Paul had first met Timothy in Derbe and Lystra, and we see him take Timothy under his wing and begin to have one on one, life on life discipleship with him. We see them go everywhere together until Paul leaves him in Ephesus to ensure that no other doctrine gets preached there and that they don’t get side tracked by meaningless things. Paul then proceeds throughout 1 Timothy to tell him what and how he should live and teach others. Paul talks about how we need to act towards the government and pray for them, how God wants all to be saved, how we need to conduct ourselves in the church, and what the man of God should be like and how he should live his life. Paul talks about the end times when people will no longer want to hear the truth but would much rather hear a feel good message that is not the truth. So many other things Paul gives to Timothy to help him, but one theme I see through 1 & 2 Timothy is that Paul wants Timothy to teach someone else what he knows. Here in 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul brings it to head and says, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

Paul says to Timothy all that he has learned he needs to teach someone else who can then teach someone else. I believe that here in this verse Paul was giving Timothy the key to a lasting ministry, in fact, a ministry that would outlive him. He tells Timothy that he needs to find faithful men in the church and teach him all that he has been taught including how to teach others to teach. When we copy what Paul says here in our life and ministry, we create a chain reaction that goes on far beyond us. I am a missionary to Argentina. I want to go there and see local churches started, but if I don’t teach them to teach others the churches will die out in about one generation. But if I go and not just teach them the Bible but rather teach them to go and find

others and teach them to teach others, I will start a movement that will go on even when I am not there. If I teach one man and he goes and teaches one man, now there are two men who can do the work and it just keeps growing from there. So, in closing, I see this plea from Paul to Timothy to have a ministry that is bigger than himself and reaches further then he can reach. Why? So that the kingdom of God can continue to grow long after he and Timothy are gone from this world.