Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
2 Timothy 1:8-18, Not ashamed of my chains, the deposit, and Onesiphorus
Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the Lord's testimony or of him as a prisoner, but to share his suffering and guard the good deposit; everyone in Asia has deserted him except Onesiphorus, who searched Rome until he found him.
2 Timothy 1:8-18, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul urges Timothy not to be ashamed of the message about Jesus or of Paul as a prisoner, but to share in suffering for the gospel with God's strength. He sums up the gospel as God's grace, now shown in Christ, who has broken death's power and brought life to light, and he tells Timothy to guard the teaching entrusted to him with the Spirit's help. Almost everyone in Asia has abandoned Paul, but Onesiphorus was not ashamed of his chains and searched Rome until he found him.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-custody\/","n":"Prison, chains and Roman custody","s":"Roman prisons held people until trial or execution; they were not a punishment in themselves. How a prisoner was kept, in the stocks of an inner cell or lightly chained to one soldier, depended on his rank.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/seals-and-deposits\/","n":"Seals, down payments and deposits","s":"A seal pressed into wax showed who owned or witnessed a document or a jar of goods and proved that no one had opened it. A down payment was the first part of the price, paid as a pledge that the rest would follow. A deposit left in someone's keeping had to be guarded and returned.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/patrons-and-benefactors\/","n":"Patrons, clients and benefactors","s":"Favors in the Roman world came with strings. A patron gave help and protection, the client paid it back in loyalty and public honor, and rulers who gave gifts to the public were hailed as benefactors.","r":""}
People were often ashamed to be linked with a prisoner (the cultural backgrounds notes), and Wright explains why: a graded social order sneered at those out of favor, and Paul's gospel clashed with the proclamation of Caesar as Lord. The deposit was money or property handed over for safekeeping, and Jewish teachers passed a sacred deposit to their disciples (Keener and his notes). Wright suggests that turning away meant stopping support, since "People in jail in the first century were not provided for by the state." The dictionary allows either doctrinal defection or failing to stand by Paul at his trial. Refresh is the language of hospitality, and a well-to-do Ephesian patron could travel to Rome and find Paul through local believers (Keener and his notes). Wright notes that Acts leaves Paul under house arrest and apparently unchained, while this sounds much worse, perhaps a second imprisonment. Carson, Moo and Morris ask what a forger would gain by inventing the search. Some think Onesiphorus had died; Keener and the dictionary answer that he need not be dead, and the ESV Study Bible reads a prayer for his household now and for him at the judgment.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Timothy 1:8, 1:14 and 1:16
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Timothy 1:12-14, 1:16, 1:17 and 1:18
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Timothy 1:16-18
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, comments on 2 Timothy 1:8-14 and 1:15-18
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Hermogenes and Onesiphorus
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 15, The Pastoral Epistles: Historical Problems
