2 Timothy 4:9

‘Give diligence to come shortly to me.’

Paul now calls on Timothy to come to see him urgently. It has been asked whether Paul would have written a letter like this if he had had the intention of issuing such an invitation. But quite apart from the folly of trying to read the mind of a complicated man like Paul, there are good reasons. Firstly because Paul could not be sure whether in the interval between his sending the letter and Timothy’s being able to make the trip, he himself might not be suddenly called in, tried and executed. Thus he may well have felt that the contents of the letter were so important that he had to make sure that Timothy received them whether he was able to come or not. He was not a man to take chances on such an important question. Secondly the defection of Demas (2 Timothy 4:10) might have occurred just as Paul was completing the letter resulting in an urgent need to consult with Timothy, or his earlier defection may have made Paul recognise that if the more timid Timothy was to come to see him in his prison he would need to be given some backbone in the way described in the letter. And we should note that Paul’s expression of his longing to see Timothy might itself have been seen as an invitation (2 Timothy 1:4). At a minimum that might be seen as in fact preparing us for the invitation.