Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Timothy 3:10

"But thou didst follow my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, patience," — 2 Timothy 3:10 (ASV)

But you have fully known my doctrine.—Literally, But you were a follower of my doctrine; you followed as a disciple, and thus have fully known. The Greek word translated “fully known” (see 1 Timothy 4:6) denotes a diligently tracing out step by step. See Luke 1:3, where the same word is rendered in the English version: “having had perfect understanding,” having traced up to their source all the events relating to the foundation of Christianity. Here St. Paul recalls to Timothy’s mind what had been his—St. Paul’s—life, and words, and works.

No one knew the history of this life like Timothy, the pupil and the friend, who had been long trained to assist in carrying on his teacher’s work after St. Paul was removed. And this appeal to Timothy’s recollection of the past has two distinct purposes:

1. It was to contrast that life of St. Paul’s, with which the disciple was so well acquainted, with the lives of those false men, of whom Timothy was warned so earnestly, who were poisoning the stream of Christianity at Ephesus.
2. The memory of the master was to serve as a spur to the disciple; the heroic faith of the old man was to act as an incentive to the young teacher to suffer bravely in his turn.

With this pattern of steady faith and heroic work before his eyes, Timothy would never be able to endure the wretched mock Christianity these new teachers were laboring to introduce into the communities of the believers of Asia; he would at once separate himself and his own from these evil influences.

My doctrine.—Or, teaching, in which the leading of a pure self-denying life was inseparably bound up with a belief in the great Christian doctrines. “This have you, my pupil from boyhood, known in all its details. You have known how I taught others.”

Manner of life.—“And also how I lived myself:” my ways which be in Christ, as he once before phrased it (1 Corinthians 4:17), “my conduct.”

Purpose.—“My purpose—from which you know I never swerved—of remaining true to the Gospel of my Lord and to my great life’s mission to the Gentiles.” (See Acts 2:23, where the word is used in respect to others’ purpose.)

Faith.—Possibly, trust in God, but better, St. Paul’s faith or belief in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

Longsuffering.—Towards his many bitter adversaries, especially those among his own countrymen. In spite of all that long, unwearied, sleepless persecution, which he, the former Pharisee leader, endured at the hands of the Jews, he loved Israel to the end, with a love intense as it was changeless, loved them even to be willing for their sake to give up his eternal hopes. (See Romans 9:3.)

Charity.—My love, which (in his own sunny words) beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things—the love which never faileth. (See 1 Corinthians 13:0)

Patience.—That characteristic virtue of St. Paul, that “brave patience” which hopefully endured opposition to his favourite schemes, which cheerfully bore the most painful suffering when it came as a consequence of work in his Master’s cause. This concluding word led naturally on to the brief catalogue of persecutions of the next verse.