His End Is Drawing Near
Paul sums up his life of some 30 years of service to God and Christ in verses 6-8 as he looks forward to the resurrection to eternal life and to receiving his reward when Christ returns to establish His Kingdom.
He singles out members for special note. In fact, Onesiphorus is mentioned twice in the letter: 1:16 and 4:19.
Finally, as always, Paul looks as always to his Savior, who will not let him down and who will deliver him to the Kingdom.
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Paul ends in verse 22: The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you. The word you is in the plural and shows us that this message extends from Timothy to the whole Church. All may draw lessons from this very personal letter from one of Gods greatest servants.
Read more overview of Pauls message and letters in the article Epistles of Paul.
For a quick link to all the other books of the Bible, see Books of the Bible on the Learning Center.
About the Author
Paul Suckling
Paul Suckling is a pastor for the Church of God, a Worldwide Association. He was born in England and now lives in New England. He is happily married to his wife of over 50 years, Jane. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Chapter 4 Winds Things Up
Paul begins this chapter with 11 very powerful words: I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ.This is very serious.
Then there follow warnings to Timothy that people will all too soon turn away from the truth to fables or myths. Sadly, modern Christianity too often turns away from the truth and offers much in the way of pagan customs and fables. The apostle John also reminds us of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever . For that to be the case, however, we must hold fast to what we have been given.
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Which Are The Books Of The Catholic Bible In Order
The old testament, the deuterocanon and the new testament.
Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy Historical books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees Wisdom books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach Prophetic books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi Deuterocanon: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch.
The four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John Historical book: Acts of the Apostles Pauline epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews General epistles: James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude Revelation
What Are The Apocrypha And Pseudepigrapha
The word “apocrypha” comes from the Greek for “hidden” or “secret.” It’s a little confusing, because the word apocrypha is used in a couple of different ways when talking about books outside of the standard biblical canon.
First, there’s the category of “New Testament Apocrypha” which includes a long list of non-canonical texts written mostly in the second century C.E. and beyond that pertain to Jesus and his apostles. As Combs says, there are hundreds of these texts and we don’t have written specimens for all of them.
Then there’s a subset of Old Testament books that are included in the Roman Catholic Bible. These seven books, including Tobit, Judith and 1 & 2 Maccabees, are published between the Old and New Testaments in the Catholic Bible and called “the Apocrypha” or sometimes the “Deuterocanon” which means “second canon.”
And then there’s a third category called “pseudepigrapha” from the Greek for “false author.” This list includes more than 50 texts written between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. by both Jewish and Christian writers expanding on stories and characters from the Old Testament. Notable Old Testament pseudepigrapha include 1 Enoch, Jubilees and the Treatise of Shem.
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Iii The Victory Of God In Christ Is Ultimately The Victory Of Grace